Glen Powell is no stranger to action-packed sets, but his latest film, The Running Man, pushed him to his limits, quite literally. The actor revealed that shooting the remake of the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger classic involved some genuinely nerve-racking stunts that didn’t always go as planned.
Speaking at New York Comic Con, Powell admitted that a few of the sequences caught him off guard. “There were a few explosions that hit me in the face,” he recalled. “And a fire extinguisher that exploded before it was supposed to – that definitely took me by surprise.”
The Top Gun: Maverick star also shared that one particular moment nearly sent him over the edge. Describing a sequence where he plummets down the side of a building, Powell said audiences will see his genuine reaction on-screen. “They let a cable loose a little before I thought it was going to be let loose,” he explained. “If you fall even just a couple of feet down the side of a building when you’re not expecting it, it’s a little nerve-racking.”
Despite the unpredictable nature of the shoot, Powell insisted he thrives on such chaos. “I always try to keep myself surprised because that’s all the good stuff,” he said. “You never want to be too surefooted on a set.”
Directed by Edgar Wright and co-written with Michael Bacall, The Running Man reimagines Stephen King’s dystopian story, previously adapted in 1987, about a man forced to compete in a deadly game show where contestants are hunted for sport. Powell takes on the role of Ben Richards, the character made iconic by Schwarzenegger in the original.
The upcoming action thriller also stars Josh Brolin, Colman Domingo, Lee Pace, William H Macy, Emilia Jones, Michael Cera, and Jayme Lawson. Wright and Bacall previously collaborated on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World(2010). The Running Man hits theatres on November 14.
