Glen Powell's Charm Offensive Is Working

He may never transcend Cruise or McConaughey’s level of stardom, but he gets how to play the long game.

- Bilge Ebiri

GLEN POWELL KNOWS he lookswell, like that. One of his early parts, in the 2012 romance Stuck in Love, was named, quite simply, "Good Looking Frat Guy," and a number of his roles since then have been variations on that idea.

His dim, handsome golf-star character on the show Scream Queens had a name-the extremely Glen Powell-y Chad Radwell-but really, he too was Good Looking Frat Guy. A running bit about his character in last year's surprisingly horny rom-com Anyone But You is that even though he falls madly for Sydney Sweeney's character early in their relationship, she thinks he's a self-involved, fitness-obsessed finance bro who sees her as disposable. Hangman, the hotdogging flyboy he plays in Top Gun: Maverick, is a cocksure jackass who thinks he's the best pilot in the crew. Tom Cruise naturally puts him in his place, but when Hangman comes out of nowhere to save the day at the very end of the film, his unflinching, icecool poise is a rousing balm-a reminder that we're watching a popcorn flick where everything will turn out okay. Powell's role in Twisters, the muchanticipated big-budget sequel to the 1996 blockbuster tornado thriller Twister, could be a not-so-distant cousin of Hangman. We sense that Tyler Owens, "a hillbilly with a YouTube channel" who chases storms with a Teflon swagger, will turn out to be an all-right dude by the end of the picture.

He's one of the only people-actors or characters-in this intentionally stupid tornado adventure who seem to be having any fun. Powell is, by all public accounts, a nice, chill guy who travels with his tiny rescue dog and makes sure his parents can visit all his movie sets (and cameo in those movies). He says he recently moved back to his hometown of Austin, Texas, to get away from the rat-race artificiality of Los Angeles. But onscreen he exudes the confidence and impenetrability of a man who just vibes with 'nados.