There’s no better way to prepare to play a running quarterback than to quite literally be The Running Man.
Between seasons one and two of Chad Powers, Glen Powell filmed a pair of movies: Edgar Wright’s The Running Man and J.J. Abrams’ The Great Beyond. Powell’s crazy schedule readied him to personally perform more on-field football for the sophomore season of his and Michael Waldron’s Hulu adaptation of the Eli Manning short.
Waldron (Loki) told The Hollywood Reporter that at least some of Powell’s increased workload is a “function” of Waldron directing. He and Powell share a “symbiotic” vision to the story arc, he said.
The guys got the exposition out of the way with season one, which allowed for more football scenes in season two. Plus, Powell’s body was extra prepared — and not just for the various tank top shots and one incline-benchpress scene.
“[After] we shot season one, he went straight into Running Man and The Great Beyond,” Waldron said. “We got him right after that, so we were getting a full-on action star.
“[Powell] has been making these huge action movies, so he understood his own body. He understood impact and action on camera in a totally new way, and the way that he settled back into throwing and playing quarterback with next to no time to prepare was crazy,” Waldron continued. “But man, he’s a freak.”
The QB coaches on set also took notice.
“My agility — and I think just physical ability — in the ‘offseason,’ so to speak, really increased,” Powell told THR. “Every coach came up to me and they’re like, ‘Dude, you are like a way better quarterback this season!’ It just felt more effortless, which was great. So it was fun.”
Not that the season-one ball looked bad, but Powell acknowledges that he may have been a bit “in my head” the first time around. “Sometimes it takes a second,” he said, “the stakes of becoming a quarterback — and especially someone who’s supposed to be a generational talent.”
Powell based Powers’ on-field action on Johnny Manziel, who at Texas A&M was nicknamed “Johnny Football” for a reason. (And then his NFL career was a bust for a whole ‘nother reason.)
“I’m a football fan. We all know what a generational talent looks like, and so as an actor to kind of like rise to that occasion, it’s a tall order,” Powell said. “But we put in a lot of work, and to have that kind of marinate over the course of time and be moving around — especially on Running Man and The Great Beyond — it’s very stunt-intensive.”
Powell isn’t the only Chad Powers signal-caller getting better as time marches on. Waldron says Powers is a better player than Russ Holliday, his real identity, ever was.
“[Chad] is just a less selfish player for one, so it makes him a better teammate. The other thing is, he’s got the first coach to ever really get through to him in Ricky (Perry Mattfeld),” Waldron said. “The tragedy of this guy is that he is good enough to be in the NFL.”
Again reference Manziel, Johnny.
Lou Gehrig whacks a double into left center in a game at Yankee Stadium in 1938. Luke Sewell is the catcher for the opponent White Sox.
Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images
But just as Powell was getting comfortable on the gridiron, he’ll be switching to the diamond. Powell is set to play Lou Gehrig in Richard Linklater’s upcoming biopic about the New York Yankees slugger; Simon Rich wrote the script for his SNL boss Lorne Michaels.
There is one problem: Powell’s a righty and the Iron Horse was a lefty. Powell says he’s “been in the trenches already,” building a lefty baseball swing from scratch.
Gehrig’s swing is not just any hack.
“Lou has an iconic swing. To actually match that swing has been really interesting,” Powell, who already successfully played one hit… man for Linklater, said. “The mechanics… were super specific.”
Powell’s coaches — the baseball ones this time — think he “can get there,” Powell relayed.
“We’ll see,” he said. “It’s just gonna take putting my head down and getting it done.”
God forbid he has to also throw lefty, as Gehrig, a first-baseman, did. Powell, if anyone (in Hollywood), knows ball don’t lie.
“There’s a lot of things to navigate” with this one, Powell said, in perhaps the sports-movie understatement of the year — we didn’t even have time to talk about Gehrig’s Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and the big retirement speech scene.
Step up to the plate, Glen.
All six episodes of Chad Powers season two, which also stars Wynn Everett, Frankie Rodriguez, Steve Zahn, Quentin Plair and Colton Ryan, are now streaming on Hulu.
