Glen Powell has become a pretty big star thanks to his major turn as ‘Hangman’ as part of the Top Gun: Maverick cast, but the man has been making movies for 20 years –really. Of course, while Glen Powell has been more famous than most of us for his entire career, he apparently wasn’t famous enough to avoid getting kicked out of the VIP section of a party for a movie he was actually in.
Powell discussed some of his big “firsts” in Hollywood and that included his first “crazy Hollywood altercation” in a new cover story. According to what the actor told THR, he was at Cannes to promote The Expendables 3, and during a premiere party, a bouncer didn’t believe that Powell belonged in the VIP section. The altercation became so heated that it ultimately got physical, resulting in the actor being punched in the face. Powell explained…
I got kicked out of the VIP section of the Expendables 3 party. It actually got kind of physical. There was a large bouncer that was convinced that I shouldn’t be in the VIP section, so it kind of turned into a physical altercation where I got hit in the face at the Expendables 3 party, ‘cause no one recognized me even though there was a banner in the party of my face. Just because you’ve got a banner doesn’t mean you’re getting in the party.
As Powell himself points out, while he was in The Expendables 3, he was the least known of the actors in the movie. The Expendables franchise is all about using major action movie stars, so the rest of the cast included the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Wesley Snipes. Certainly, everybody else in The Expendables 3 was easily recognizable as a star. Powell, not so much.
The Expendables 3 was certainly Powell’s biggest movie to that point, especially considering the fame of his co-stars. One would imagine he was quite thrilled with being in such a big movie. Maybe he thought he’d finally “made it” only to realize that wasn’t quite the case when he got hit in the face for daring to believe he was a VIP.
Powell is probably having a bit less trouble with bouncers these days. His role as Hangman in Top Gun: Maverick, one of the biggest box office hits in recent years, has ensured a lot of people have seen his face and would recognize him if they saw him again. Since then he’s starred in the rom-com Anyone But You (which was another box-office success), and this summer he’s leading the Twisters cast.
While Glen Powell’s parents are keeping him humble, the actor seems to have finally achieved the movie star status he didn’t have when he got punched by a bouncer at Cannes.