{"id":795038,"date":"2026-10-07T17:32:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T17:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/795038\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T17:32:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T17:32:17","slug":"glen-powell-on-avoiding-politics-in-interviews-and-running-man-flop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/795038\/","title":{"rendered":"Glen Powell on Avoiding Politics in Interviews and ‘Running Man’ Flop"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tGlen Powell<\/a> is the latest Hollywood heavyweight to express a disinterest in talking about politics in press interviews. The \u201cTop Gun: Maverick\u201d and \u201cChad Powers\u201d star is on the last cover of Esquire magazine<\/a> and remembered growing up with parents who never brought up current events at the dinner table, to which Powell said \u201cthank God\u201d for that. \u201cPolitics interests him even less now,\u201d the magazine writes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOver time, I realized that politics divide people,\u201d Powell said. \u201cPeople trying to prove their point \u2014 for me, it\u2019s the worst version of a conversation. I genuinely do not like the discourse. It\u2019s not as healthy as it once was. [Engaging in politics] is not presently possible. I applaud people for jumping into those things and fighting for what they believe in. If I were a political person, I would be talking about it. For me, my calling is elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPowell\u2019s comments are similar to that of Dwayne Johnson, who in his own Esquire magazine<\/a> cover story earlier this year said he will no longer speak publicly about politics. Johnson had already told Fox News<\/a> in 2024 that he regretted endorsing Joe Biden for president in 2020 because it caused division amongst his fans. He then told Esquire that he wants to keep the focus solely on his art.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPolitics is omnipresent and it\u2019s forever. I don\u2019t like it. I hate it at times. I hate the slinging. I hate all the bullshit that comes with it,\u201d Johnson added at the time.<\/p>\n

\n\tA few months before Johnson\u2019s quotes, Jennifer Lawrence spoke to The New York Times<\/a> about her own newfound resistance to talking to the press about politics. This was a dramatic change of pace for Lawrence, who notably spoke out against Donald Trump<\/a> during his first administration as U.S. president and wrote an op-ed <\/a>after Election Day in which she declared that Trump\u2019s victory meant \u201cthe only people that feel safe [in America] are white men.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen asked by The Times about her thoughts on speaking out now regarding Trump and politics, Lawrence answered: \u201cI don\u2019t really know if I should. The first Trump administration was so wild and just how can we let this stand? I felt like I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. But as we\u2019ve learned, election after election, celebrities do not make a difference whatsoever on who people vote for. So then what am I doing? I\u2019m just sharing my opinion on something that\u2019s going to add fuel to a fire that\u2019s ripping the country apart. We are so divided.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLawrence added that she does not \u201cwant to start turning people off to films and to art that could change consciousness or change the world because they don\u2019t like my political opinions.\u201d She maintained that she can still get across her political beliefs via her work, such as the movies she\u2019s making at her production company like \u201cBread and Roses,\u201d which follows three women in Afghanistan amid the effects of the 2021 Taliban offensive, and the abortion documentary \u201cZurawski v Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Powell steered clear of political talk in his Esquire cover story<\/a>, he did briefly open up about experiencing some of his first box office flops after a string of hits that included \u201cTop Gun: Maverick,\u201d \u201cAnyone But You\u201d and \u201cTwisters.\u201d His fall 2025 tentpole \u201cThe Running Man<\/a>\u201d bombed with under $70 million worldwide on a production budget in the $110 million range. According to Powell, drama at Paramount Pictures did not set the Edgar Wright-directed movie up for financial success. <\/p>\n

\n\t \u201cThey let go of an entire marketing department a month before our movie came out in the middle of a merger,\u201d said Powell, referring to mass Paramount layoffs<\/a> that hit in late October 2025 just weeks before \u201cThe Running Man\u201d opened in theaters.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter \u201cThe Running Man\u201d came this winter\u2019s \u201cHow to Make a Killing,\u201d an A24-backed dark crime comedy that tapped out with $21 million worldwide. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere were a lot of issues with that,\u201d Powell told the magazine. \u201cThere just was not enough time to do it properly. I look back on that one as an example of going, You know what, there\u2019s no rush.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tHead over to Esquire\u2019s website <\/a>to read Powell\u2019s cover story in its entirety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Glen Powell is the latest Hollywood heavyweight to express a disinterest in talking about politics in press interviews.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,35785,261559,19249,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-795038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-glen-powell","tag-the-comeback-king","tag-the-running-man","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}