Actor Glen Powell has revealed he wanted to be “a bit of a weapon” for his starring role in The Running Man reboot so he threw himself into working out.
Glen Powell wanted to be “a bit of a weapon” for his starring role in The Running Man reboot.
The 36-year-old actor takes on the lead role in a new adaptation of Stephen King’s book – which was previously a 1987 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger – and he’s now revealed he threw himself into training because he wanted to be fit and muscular for the role.
He told GQ magazine: “I knew that based on the Stephen King book, [my character] Ben Richards was a tank.
“I was like: ‘Okay, I got to be a bit of a weapon.’ And so that’s why I trained the way I trained on this. I put on a lot of muscle. A lot of it was functional.
“A lot of it was so I could absorb hits. But a lot of it was also authentically for an audience … I went from going: ‘Oh, I’m an actor on a movie’ to ‘I’m a high-performance athlete’.”
He went onto reveal he turned to his Top Gun: Maverick co-star Tom Cruise for advice, adding: “I’m just very lucky that I have someone like Tom who I could literally go: ‘Hey, what do I do to survive something?'”
Schwarzenegger previously played Ben Richards in the 1987 thriller based on author King’s 1982 novel of the same name and the actor previously admitted the new version could be better than the original.
Speaking to CBR, The Terminator star said: “I mean, I love the idea that they’re doing a sequel to Running Man, or a remake.
“I don’t know what it’s going to be, but I mean, because I always felt when we did, Running Man was one of the movies that it did, that it felt like, I think it would have been great if we would have been better prepared for this movie, if we would have had more money for this movie, and if we would have had then … the visual effects, the technology of visual effects, that they have today, all of those things I wished after the movie came out, I felt like it could have been better.
“It was great, but it could have been better, and I think that they have a good chance now with the new Running Man to make it better. And I hope, for their sake and for my sake, I hope that they will be successful.”
The Running Man is set in a dystopian future where the poor are hunted for sport on live TV, and sees desperate contestant Ben Richards enter the game show to earn money for his sick daughter.
However, as the odds stack against him, Ben discovers survival means turning the game against its creators.
Previously, Powell revealed Schwarzenegger gave him his blessing to play the character in Edgar Wright’s upcoming remake of The Running Man – which is slated to hit cinemas in November 2025.
He told People: “Arnold gave us his blessing. Patrick Schwarzenegger is a great friend of mine and I asked Patrick if I could talk to Arnold and I hadn’t seen Arnold since we shot Expendables in Bulgaria.
“Arnold gave us his full blessing and we get to give Arnold a very specific fun gift from the movie in a couple of weeks here. So I’m very excited to see him.” Director Wright has also teased his take on The Running Man will be a more faithful adaptation of King’s novel than the 1987 movie was.
Talking about the first Running Man film on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Baby Driver director said: “I like the film, but I like the book more, and they didn’t really adapt the book.
“Even as a teenager, when I saw the Schwarzenegger film, I was like: ‘Oh, this isn’t like the book at all!’ And I think: ‘Nobody’s [done] that book’.
“So when that came up, I was thinking, and [producer] Simon Kinberg says: ‘Do you have any interest in The Running Man?’ I said: ‘You know what? I’ve often thought that that book is something crying out to be adapted’. Now, that doesn’t mean that it’s easy!”
Glen Powell wanted to be ‘a bit of a weapon’ in The Running Man
