Richard Linklater Says Muse Glen Powell Has ‘A McConaughey Quality’

It makes good sense that filmmaker Richard Linklater and actor Glen Powell discovered one another. Powell hails from Linklater nation — Austin, Texas — and has the movie-star seems to be and Texan swagger that the director’s all the time been drawn to (see: Matthew McConaughey, Ethan Hawke). In the brand new movie Hit Man, directed by Linklater and co-written by Linklater and Powell, the actor delivers his most charismatic flip but as Gary Johnson, a college professor who moonlights as an undercover cop posing as a hitman, arresting the misplaced souls who rent him. When he falls for certainly one of his potential shoppers (Adria Arjona), issues get messy.

The movie, which is able to premiere on the Venice Film Festival and continues to be looking for distribution, is predicated on the Texas Monthly story of the identical title by Skip Hollandsworth. Linklater got here throughout “Hit Man” over a decade in the past, even earlier than he’d learn the Hollandsworth yarn “Midnight within the Garden of East Texas,” which impressed his Bernie. But it was Powell who introduced the story again to him within t he spring of 2020, simply because the pandemic had taken maintain, the filmmaker revealed throughout its Venice press convention. (Powell and Arjona couldn’t attend because of the SAG-AFTRA strike.)

When Rolling Stone requested Linklater about his muse/collaborator Powell, and the way he in comparison with his longtime collaborator McConaughey, who was famously when he acquired right into a drunken argument at a lodge bar in Austin with Don Phillips, the casting director of Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, Linklater mentioned, “There is a McConaughey high quality.”

He continued: “Actually, I knew Glen as a teen. He had a small half within the movie Fast Food Nation in 2006. He was in highschool. He was a child, and I knew him then. But the massive leap he made was when he got here in for the audition for Everybody Wants Some!! He was a man at that time, and I used to be like, ‘When did Glen Powell get…’ I imply, he was so good, and humorous, and charming. He’s clearly a star… Glen’s particular.  And if the world doesn’t know that but, I hope this film [shows them].”

During the presser, Linklater — a member of the DGA and WGA — was additionally requested concerning the ongoing strikes in Hollywood.

Calling himself “a proud union member,” he mentioned, “Everyone’s feeling it. I believe nobody’s glad, however that’s type of the issue: once you’re in an trade and nobody’s glad, perhaps it’s time to recalibrate and are available ahead with some issues that will be honest to everybody? I believe one thing’s gotta give.”