Though Glen Powell is now seemingly poised for bona fide movie stardom à la mentor Tom Cruise, it wasn’t always that way. The actor behind blockbusters Top Gun: Maverick and Twisters has been open about his struggle breaking into Hollywood, and one such lackluster experience was bombing an audition in front of two-time Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman.
Powell recalled what happened to Hot Ones host Sean Evans during a recent press tour stop in support of his turn in The Running Man. When asked to describe the gap between his expectations and the reality of the acting scene in Los Angeles as a then-19-year-old, Powell recounted he met Hoffman at a dinner his first week in town and was delighted to know the Rain Man star had seen him in the Denzel Washington vehicle The Great Debaters.
“The fact that he saw this movie just blew my mind,” Powell recalled. “I was like, ‘This is the coolest moment of my entire life.’ He said, ‘You’re a good actor.’ I was like ‘Oh, dude, thank you.’ He goes, ‘I got something, I got something for you. Let’s keep in touch.’”
A couple of days later, Powell said he received a call from Hoffman, who invited him to his office to read for a role.
“I started reading [the pages], but I was so in awe that Dustin Hoffman was sitting across from me. He’s one of my favorite actors of all time. As I’m reading, I’m watching the life drain from his eyes being like, ‘This guy sucks so bad.’ And I was like, ‘Oh no,’” the Set it Up actor explained.
He continued, chuckling, “I’m watching him, I’m losing him. And then I’m being like, ‘Yeah, you’re losing him,’ and then I look back and I’m losing him even more. And I left so defeated.”
But all’s well that ends well, as Powell — who will host Saturday Night Live tonight in his debut — said he learned an important lesson about navigating the industry.
“What you start to realize is that all this business is play. You start looking at these guys as legends and then you start looking at them as collaborators who are just trying to make magic for audiences around the world,” he concluded.
The Running Man is currently in theaters.
Watch the episode of Hot Ones below.
