Glen Powell just revealed that it was Stephen King who approved him for his role in The Running Man reboot.
The 36-year-old actor will be taking on the lead role in a new adaptation of King’s book – which was previously a 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger starrer.
Powell also revealed that although the director Edgar Wright had offered him the role, it was King who had final approval.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, he told the audience at New York Comic Con: “The only interaction I had is when Edgar offered me this movie, and I was like, ‘yes.’ He’s like, ‘You’re my Ben Richards,’ And I’m like, ‘Let’s go.’ Later that night, he’s like, ‘By the way, you have to be approved by Stephen King’. He’s like, he’s gonna watch Hitman tonight, so I had to wait overnight for Stephen King to watch Hitman and hope that I still had the role in the morning.”
“In terms of what I took from Arnold, I do the entire performance in an Austrian accent,” he quirkily mentioned.
Explaining his own approach, he said: “Ben Richards is the ultimate underdog. He’s a normal guy who is facing off against the most powerful oppressive system. So, there’s no greater stakes and no smaller odds.”
“When Edgar and I first started talking about this role – I try to be a nice guy in real life, but he’s like, I need bad mood Glen. I need to turn on something a little different in you. And so, Ben Richards, in the book, is very frustrated with the system,” he says.
“He’s been pushed down. He’s trying to provide for his family, and every option has been taken away from him in order to do that. So, this is a man who’s just trying to provide for his family in a place that doesn’t allow him to do that, and there’s a growing frustration and anger there. I got to unleash that part of my personality,” Glen Powell concluded.
