Glen Powell stars as a desperate man who plays the world's deadliest game show in "The Running Man," based on the Stephen King novel.
From traversing a sewer system to hanging off a building, Glen Powell gets plenty of action in "The Running Man."

You haven’t seen this side of Glen Powell before.

The Texan has been smiley and charming in rom-coms like “Set It Up” and “Anyone But You,” cocky in “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Twisters,” and earnestly heroic in “Hidden Figures” and “Devotion.” But his new movie, “The Running Man” (in theaters Nov. 14), is his angriest role yet.

And for good reason. In Edgar Wright’s adaptation of the Stephen King novel, Ben Richards is a dad living in a dystopian society, unable to get a job and provide for his sick child. Desperate and mightily ticked off, a scarily stern Richards marches into a corporate building to try out for the world’s deadliest game show, “The Running Man,” where he either he’ll survive for 30 days and win a billion dollars or get murdered trying.

“Having patience is sometimes ignoring the things that make you angry. And I think being angry, you hyperfixate on the things that make you angry. That's what I love about this job is you can tap into and lean into certain things,” Powell says. “Ben Richards has sort of got a bone to pick with the world. He lives in a world of bullies, and so do we. What's an interesting thing is a guy who has a real problem with the bully and is willing to fight against them.”

Not only can Powell understand Richards’ rage, he can relate to it. “There’s general frustration with a lot of people about the powerlessness we feel in a world where you work your ass your off and you still can't show up for the people you love,” he adds. “That's why for me, Ben is a very universal character. It's a character that feels like part of all of us. He's the underdog that we all feel like.”

In “The Running Man,” Richards turns his fury into a positive. Through videos he's forced to send in while trying to stay alive (to take viewers to the frontlines of the dangerous game), the unlikely hero turns delightfully anarchic and winds up getting much of the public watching the show to be on his side. Even the villainous TV executive who puts him on the show, Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), knows he’s ratings gold.

“Dan Killian is looking for good TV,” Powell says. “These reality shows, they're always looking for that guy. They don't want somebody with a long fuse in terms of their temper. They want somebody who swings first and asks questions later. And Ben Richards is a guy that they look at and they're like, ‘He's going to make good TV.’ But they don't realize that's exactly the superpower that is also going to take down this oppressive system.”

So what actually makes Powell angry? Well, he’s not a big fan of night running.

Like his friend Tom Cruise, Powell is one to dive into big action sequences: In “The Running Man,” he’s involved in one moment where two cars are speeding at each other and Richards jumps off a bridge, plus Powell gets to hang on the side of a building.

“I mean, Tom has had his fair share of those,” Powell quips. Cruise also gave him some advice: “The one thing he told me is the most dangerous thing that you're not going to expect is running at night. He said, ‘They're always going to push the sprinting stuff to the end of the night.’ ”

Cruise was right. Some of the diciest action – and most frustrating nights – for Powell involved sprinting across wet cobblestones or through a graveyard full of smoke in the dark.

“I was always like, ‘Hey, guys, can we push that like a little bit earlier in the night?’ Every single time, 5 in the morning, just before sunrise,” Powell says. “But we survived it. I thank TC for the advice, for sure.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Glen Powell shares 'the most dangerous' stunt he did for 'The Running Man'

Reporting by Brian Truitt, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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