Glen Powell is putting Tom Cruise’s action-movie wisdom to good use.
As the Top Gun: Maverick star gears up for his latest thriller The Running Man, he revealed that Cruise’s mentorship proved essential for surviving the film’s intense stunts and grueling night shoots.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Powell, 37, said Cruise was the one person he could count on for expert advice. “Most of the advice I got [from Cruise] was really just about how not to die on this movie,” Powell said, laughing.
“The reality is there’s probably only one person on the planet that can give this type of advice, and it’s him. So the fact that he’s one call away and he’s always willing to pick up, it’s unbelievable.”
Powell explained that Cruise, who’s spent decades mastering physically demanding stunts in the Mission: Impossible franchise, cautioned him about the dangers of filming while exhausted.
“He was just always telling me, ‘Don’t do some of these stunts late at night when you’re tired,’” Powell recalled. “Your body is extremely tired at night. People get hurt more often when shooting at five in the morning because you’re rushing to make it before sunrise.”
In The Running Man, directed by Edgar Wright, Powell stars as Ben Richards, a man forced to compete in a deadly televised game show in a dystopian future.
The new adaptation is described as a more faithful version of Stephen King’s original 1982 novel than the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film.
The Running Man opens in theaters on November 14, and while Powell might be sprinting for survival on-screen, he’s grateful to have Cruise’s life-saving guidance off-screen.
“He’s always willing to help,” Powell said. “And that means everything.”