Glen Powell recalls awkward encounter with ‘recently canceled’ celebrity

Even an effortless charmer like Glen Powell can have awkward encounters with other celebrities.

During an appearance on the latest episode of the Therapuss podcast, the Chad Powers star recalled how a run-in at “one of those Hollywood parties” almost took a turn for the worse when Powell found himself spotted with a celebrity who had recently been in hot water with the public.

“I showed up to the party and there was somebody that had been on the ropes in terms of getting canceled,” Powell recounted to Therapuss host Jake Shane. “It was one of those Hollywood parties where there’s, like, cameras and press and all that stuff.”

He continued, “This person had made some of my favorite movies and I was like, ‘Oh, this is great.’ He came up and he said, ‘Nice to meet you.’ I was like, ‘Oh, dude. Such a big fan.'” 

While the interaction started off fairly benign, Powell shared that things got awkward when a photographer came up to the pair and asked if they could take a photo of them.

“This person was recently canceled and it was not good,” Powell emphasized without revealing their name. “I was a fan of their work but not a fan of their choices. So, I was kind of just being nice. But then, when they wanted to take a picture, I realized very quickly — I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if this is a good idea.'”

Powell noted that the other celebrity had “clearly clocked” his hesitation, but the Twisters star stood by his decision. 

“I realized, this guy, his face is toxic,” he told Shane. “Going out into the world, people are having a visceral reaction to this person in terms of the bad choice they’ve made.”

Powell compared the unnamed actor to his Chad Powers character Russ Holliday, who, after disgracing himself at a championship football game, plays for another team under a new alias to redeem his legacy.

“Russ Holliday is a guy that just made a mistake, right? He’s not a bad guy. Some of these other people that get canceled…they should lie where they’re shot,” Powell noted. “But like with Russ, he made a mistake. He acted, you know, poorly about it and the world kind of didn’t forgive him and he couldn’t forgive himself.”

The actor added, “And what I found to be really interesting is that in today’s day and age, there’s a lot of, like, the cancel culture is just sort of a thing in, like, how the world doesn’t really let you forget your mistakes.”

Chad Powers, Hulu’s upcoming sports comedy, is based on the viral sketch produced by NFL Films and Omaha Productions that aired on ESPN+ as part of the Eli’s Places series. 

Powell co-created the series with Michael Waldron, and the actor stars alongside Wynn Everett, Frankie A. Rodriguez, Perry Mattfeld, Quentin Plair, and Steve Zahn, whom Waldron previously joked to Entertainment Weekly is in “his Coach Taylor [of Friday Night Lights] era,” as Catfish coach Jake Hudson.

Powell shared that his goal is “to be a part of things that are actually entertaining people.”

He explained, “One of the things that I always find to be so silly about this business is there’s those things that people make, where you have to kind of do that deep breath before you watch it and you’re like, oh, I’ve got to watch this, everyone says so. No, I want to be a part of the thing that people can’t wait to watch, and you feel better afterwards.”

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Hulu’s Chad Powers will kick off on Tuesday, Sept. 30 with a two-episode launch. New episodes stream weekly on Tuesdays leading up to the season finale on Oct. 28.