One upcoming movie featuring Glen Powell proves a surprising and unusual trend for the actor’s overall career. Powell, who stars in the upcoming Twisters, has been performing onscreen since 2003. After appearing in early teen features including the Richard Linklater movie Fast Food Nation, he began to appear in more prominent titles including The Dark Knight Rises and The Expendables 3 before getting his breakthrough role as the charismatic and cruel Chad Radwell in the Ryan Murphy horror-comedy Scream Queens. More recently, he starred in the hit rom-com Anyone But You, which grossed $219.2 million against a $25 million budget.

After achieving success with the Anyone But You box office, Powell is getting ready to bring more projects to the screen in 2024. This includes the disaster movie sequel Twisters, but it also includes the Paul Crowder documentary The Blue Angels, which premieres on Prime Video on May 23. The movie, which follows the titular Navy and Marine Corps flight squadron known for their impressive aerial maneuvers, was produced by Powell alongside J.J. Abrams and proves a surprising trend for the actor’s career.

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Glen Powell Is Making More Movies About Flying Than Anyone Else

Powell’s Onscreen Aerial Career Extends Way Beyond Top Gun

Although The Blue Angels is a documentary rather than a narrative feature, the fact that it stands out somewhat showcases just how many movies Glen Powell has made about flying. His most notable role as a pilot came when he joined the Top Gun: Maverick cast as the hotshot flyboy Hangman. However, later in 2022, that same year, he played real-life Korean War pilot Lieutenant Junior Grade Tom Hudner in Devotion, which was based on a 2015 nonfiction book by Adam Makos.

Another real-life pilot portrayed by Glen Powell was John Glenn, who he played in the 2016 movie Hidden Figures, which dramatized the stories of three Black women who were mathematicians for NASA in the 1960s. In addition to that iconic astronaut character and his possible return in the upcoming Top Gun 3, this does not end his roster of Powell roles related to flying. The same year as Maverick and Devotion, he reunited with Linklater to portray NASA official Bostick in Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood, and his Expendables 3 character Thorn was also a drone pilot.

Glen Powell’s Real Life Explains His Career Trend

Powell’s Onscreen Flying Career Mirrors Reality

The most likely explanation for this unusual trend for Glen Powell is the fact that he is a pilot in real life. The star got his pilot’s license when his Top Gun: Maverick co-star Tom Cruise, whose devotion to making onscreen stunts as real as possible is well-documented, paid for him to take flying lessons. Although that movie premiered in the middle of his run of flying-related roles, its release was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, so it actually wrapped production in 2019, providing him with a solid foundation for his future flying movies.