When Glen Powell was initially offered the role of Hangman in Top Gun: Maverick, the actor wasn’t initially keen on playing the character. Fortunately, the Anyone but You star was eventually onboard with the role, which led to the actor’s ascend in Hollywood, who is currently one of the biggest bankable young stars on the planet.
However, things might not have been the same if Powell hadn’t instilled some changes in his Top Gun 2 counterpart, which was initially written to be a flat character that served no purpose.
Glen Powell Retooled Hangman Into a Well-Rounded Character
Before Hangman, Glen Powell initially auditioned for the role of Rooster, which he ended up losing to Miles Teller. However, the actor did succeed in leaving a lasting impression on Joseph Kosinski and Tom Cruise, who later reached out to him to play the character of Hangman, who was known as Slayer then. But as opposed to the character we saw on the big screen, Slayer was initially written as a character with no dimensions, who was only there to cause conflict in Rooster’s story.
Moreover, instead of having the skills to back up his boastful claims in the film, the character “found himself at Top Gun as a result of nepotism”. Powell was reasonably less than thrilled by the character, stressing that he’d have cut Slayer immediately out of the film, as he served no purpose.
‘If I were editing this movie, I would cut him out immediately.’
Fortunately, after Jerry Bruckheimer, Joseph Kosinski, and Christopher McQuarrie convinced him that he could add his spin to it, the Hit Man star agreed to the job. As a result, Hangman was no longer bland and nor a duplication of Val Kilmer‘s Iceman from the first film but possessed the best of both worlds.
From being boisterous like Iceman to embodying the spirit of Maverick while also being genuinely concerned about his fellow initiates’ safety, he served as a perfect successor to Kilmer’s Lieutenant. This further makes the ending hug, which is similar to Iceman and Maverick’s resolution from the first film, earned in the 2022 release.
Glen Powell Was Going Broke Before Top Gun 2 Hit Theatres
Before Top Gun: Maverick hit theatres and launched Glen Powell to the top, the actor recalled going broke. Considering Tom Cruise was against the film hitting any streaming service ahead of its theatre release, instead of its planned 2020 release, the film was pushed back to 2022 due to COVID-19. While everyone on the crew was aware they were sitting on a hit, the wait ended up being detrimental to Powell’s bank account.
He explained (THR):
I’d never made any significant amount of money on a movie, including ‘Top Gun,’ and I was depleting a bank account to a point where my accountant was like, ‘This pandemic cannot last much longer.’
But as the story goes, following its release in 2022, the Top Gun sequel became one of the biggest releases of 2022, paving the way for Powell to stardom.
Top Gun: Maverick is available to stream on Paramount Plus.
