The Game-Changing Tip Tom Cruise Gave Glen Powell on The Running Man

If you want a crash course in not dying on set, you call Tom Cruise. That is exactly what Glen Powell did while gearing up for The Running Man, and the guy got a full-on masterclass.

The ask: how do you do the crazy stuff and live to tell about it?

Powell told Entertainment Weekly that Edgar Wright's The Running Man is the most physical job he has ever taken on. Translation: big stunt set pieces, lots of moving parts, and a long, punishing shoot. So he tapped the person who has basically turned high-risk stunt work into a second language: Cruise.

Powell says he asked two things: how to sell the action so it feels real, and how to physically survive the production. Cruise reportedly spent two and a half hours walking him through it.

What Cruise drilled into him

• Stunts are discipline-first. Treat them with respect or you will get hurt. Powell says Cruise has the scars to prove it and was blunt about the risks: this is not playtime.
• Do it for the audience. Cruise framed doing your own stunts as a privilege that tightens the bond with moviegoers and helps justify the price of admission.
• Commitment is the currency. If you want people to believe in you on screen, you have to fully show up off screen, too.

'If I want you to show up for me, I've got to show up for you.'

So what is Powell running from, exactly?

He is playing Ben Richards, a contestant on a deadly game show who has to stay alive for 30 days to cash in. In this world, he is a runner — the target — hunted by professional killers known as Hunters. It is a clean, vicious premise with plenty of room for Wright to stage big, gnarly sequences, which is why Powell is putting in the stunt homework.

The movie details

Edgar Wright is directing the feature adaptation of the Stephen King novel, with Powell front and center trying to claim the action-hero mantle. The Running Man hits theaters on November 14, 2025.

First flagged by Dan Girolamo at SuperHeroHype.