Glen Powell has shared a story from his early days in Hollywood that he once saw as a career-ending embarrassment and now treats as a lesson in perspective. During a recent appearance on the interview series Hot Ones to promote his new film The Running Man, the 37-year-old actor recalled a disastrous script reading opposite Dustin Hoffman that left him convinced he had blown a rare opportunity.
Powell said the meeting came shortly after he moved to Los Angeles, when he unexpectedly found himself seated next to Hoffman at a dinner. The veteran actor told him he had seen Powell’s small role in the 2007 drama The Great Debaters and praised his work, before offering to stay in contact and inviting him to his office for a read-through a few days later.
Once in the room, Powell recalled being overwhelmed by the situation. Asked to read the script aloud, he became fixated on Hoffman’s reactions and felt his confidence draining away. He described “watching the life drain from his eyes” and walking out feeling “so defeated,” convinced that the impression he had made was far from the one he had hoped for.
In the years since, Powell has moved from background roles in films like Spy Kids 3: Game Over and The Great Debaters to leading parts in Top Gun: Maverick, the romantic comedy Anyone But You, the disaster film Twisters and now the dystopian action thriller The Running Man. He has spoken about long stretches of patchy work earlier in his career and says experiences such as the Hoffman meeting eventually reshaped how he views the profession.
Powell told Hot Ones that he no longer sees established stars as distant idols, but as collaborators trying to “make magic for audiences around the world,” adding that the excitement of working in film remains while his outlook has matured. His story echoes similar accounts from other actors who describe painful early auditions as part of the process rather than the end of it, a reminder that even visible success can emerge from moments that once felt like failure.
