Glen Powell’s is starting to forge a path through Hollywood as a leading man, romantic headliner, and as an action hero for a new generation of cinemagoers. However, his cartoonishly muscular appearance on the latest edition of GQ has caused almost as much online conversation as Kim Kardashian’s infamous “internet-breaking” derrière. Why? Because some people just cannot comprehend simple things, apparently.
The images, from GQ’s October “state of the American male” issue, show The Running Man star looking his usual tight-jawed, bulked-up self down to the stomach, but then things take a turn for the exaggerated worst, with Powell’s legs bursting with so much muscle it makes Popeye look like Runty McRuntman. While it takes only a second to see the line of fabric running across Powell’s midriff and ankles and quickly realize this is nothing more than a prosthetic muscle-suit, the confusion it caused some people is a little scary and shows how the letters “AI” are so firmly imprinted on our brains that it becomes the first logical stop for anything that looks unusual.
In the image, Powell is “wearing a hyper-defined lower-body prosthetic muscle suit made by Smitizen,” a choice that makes his proportions look all wrong. This led to several comments on the post on Instagram, saying things like “I’m very confused by this cover photo,” “Why would he say yes to that?” and “Didn’t even bother to AI?” One summed up the vibe as “It looks like an AI fail.”
It seems that many people were so quick to believe that magazine fakery and AI enhancement go hand in hand, that they missed the purpose of the cover image, which is to mock and satirize the age-old “accepted” appearance of “masculine men.” In other words, Powell is cosplaying the era’s “better, stronger, bigger” body culture that Hollywood has obsessed over for decades – even if people still try to say things have changed.
Glen Powell Is on the Rise in Hollywood
https://www.instagram.com/p/DOYT_SVDkuJ/In the last few years, Powell has seen his public appeal soar thanks to his appearance in Top Gun: Maverick with Tom Cruise, his leading role in the comedy Anyone But You with Sydney Sweeney – which hit the headlines thanks to the PR romance between the two stars, and action sequel Twisters. This is reason enough for Powell to be the face of GQ’s take on the Hollywood leading man of today, but that is not where Powell’s story ends by a long way.
Powell will be next seen in October as Ben Richards in the Edgar Wright remake of Stephen King’s The Running Man. The film has already been receiving incredible reviews, and the dystopian sci-fi movie seems set to cement Powell’s place as one of the most exciting and accomplished leading men out there right now.
While Powell recently ruled himself out of being the next James Bond, there are still plenty of other action roles that could be coming the actor’s way. Currently, his roster of upcoming projects includes Huntington, a black comedy thriller also starring Ed Harris and Margaret Qualley, and J.J. Abrams’ fantasy movie Ghostwriter in which he costars with Jenna Ortega, Emma Mackey, and Samuel L. Jackson.