she's zendaya, and he's just... glen?
Zendaya, Glen Powell, and the Five Rules for Movie Stardom in 2024
If ‘for breakfast' had an award show (The Brekkies?), Twisters would win the Most Number of Supporting Actors I’ve Had Historic Crushes On award.1 It’s loud, mostly bloodless, very American, and surprisingly full of humor and heart. This summertime blockbuster checks my boxes, but I was surprised that it seemed to check everyone else’s.
In comparison to its legacy sequel counterpart, Top Gun Maverick (2022), Twisters seems to fall apart under any scrutiny stronger than a mild gust of wind. Despite that underdeveloped love triangle, a soundtrack you largely want to forget, and a half-there-half-not American accent from Daisy Edgar-Jones, Twisters has raked in nearly $313 million worldwide a month after its release.
In July, I wrote about how much I hate praising marketing campaigns, but that does not mean I’m above a good old-fashioned press tour! I appreciated how Daisy Edgar-Jones went on Emma Chamberlain’s Anything Goes Podcast instead of Call Her Daddy. I enjoyed seeing the cast shotgun beers at a Luke Combs concert. I was slightly amused by a cute little dog called Brisket, but I found myself, at times, downright charmed by Brisket’s cute little owner: Glen Powell.
I’d like to wager a guess that Twisters, a far-removed sequel of the 1996 B-movie, Twister, could not have been as successful without an actor to hold it all down and sell it to a general audience. Glen Powell sold us Twisters and made it look easy. In 2024, making movie-goers buy a $20 ticket from a trailer, a name, and a pretty face is no small feat. In fact, those abilities should make you a Movie Star… shouldn’t they?
There is something strangely polarizing about Ken Doll, Glen Powell. He’s captured the hearts and minds of our nation’s brightest. At the same time, after two years of back-to-back box office hits in Top Gun Maverick, Anyone But You,2 and now Twisters, I’m still unsure when I’ll need to explain his very existence in everyday conversation. I understood his whole thing back in 2018 with Set It Up, and I lost it until I saw an early screening of Hit Man in early 2023. Some of my friends are skeptical. My For You page is bipolar, stuck between scathing take-downs and fan edits. And, maybe the most damning indictment on the Glen Powell schtick, my mom says she doesn’t get it.
Glen is clearly a Movie Star on paper, and I can’t even say he lacks an it factor. So, why are we all so confused?
Before this year, I used to think the title of Movie Star was largely a when-you-know-you-know situation. You look at an actor, one or two films come to mind and you’re satisfied with using that label and sticking with it until further notice. One actress has held that top spot for years: It’s Zendaya… who requires zero introduction, so I won’t bother. Twisters, strangely enough, made me think about Challengers. While Twisters has a pretty incredible roster of talent, the STARS (Edgar-Jones and Powell) MAKE the movie. Challengers is the opposite. It’s a modest operation, that is technically and narratively near-perfect. Talk about a star-MAKING turn, Challengers has three. Four if you count its screenwriter, Justin Kuritzkes. Five if you count the cunty umpire in Darnell Appling.3
These wildly different films tell us a lot about the demands we have for Movie Stars in 2024, and the number of ways a Movie Star can fulfill those duties. Glen Powell and Zendaya are more similar than you think, but maybe that’s the trick of being a Movie Star: following the rules while acting like you’re not.
Rule #1: Be undeniable
Sometimes this happens all at once: Zendaya in Euphoria. A generation-defining performance so great that you forget all about the other stuff going on that show.
For other Movie Stars, it’s a series of undeniable moments and roles that you find yourself smiling about long after you’ve seen the movie: Glen as the sweet baseball player in Everybody Wants Some. Glen as a yuppie assistant who just wants to find his purpose. Glen as a snarky pilot with a secret heart of gold.
The Movie Star is memorable, and every time they’re not on screen you’re wishing they were even before you know why. And before you say anything, yes, movie stars can do TV.
Rule #2: Be a producer
Zendaya acted in and produced Challengers, a role and a project that were both very important for her:
[Zendaya] made Challengers happen. She and her co-producers, Amy Pascal and Rachel O’Connor, are the ones who took on Justin Kuritzkes’s script and hired Luca Guadagnino. It was implied in her Vogue profile that it was Zendaya’s choice to cast Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor.
What struck me about Zendaya’s role in a project like this—homoerotic, a tiny bit strange, and not much of a moneymaker—was that she didn’t have to do it. Movie Stars have so much Star power that they could bank it all on acting and never have to do another job. Yet, the Movie Star speaks about the craft like they can’t help but be more involved.
Glen Powell is like that. When I saw Hit Man (2024), I felt a real joy. Not just that I liked the movie a fair bit, but also that the star of the movie had a huge hand in the movie being made at all. Powell with a producing, writing, and acting credit on film.
The title of producer is nebulous, but with Zendaya and Glen, I notice it rounds out their Stardom. I’ve always seen Zendaya as smart, but Black women in Hollywood seem to have to prove that more, and a producer title can’t hurt. Glen is also a pretty face, but producing is what sets him apart from his peers (see: Miles Teller and all the other white guys in their 30s who still can’t seem to crack Movie Star status).
Unlike Zendaya, Glen the Ken the Movie Star needed a brain, and when you hear him talk about movies you know he has one.
Rule #3: Be a politician
For some reason, I’m thinking a lot about politicians lately.4 Since Zendaya first stepped out in her So Kates, I’ve noticed how diplomatic, consistent, and—dare I say—demure the way she carries herself is. Never a hair out of place, and definitely never messy.
Glen has mostly kept his nose clean. Ever-charming, constantly kissing babies and doing the rounds. If anyone has truly campaigned to be our next Movie Star, it’s Glen Powell. Lucky for him, the manufactured cheating rumors and palling around with Hollywood’s #1 Scientologist have proved no match for his wholesome, Texas boy persona.
In political comparison to Zendaya, Glen has had much more room for error—nearly a decade of it.
Rule #4: Be the target of a think piece
In an April edition of Vulture’s “Now Serving” Newsletter, critics, Matt Zoller Seitz and Angelica Jade Bastién work it out on the remix and debate whether or not Z has what it takes to be the Movie Star of the moment. Bastién is not convinced:
“With Zendaya’s performances, I think of Katharine Hepburn’s quote about Meryl Streep: “click, click, click” — you can hear the wheels turning. It always feels like I’m watching someone play-act in their older sister’s clothes. Tashi is a tricky role because she’s really just the complication in these two men’s relationship, which seems more important to the film, emotionally, than she is. I don’t think she’s a strong gravitational force. Watching Dune, I kept thinking that she and Timothée Chalamet come across as besties, not people who actually want to fuck each other. She doesn’t bring sexual heat. Sensuality is really hard to play, and we are living in a very un-sensual era in general.”
On the other hand, I keep reading think pieces of why 34-year-old man Glen Powell doesn’t deserve the mild ribbing he gets for trying so hard. Fellow Substack writer, Sheila O’Malley writes:
“Powell, however, is different, and this difference makes him interesting. He wasn’t clocked by 14-year-old girls. Something else is going on and the resentment towards him feels inappropriate for what is happening. It makes me curious, like something else is going on. Is the resentment because of his blonde good looks?… Is it that rodents are “in”, and hunks are out, and it seems “retro” for people to be gaga over a hunk? If this is at work, my response is: Go outside. Volunteer somewhere. Laugh with your friends. People are gonna be into who they’re gonna be into with or without your say-so.”
While there’s no shortage of online confusion to distaste about Glen Powell, there is something about Zendaya’s Movie Stardom that constantly has critics, fans, and haters projecting their fears about the state of movies, sex, and sensuality onto her (I wrote many words about this). Unlike Bastién, most of those who try to publicly examine their confusion over the star, can’t help but wade into tropes of blatant misogynoir.
Movie Stars inspire us to think, speak, and write. This Movie-Star-Think-Piece Industrial Complex reveals how no two paths to Movie Stardom will be the same. Zendaya and Glen Powell both work hard, but only one of them really gets to talk about it—constantly. I feel overly familiar with how scared Glen Powell was of not "making it." That talk track is reserved for the whitest and brightest it seems.
Rule #5: Never, ever, complain.
Glen Powell and Zendaya have both mastered the Movie Star Smile. The smile that says “Gosh, I’m just so grateful to be here!” The one they employ when a reporter asks a question that’s a little too invasive. The one that says “People think I make all this money, but I’m not sure I could afford to take a year off from acting and have the same career, GO ME!”
Movie Stars don’t get to complain.
A year post strikes and things aren’t all that different for actors and actresses at the top of their game who have a lot to complain about but just don’t. Glen Powell will be fine. Zendaya will be fine. If you get to call yourself a Movie Star, in a sense you have made it. However, all of this comparison has made me think of the work that comes before making it:
Take the beautiful and talented Manny Jacinto. In an interview with GQ, Jacinto is asked about the public outcry for his minimized role in Top Gun Maverick.
“There was this sense of where the film was going [on set], like I can see them focusing the camera more on these [other] guys and not taking so much time on our scenes. Fortunately, it still was a great experience…”
“It kind of fuels you, because at the end of the day, Tom Cruise is writing stories for Tom Cruise,” he said. “It’s up to us—Asian Americans, people of color—to be that [for ourselves]. We can’t wait for somebody else to do it. If we want bigger stories out there, we have to make them for ourselves.”
According to many, Jacinto’s comments make him a class act. I don’t think he could afford to be anything else.
Rule #6:
If there are five rules to being a Movie Star in 2024, actors of color have one extra to follow: Act like a Movie Star way before you get the title. If and when you get the title, there will probably be Ken right next to you who’s still learning on the job.
Thanks for reading!
Did you think I was too harsh on Glen the Ken?
Have you also noticed how weird people get about the concept of Zendaya being a sexual being?
Did I forget any rules for Movie Stardom??
David Corenswet, Katy O’Brian, Sasha Lane, Brandon Perea, Daryl McCormack. If you must know.
This movie would win a Brekkie for Movie with a Name So Forgettable Nobody Can Get it Right on the First Try.
Justin penned Luca Guadignino’s highly anticipated Queer starring Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey. Darnell Appling, who also happens to be Zendaya’s assistant, stars in Challengers as an umpire! He even went to umpire school.
Maybe it’s all the Scandal I’ve been rewatching!