INTERVIEW: Glen Powell on Starring In New Film Devotion with Jonathan Majors, Joe Jonas, and More

Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick) stars in Sony Pictures’ Devotion as Tom Hudner, the wingman for Jonathan Majors’ (Lovecraft Country, The Harder They Fall, Loki) real-life character Jesse Brown, the first Black aviator in Navy history. 

Devotion tells the story of two elite US Navy fighter pilots, Hudner and Brown, who made history in the Korean War and follows their friendship and professional career with the many challenges they faced. Not only is it an amazing action film filled with intense flight scenes utilizing the aviation coordinator, Kevin LaRosa Jr., who worked on Top Gun: Maverick, but it’s also a love story with Christina Jackson (Swagger, The Night House, Outsiders) starring as Daisy, the wife of Jesse Brown and navigating the complicated racial traumas of the 1950s.

Devotion is directed by JD Dillard and written by Jake Crane and Jonathan A. H. Stewart. The film is produced by Molly Smith, Rachel Smith, and Thad Luckinbill. Executive producers of the film include JD Dillard, Glen Powell, Robert Simonds, Adam Fogelson, and John Friedberg. Majors, Powell and Jackson, are joined by Thomas Sadoski and Joe Jonas, who complete the cast.

We chatted with Glen about how he got his start in acting and producing, how Devotion came to fruition through persistence and tenacity, his thoughts on the stellar cast, as well as his friendship with Jonathan Majors and Joe Jonas. He also shared details on his inspiration from pal and former Top Gun: Maverick co-star Tom Cruise.

NIKKI: Really great to chat with you again. We met briefly at the William Morris screening with Courtney B. Vance, so I just wanted to say congrats again on all your success, including your new film Devotion, which is a wonderful body of work. I mean, it was just truly moving. And again, I’m just throwing accolades; you were also incredible in Top Gun: Maverick as Hang Man.

GLEN: Ah, Thank you.

NIKKI: Yes, and they say movie stars don’t exist anymore, but I have to say, you’re proving them wrong.

GLEN: Oh, you are the sweetest as well. I appreciate it. We got a long way to go, Majors and I, but yeah, good start.

NIKKI: You’re an Austin native, and you have many credits under your belt. Can you tell us a little about how and when you began your journey into acting and producing?

GLEN: The thing about movies is, this is all I’ve ever wanted to do. I didn’t know if it was as an actor or a writer, a director, or a producer. I just love telling stories, and I’ve always just kind of been obsessed with it. There was a large period of my life, like when I was a kid; I was just making special effects. I watched all the Mission Impossible movies. I watched James Bond, and I would make special effects in my backyard with my friends. I’ve just kind of always been obsessed with this thing. It’s never seemed one-dimensional. It always kind of seemed holistic. So, I think that’s why anybody that knows me really well knows I’ll just geek out on anything movies, whether it’s costumes or visual effects. I’m always hanging behind camera, trying to understand more because there’s just an endless amount of fascinating people in this business. You’re all kind of facing the same direction to do really cool magic tricks for the world. So it’s just awesome when it all comes together. But yeah, there’s just an endless amount of things to learn. So I think as a kid growing up in Austin, there was this wonderful period, it just worked out where there was a large tax incentive in Texas, and so movies were coming there sort of the way they’re coming to Georgia, and it was just like this kind of burst of work. I was just a normal kid. I was a normal student. I played sports, and it wasn’t like my life. But every couple of months or three months or something, I’d get a chance to audition for something, and every once in a while, I’d get it. I got to build a resume and an education out of Austin. Before I moved out to L.A., Denzel Washington, when I did this movie called The Great Debaters that I auditioned for out of Boston, Denzel was the one who really encouraged me to give this a shot and really pursue it and chase my dream. Again, it’s just been a long road to anybody that knows me. It’s like I’ve kind of been just at this for a long time and really tenacious about it. I just wake up, love talking about movies, love watching movies, and this is just what I love. So it’s nice that I’m finally getting to kind of have a little bit more control over what I put on the screen. I think Devotion is a really good example of that, is something I’ve been obsessed about for years, a story that’s really close to my heart and one that I just am really proud that it’s out in the world now.

NIKKI: That’s really incredible to hear, and not too shabby getting advice from Denzel. As you mentioned, you have been working on getting Devotion off the ground for many years. How did you get involved with this as an executive producer and actor? How did it come together?

GLEN: This was a project that originally was a book. It came out in 2015, actually; I read it in 2016, and the rights were taken. First, I was on a fishing trip with my dad and my uncle, and my cousins. It was not a well-known book, but my dad and my uncle were both reading it, which was kind of strange, and they were like, “This book is incredible.” And they were talking about it, and so I read it and became like, “Wow,” obviously it was a story that’s happened over 70 years ago, but it just felt so topical. It felt so nuanced and not obvious. I think a lot of movies that deal with the first African-American, you know, whatever, or a relationship that deals with sort of a relationship between two people from two different worlds; they can break these things down into, as you sort of heard in that Q&A with Courtney, I think there’s just a simplicity that is kind of offensive sometimes. I think one of the things that I loved about this book is how it kind of took that subject and brought so many complicated things to it, not with a guy who is racist and becomes a good guy. It’s like a guy who’s doing his best and doesn’t understand how to do that and someone who has forged a path in an unaffordable place. And, again, Jesse Brown, who started in the mud and ended up in the sky, it’s just a story of the movies that really got me into this business. It just felt so familiar in that way and yet something I had never seen before. Obviously, when you don’t have anything based on really huge IP, this is a boulder that I knew was going to be a very tough boulder to push up the hill, but one that if we got it there, it was going to be very worth it. So I started the process of trying to get the rights because someone else had the rights. At a party, I found out that they actually never planned on making the movie, so I asked them if I could make the movie, and I reached out to the writer and started the process of meeting Tom Hudner and the Browns and got their blessing and then brought it to Black Label Media, who has been just unbelievable partners on this. They just got it immediately, and they didn’t want to do the stock version loaded with tropes. They really wanted to do the truthful version, and they’re just incredible producers. So we started pushing this thing along, and it’s been hard to kind of convince people along the way why we love this movie and why it matters and why the real version matters. I’m just so proud that we’re here at the end of this journey and sort of how this is. It’s really hard to make a movie, much less make a movie in the way you want to make it. Assembling the pieces, whether it be JD Dillard or Jonathan Majors, these are crucial pieces, and I couldn’t have asked for better partners in this thing, but it’s been a long road. As we get to the end of this year here and I’m just feeling so grateful that it came together exactly how I always dreamed it would.

NIKKI: Can you tell us a bit more about your character, Tom Hudner, and what he learns from Jesse as well as his wife Daisy on being an ally versus a savior.

GLEN: Yeah, I think that that was the first thing that I noticed, which is everybody goes, “Wait, he doesn’t save him? Like it doesn’t work out?” And that was the immediate thing, that people that said that I was like, “They don’t get it.” And then the people that were like, “Oh, wow, like, what is that about?” Like, you lean into it. That was the thing that I felt made this story different, that when you look at stories made in the ’90s or early 2000s, again, they simplified the idea of allyship into saving someone and the bigger conversations that JD and I had, especially as we were kind of really writing this thing, during the Black Lives Matter protests. There was confusion on how to show up for people. I was confused, I’m a guy who wants to do the right thing, and I think Tom Hudner wants to do the right thing, but at certain times, it can be very confusing. It doesn’t matter if you’re well-meaning. You can try to show up for someone and actually be doing exactly the opposite thing, and it was that sort of paralyzing feeling of trying to listen and not knowing where to go. That is sort of what was a starting place for Tom because when I did a character, there’s a psychological study on Tom Hudner and his highest score is conscientiousness. He’s a well-meaning guy, and he was not a loud person, but he was a person that just really wanted to do the right thing. It’s that disorientation that really became what I wanted to learn as Glen Powell out of this entire experience, and one of the things that Tom has to learn is it’s not about being a hero. It’s not about necessarily finishing the job; it’s showing up for people. There’s this one speech that Tommy Sadowski gives, which is about war, and about being a wingman and all those things, and it’s like there is no finish line. It’s just about being. It’s just showing up for people and being someone that you can rely on, and that is the definition of a wingman for me and what this movie is about. It’s being a reliable friend and someone who’s willing to bleed for the people you love.

NIKKI: From a production standpoint, what was the process like in making things look authentically 1950s? Everything just looks so genuine.

GLEN: I mean, it’s authentic because it is. It’s wild, period pieces; I’ve always been so enthralled with them because it requires different gear for a crew. Right? It requires actors to understand things that could be anachronistic or that could take an audience out of it, how they talked, how they walked, what was going on in the world, all those different things. For costumes, it’s obviously different for visual effects, even just us pulling the planes from around the world. The interesting part is that the Corsair is an incredibly difficult plane to fly. It’s very heavy, and it’s a character in this movie. The nose is large, and it’s not an easy plane to fly, and not a lot of people are flying them. So we had to go to literally plane enthusiasts, people that fly these things in airshows and whatnot, and convince them to paint these planes in the exact way that they would have been. Not only that but one of the things that’s just so fascinating is Wynn Thomas, who was our amazing production designer, had to find the exact paint that they used that’s worn because you don’t want this thing to look brand spanking new and clean. So everything down to the paint that’s used is time period accurate. So it’s just things like that that I just find to be so fascinating when you get to do a movie like this, which is, on Topgun, we’re on naval bases, these are modern airplanes, the F-18s are the planes that are being flown over our heads every day, Corsairs we just had to pull every Corsair we could from around the world. I think there are more Corsairs flying in this movie than there have been since the Korean War, which is pretty cool.

NIKKI: Can you talk to us about the stunts in the film? You worked with Kevin La Rosa on Top Gun, as well as Devotion. Can you share a little bit more about the filming techniques used?

GLEN: Yes, so Kevin La Rosa, as you know, was the aerial coordinator on Top Gun. Thank God I had that relationship to go to with him and a whole long run with him, learning how he accomplished all those things on Top Gun. The language of aerial photography is very interesting. It can have different emotional reactions for an audience depending on how you shoot it. It was really interesting trying to differentiate ourselves from Top Gun and listen to how the planes kind of informed the way we shoot it and really take lessons. Because when you think about it, warfare has changed; the Corsairs had to go low level to destroy these bridges. They didn’t have the same sort of radar or targeting technology that these modern planes have, so it’s just a different type of flying. I think that was an interesting thing of how that informed Kevin LaRosa, the way he shot all of it. That relationship is strong because it has to be from what JD Dillard is shooting on the ground; he can’t be up in the planes with us. So it’s that communication between the story on the ground and what we do up in the air that has to be over-communicated to Kevin La Rosa. He has to know exactly emotionally what the impact is and then what we’re shooting on the ground. We have to know because Jonathan’s in a different plane than I am. Obviously, we can’t be communicating up there. There’s a lot going on. So we just have to be on the same page in terms of those small, nuanced moments that will really put the audience in the cockpit with us and be emotionally impactful as a story. So it’s just a very different gear, but I’m really glad I had that education on Top Gun. I’m not sure we would have been able to do it as effortlessly as we did it on Devotion if we didn’t have the ‘Tom Cruise School of Aviation Filmmaking’ that I had on that movie.

NIKKI: It all came off perfectly. It looked so realistic and incredible. You mentioned in other interviews that Tom Cruise gifted you with flying lessons. I’m also hearing you’re jumping out of planes, skydiving, all these incredible things in your personal life. So what’s up with that?

GLEN: What’s up with that? Yeah, Tom’s lifestyle is very it’s infectious; it’s like the way he lives life, which is just full throttle, and the way he brings you into that world. It’s not like he’s just like, “Hey, I do cool stuff.” The way he talks about the way he wants you to be a part of it is just infectious. If I could be 100th as interesting as Tom Cruise, I’d love that. But yeah, the fun part is, since we started shooting that movie, I’d ridden motorcycles a little bit. I’d done a little dirt biking. I’d never jumped out of a plane. I’d never flown a plane. I’ve done small things, very active, and I think people would say that I do like adrenaline. But when you look at Tom, my version of adrenaline and his are very different. But yeah, I’d say, like, for instance, I’m doing some stunt-driving stuff next week. We’re going to be doing some motocross stuff before I get on somebody else’s insurance plan for a movie, and I’m not allowed to do those things anymore, so I just try to sneak them in before a studio is liable.

NIKKI: Nice. The cast in this film was phenomenal, and the talent resonates in the final product. What was it like working with Jonathan Majors and some of the cast, onscreen and offscreen? I can imagine there was really great chemistry.

GLEN: Oh, yeah. I mean, Jonathan Majors is my brother. I mean, building this thing along with him and JD was an experience I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life. I have a picture in my house, in my hallway, of JD, Jonathan, and I hugging after the crash sequence. It was a sequence we talked about for a long time prior. We’re retreading the ground of these two men and one of their final moments. This movie was just made with such love, and I learned so much about Jonathan through the process. We learned so much about these men through the process that it was really cathartic but very emotional in terms of the relationship I have with other people and particularly men in my life. You rarely crack open your soul with another group of guys like that unless you’re going through something significantly horrible. But when you have to recreate that on screen, you have that same sort of emotional bond, which is just interesting. So, yeah, I consider Jonathan Majors not only just one of the great talents of our time, I’m just so excited to watch his trajectory. We talk about the stuff that we’re kind of playing around with or thinking about doing next and just seeing where his career is going and the choices he’s making and the risks he’s taking, and just how fearless he is as a performer. It’s just the world is in for a wild ride; I’m just really excited to see what he does, and I’m just so lucky to have him as a friend. And to that point, you have someone like Joe Jonas, who has been one of my great friends for a long time, and you always get a little nervous when friends submit audition tapes or things like that, and you’re kind of in the back of your head just kind of hoping it’s good so that it’s not tough. When Joe’s audition came in, it was such a fun moment for me as a friend because, obviously, he’s a massive pop star, and he’s acted before, but this is really his first like “movie movie.” He just came to play, and in addition to just him really diving in with both feet as a performer and showing people just an unexpected side of him. He also was, I would say, the social chair of the set in the fact that during a time of COVID, we’re dealing with really heavy themes and really heavy storylines. Like, we’re all having to channel some pretty dark things sometimes, and really Joe was the light of the movie. He brought guys out to play golf. We played game nights at his house. He kind of kept everybody sane and in the bubble; he and Sophie Turner are just like the loveliest couple of all time and just really would host dinners, and he’s just a special, special person. All the Jonas brothers have been friends of mine for probably over eight years now, so to share this screen with Joe is just a real privilege and just a fun thing. Then you have guys like Spencer Neville, who I think is going to have a massive career Daren Kagasoff, Nick Hargrove, and Tommy Sadowski. I don’t know if you know who Thomas Sadowski is, but I’ve been a fan of his for a long time. So when he expressed interest in this movie, I was thrilled. Then, Christina Jackson, I think for me, is the biggest discovery of this movie. It was a role that we knew needed to work. She is the heartbeat of this movie, that relationship between Daisy and Jesse is crucial, and the way that she and Tom pair together in that ability to have access to Jesse’s heart is very interesting and very specific. You need an actress who can pull all those things out of herself, and also, it’s just such a nuanced role. We’ve seen versions of this role, just like we’ve seen versions of Jesse. It’s like we’ve seen this work and we’ve seen it not work, and it takes a really special kind of actor who understands those subtleties and those nuances to make it click for an audience and really add the depth that it needs to have. So, Christina Jackson, I’m just so happy to be a part of her journey. She’s just going to have a massive career and make really great movies. I mean, I was just talking to her about what she wants to do; it just makes me really thrilled to be a part of her journey because she’s going to make great movies. She just really wants to put more love around the world, which is great.

NIKKI: Yes, she’s incredible, and that’s really beautiful to hear. Finally, what’s next for you?

GLEN: I just wrapped production now with Richard Linklater on a movie called Hitman that we wrote and produced together and that he’s directing and starring in. I actually get to see a first cut in assembly here in the coming days. But we’ve we’re both really, really excited. I mean, Rick, every time I talk to him every couple of days here as he’s in the editing room, he’s just giddy with how fun this movie is. So I’m really excited to get to see it myself. But I’m sure the world will get to see it sometime, probably in mid-2023.

NIKKI: Well, Glenn, thank you so much. It was a pleasure speaking with you, and I wish you nothing but success in your future endeavors.

GLEN: Thank you so much. And by the way, thank you so much for being so supportive of both Devotion and Top Gun: Maverick. You’re just such a vocal cheerleader, and I know so many people have your ear, and you have the ear and respect of so many people. So thank you for doing that.

NIKKI: Thank you so much.

Devotion hits theaters on Nov 23 and debuts on Paramount+ on January 8, 2023.