Chad Powers season 2 has touch downed on Hulu and fans are experiencing the return of Russ Holliday (Glen Powell). Created by Powell and Avengers: Doomsday scribe Michael Waldron, the show is based on a Eli Manning sketch from 2022. While the first season had a lot of people wondering what this show could even be about, season 2 really found its footing and a lot of it, seemingly, came from Powell’s mid-season action training.
Powell was, prior to season 1 of Chad Powers, a box office leading man. From Top Gun: Maverick to Anyone But You and into Twisters, Powell was making a name for himself in the movies. But he did get his “start” on television. Prior to being a star of the silver screen, Powell was in the television series Scream Queens as Chad Radwell. So Chad Powers is very much a return to his television roots. Mix in the football of it all and the rest is Catfish history.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Waldron talked about how Powell’s training for the 2025 film The Running Man and the upcoming JJ Abrams film The Great Beyond helped to give Powell an edge when he returned for season 2 of the show. “We got him right after that, so we were getting a full-on action star. [Powell] has been making these huge action movies, so he understood his own body. He understood impact and action on camera in a totally new way, and the way that he settled back into throwing and playing quarterback with next to no time to prepare was crazy,” Waldron said. “But man, he’s a freak.”
Glen Powell surprised coaches
In the same interview, Powell talked to the outlet about how coaches would talk to him about his ability as a quarterback and how season 2 was different from his approach to season 1. “My agility — and I think just physical ability — in the ‘offseason,’ so to speak, really increased,” Powell told THR. “Every coach came up to me and they’re like, ‘Dude, you are like a way better quarterback this season!’ It just felt more effortless, which was great. So it was fun.”
He clarified that season 1 wasn’t a bad quarterback moment but rather that he was in his own head a bit when it came to being a football star. “Sometimes it takes a second,” he said, “the stakes of becoming a quarterback — and especially someone who’s supposed to be a generational talent.”
Powell went on to talk about how his stunt work ended up helping him. “I’m a football fan. We all know what a generational talent looks like, and so as an actor to kind of like rise to that occasion, it’s a tall order,” Powell said. “But we put in a lot of work, and to have that kind of marinate over the course of time and be moving around — especially on Running Man and The Great Beyond — it’s very stunt-intensive.”
You can see how his action training helped in season 2 of Chad Powers, streaming now.
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