A-list heartthrob Glen Powell says he’s ‘leaving’ Hollywood in surprise major move-Lillie Rohan-Entertainment – Metro

Glen Powell is aborting his Hollywood mission (Picture: Chris Saucedo/Variety via Getty Images)

It’s the end of an era for actor Glen Powell, who is preparing to say goodbye to Hollywood. 

In an interview to promote his new film, Hit Man, the A-lister, 35, revealed that he is swapping his life in La La Land to return to his home state of Texas. 

Claiming he has ‘earned the ability to go back to my family’ after more than 15 years of hard work in Los Angeles, the actor’s recent success with Top Gun: Maverick and rom-com Anyone But You co-starring Sydney Sweeney, 26, means he has solidified his spot in the industry. 

Powell recently confessed he was running out of money while waiting for the premiere of Top Gun: Maverick, as Tom Cruise famously refused to let it drop on a streamer without a theatrical release.

‘I’d never made any significant amount of money on a movie, including Top Gun, and I was depleting a bank account to a point where my accountant was like, “This pandemic cannot last much longer,”’ he told the Hollywood Reporter.

‘But Tom was already Tom; I was waiting for my life to change.’

Glen’s Top Gun gamble paid off (Picture: Scott Garfield / Paramount Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection)

Following the release of the 2022 flick – which made almost $1.5billion at the global box office, Powell was catapulted into a new level of fame, explaining that the benefit of ‘getting to this point in Hollywood is that I can now leave Hollywood’.

He continued to say his decision to move to Austin was partly influenced by famed actor Matthew McConaughey, 54, who relocated to the state in 2020 during the Covid pandemic. 

‘He’s like, “Hollywood is the Matrix, man. You plug in, and it’s all fake world,”‘ the actor continued to recall his conversation with the True Detective star.

He added: ‘He’s like “Then I go to Austin, and I unplug. It’s all real. Those are my friends, that’s my family, my actions matter there.’” 

While Glen and Sydney’s characters fell in love, the world fell in love with them (Picture: Sony via AP)

Moving to Austin means Glen can be a full-time fun uncle (Picture: Hubert Vestil/Getty Images)

Glen might not see mean tweets, but his parents do – and they take notes (Picture: Jack Plunkett/Invision/AP)

Powell said after talking to McConaughey, he realised ‘he’s right’ and noted that while it’s okay to live in the Matrix if you are always there, you can’t separate the two worlds.

‘For me, especially as my parents get older and my niece and nephew are growing up, I want a separation of those worlds,’ he said.

On his relationship with McConaughey, Powell revealed the two are ‘friends’, and while they have ‘never talked about actually collaborating on something’, the star has always looked up to the Hollywood alum and believes ‘it will happen on the sooner side’ now they are living in the same state. 

For any other plans Powell has in Austin, he revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that he plans to finish his degree at the University of Texas. Confessing it’s important to his mum, he added for him, he’s so close ‘I can taste it’. 

Mostly, the star is just happy to be closer to his family. Powell has made no secret of his close relationship with his family. While attending the premiere of his latest writing, directing and acting accomplishment, Hit Man, he appeared with his parents, Glen Sr and Cyndy, and his extended family. 

Powell’s parents went viral for their appearance after they held up cardboard signs reading ‘Stop trying to make Glen Powell happen’, and ‘It’s never gonna happen.’ – a reference to both the infamous film Mean Girls and a series of mean tweets directed at the star. 

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight on the carpet, Powell chuckled as he explained: ‘Well, my family – always my mom and my dad – are known for kind of trolling me a bit.’

‘I don’t read tweets, but my parents read tweets – so if you’re talking s***, know that my parents are reading those tweets,’ he said. ‘They thought that was going to be a funny idea, so I loved it.’ 

The star said that while his parents’ troll’ him, they are also his biggest supporters.

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