Wednesday, October 07, 2026
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This summer and fall, I spent a lot of time speaking to and thinking about Glen Powell. What did I find? A movie star, yes. He’s got an estimated $1 billion in projects attached to his name, after all. But also a man who had just gone through a personal reckoning. Below, he opens up about it all. —Madison Vain, executive editor
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The actor has been in high-speed motion for four years, moving at a pace that begs even the casual viewer to wonder if he’ll ever rest. But to what end? Fame? fortune? Oscars? No, he was searching for something else.
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“Did you know I got hurt on The Running Man?” Powell asks me, when the three of us—Powell, me, and Brisket—are still sitting at breakfast. It’s almost an aside, the way it comes up. I am asking Powell if he struggles to stay present. Can he focus on the day’s work, or is his mind always worried about the next script or shoot or deliverable? It’s something he’s struggled with, deeply. A rough stretch that started at the end of 2025—a gruesome injury on the set of the dystopian action outing, followed by uneven box-office results—finally revealed how desperately something needed to change.
The Running Man shoot was long and cold and physically taxing. For the most part, Powell loved it. Loved working with director Edgar Wright, loved doing such punishing stunts. Except then one went wrong. In what would be the film’s final combat scene, the Evan McCone character stabs the hand of Powell’s character. On set, they used a prop knife with a retractable blade, but the blunt force still wreaked havoc. Powell ruptured a tendon in his hand, except he didn’t know he ruptured a tendon and was instead hyperfocused on not delaying production. “Running Man had a release date, and I had the J. J. Abrams movie on deck,” he says by way of explanation.
But the pain worsened and his hand began to swell and swell. Soon Powell found himself in a Bulgarian emergency room, where he learned not only that the tissue had been severed completely but also that he had a septic infection. “This is the real deal,” the doctors cautioned. Powell needed surgery right away, and before he was put under, the attendings gave him a warning: “You could wake up without a hand.”
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I get a day closer to my wedding every day, every hour, and I still haven’t locked in the workout regimen I promised my fiancée I would do months ago. I can blame it on the weather or our busy schedule, but the truth is it’s just something I’ve never loved doing. I’ve always needed external motivation through toys (let’s call it tech). The first time I got an Apple Watch or when I first started wearing an Oura Ring and seeing how it affected my sleep—these are the things that get me in the gym. Seeing my progress, turning it into a game, that stuff sounds corny, but it works for me. Then at the same time, I still have yet to find what I really want. I’ve always yearned for a versatile wearable with real-time workout tracking that I’m comfortable sleeping in—there are plenty of those. But finally, there’s one that’s not trying to nickel and dime me.
It’s taken years of searching and waiting, but I think I may have found what I’m looking for in the Garmin Cirqa. This smart band is the perfect fitness and sleep tracker that’s comfortable, won’t distract me during the day, and doesn’t charge me an annual subscription for basic features. Frankly, I think it’s the shake-up the category has been needing.
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One of the most chilling passages in biblical scripture is when Christ confronts a man possessed by an “unclean spirit.” “My name is Legion,” the being declares in Mark 5:9. “For we are many.” This is even more ominous when you consider this passage from a few verses before: “This man lived in the tombs and no one could any longer bind him, even with chains.”
We all know evil exists in the world and that there are countless perpetrators of it. But what if it’s not possible to stop it? What if you can’t protect yourself—or anyone else? That hopelessness is what encroaches on Scarlett Johansson’s homicide detective in The Exorcist: Martyrs, filmmaker Mike Flanagan’s new chapter in the demonic-possession series, which aims to reignite old fears that date back not just to the 1973 original movie but to something primal and immemorial.
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