Glen Powell told Esquire in a new profile published Wednesday that he has no intention of stepping into the ring of political discourse, telling the outlet, “My calling is elsewhere.”
“Over time, I realized that politics divide people,” Powell explained. “People trying to prove their point — for me, it’s the worst version of a conversation. I genuinely do not like the discourse. It’s not as healthy as it once was.”
“[Engaging in politics] is not presently possible. I applaud people for jumping into those things and fighting for what they believe in,” the actor added. “If I were a political person, I would be talking about it. For me, my calling is elsewhere.” In the profile, Powell noted that his stance aligns with the way he was raised.
His parents apparently almost never talked about current events or politics at the dinner table when he was growing up. “Thank God,” he remarked to Esquire.
While speaking with the outlet, Powell also touched on the lackluster financial performance of his 2025 blockbuster “The Running Man,” which grossed under $70 million at the worldwide box office on a reported budget of $110 million. The actor partly blamed the film’s poor box office performance on behind-the-scenes marketing turnover at Paramount, pointing to mass layoffs that hit the studio in October 2025.
“They let go of an entire marketing department a month before our movie came out in the middle of a merger,” he noted.
Powell is, notably, not the only mainstream Hollywood star who has been open about their desire to avoid public political statements. In November 2025, Jennifer Lawrence told The New York Times that she would be avoiding open political discussion, marking a dramatic change from the years she spent openly calling out Donald Trump and campaigning against him.
“The first Trump administration was so wild and just how can we let this stand? I felt like I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. But as we’ve learned, election after election, celebrities do not make a difference whatsoever on who people vote for,” Lawrence told the Times about her decision. “So then what am I doing? I’m just sharing my opinion on something that’s going to add fuel to a fire that’s ripping the country apart. We are so divided.”
The actress explained that she does not want to “start turning people off to films and to art that could change consciousness or change the world because they don’t like my political opinions.”
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