Hollywood star Glen Powell hails Tom Cruise’s acting advice

Hollywood star Glen Powell has said he is indebted to fellow actor Tom Cruise for his advice on performing stunts, as he warned him to “film yourself running because you don’t look as cool as you think you do”.

“He was so right,” Powell said, as he appeared on BBC One’s The Graham Norton Show on Friday.

Also on the programme as a guest was comedian Jack Whitehall, who told Norton about hosting a jewellery awards event in Monaco, which resulted in “tumbleweed” from the audience when he joked about the recent heist at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

“I was wondering what on earth I could talk about when the comedy gods delivered the Louvre heist,” Whitehall said.

“I don’t speak French, so I had no idea that the woman that came on before me said the robbery was one of the most tragic things that had ever happened to the French people, and on I come with a high viz vest with a load of prop jewellery.

“When I said, ‘Who wants Napoleon’s tiara?’, it was tumbleweed. It was horrendous.”

Powell, who has starred in films including Hit Man and Twisters, told Norton about being given advice on performing his own stunts by action star Cruise.

He said: “Tom rang me to give me the lowdown and what I thought would be a 10 minute call lasted two-and-a-half hours.

“He basically told me how not to die! He also gave me running lessons. He said, ‘You should film yourself running because you don’t look as cool as you think you do’. He was so right!”

Powell, who was on Norton’s show to talk about the upcoming dystopian action thriller The Running Man, said he had to “abseil down eight storeys of a building in freezing conditions, half naked” for the film.

“The crazy thing I found out after was that there was a guy whose only job was to stop me kicking a window – which means he was looking up my skirt all night – I wondered what he was seeing take after take!” he added.

Powell and Whitehall were joined on the sofa by actresses Rosamund Pike and Michelle Yeoh, and singer Ed Sheeran, who performed his single Camera live in the studio.

Whitehall, who also discussed playing a villainous “manny” in the new TV series Malice, said: “It has the vibe of White Lotus and Mr Ripley.

“It was such a different role for me as I’m playing a proper villain. It was really fun.

“I had just become a dad and was hiring a nanny when I was filming it, so my level of questioning was intense.”

The full interview can be watched on The Graham Norton Show on BBC One and iPlayer at 10.40pm on Friday.