Why Hangman in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Looks So Familiar

If you’re one of the many people who have taken to the theaters to see Top Gun: Maverick since its record-breaking Memorial Day weekend debut, you might be wondering why Lt. Jake “Hangman” Seresin looks so familiar as part of the all-star cast. Actor Glen Powell plays the danger-seeking pilot in the highly-anticipated sequel to Top Gun, but this isn’t the first time he’s made waves on the screens both big and small.

The Austin-raised actor, 33, started off in local films, including Richard Linklater’s 2006 movie Fast Food Nation, but decided to move to Los Angeles after Denzel Washington, who directed him in 2007’s The Great Debaters, gave him the push he needed. “Denzel was the guy that said, ‘Hey, I think you should really give this a shot,’” he told Entertainment Weekly. Throughout his twenties, Powell played everything from small roles in the TV show Rizzoli and Isles and Scream Queens to film roles like “Trader #1” in The Dark Knight Rises before graduating to bigger roles in movies including The Expendables 3 and 2016’s Everybody Wants Some!!

Powell’s biggest roles before Top Gun: Maverick were astronaut John Glenn in the Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures and romantic lead Charlie in the Netflix rom-com Set It Up, starring opposite Zoey Deutch. Powell admitted to Entertainment Weekly that he nearly didn’t take the role of Hangman in Top Gun: Maverick after learning he didn’t get the role of Rooster, which went eventually to Miles Teller. Thinking the secondary role a step back professionally, Powell turned the part down before Tom Cruise himself intervened. 

“Once Tom found out, he was like, ‘Bring him in here,’” director Joseph Kosinski recalled to the outlet. “So Glen came in and I sat down in a room with him and Tom. Tom said to him, ‘What kind of career do you want Glen?’ And Glen said, ‘I want your career, Tom.’ Tom said, How do you think I got here?’ And Glen said, ‘By picking great roles.’ And Tom said, ‘No, it’s by picking great movies and then I made the roles good.’ For Glen that was a real eye-opening moment. He took the role that, on the page, wasn’t as big as it is in the film and just turned it into something really really special.” Top Gun: Maverick is playing in theaters now.