A Romantic Action Comedy with Heart: Richard Linklater and Glen Powell Talk ‘Hit Man’

Texas natives Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, School of Rock) and Glen Powell have joined forces to create Hit Man, a delightful comedy that shows off Glen Powell’s acting versatility and Linklater and Powell’s writing chops. They’ve collaborated before with Powell in front of the camera in Fast Food Nation, Everybody Wants Some!! and Apollo 10 ½ but this is a first for them as writing collaborators and their synergy shines through in this energized romantic action comedy. Powell is also a producer on the film. As an actor, he’s had comedy and character roles, but has finally been leaning into well-deserved leading man territory post-Top Gun: Maverick.

Hit Man is based on real life fake hitman Gary Johnson, who worked for law enforcement. Just like Gary Johnson can’t be pigeonholed, neither can the movie. It’s a charismatic and entertaining romp through a man’s complicated life. Glen Powell read the Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollingsworth about Gary and was inspired, particularly in regards to how Johnson dealt with one particular woman who wanted to have her husband killed. Linklater had also read the article at some point, so when Glen approached him about working on the project, they were on the same page.

Evolution of Collaboration

Richard: Kind of the greatest thing about getting to do this over the years, over the decades is when you work with someone you like and the planets align and you get to work with 'em again. It's just wonderful ‘cause you know them and it's relaxed. But with Glen, I think our big breakthrough was 10 years ago when we were shooting Everybody Wants Some. I’d already known him for 10 years at this point. I was like, holy crap. When did Glen become so amazing? He's so smart. He's so charming. I was just seeing this force of nature. I couldn't wait to work with him again. When he called me with this, it was off to the races creatively ‘cause he is just fun to work with.

Glen: I think when we were shooting Everybody Wants Some, it was so interesting. With Hit Man, the two hemispheres of our brains came together in a really effortless way. I feel like this process has been the easiest process. It hasn't been like development, pre-production to production, post-production. It's been this wonderful flow where nothing ever feels like it’s overthought.

How Hit Man Came to Be

Glen: It was early on in the pandemic and I stumbled upon this article in Texas Monthly called "Hit Man" by Skip Hollingsworth. And, immediately, it was so clear there was such a compelling character there. If you look at the real life Gary Johnson, he was a psychology professor who actually moonlighted with the police department, did AV equipment, was an ornithologist, a Zen Buddhist. I thought it was such an incredible character piece, but I didn't really know where it went.

All I knew is that there was like a fascinating guy here, and they called him, you know, a Laurence Olivier fake hitman because he approached the job differently. Instead of just becoming the hitman for hire across from someone who is trying to kill their husband or their wife or their business partner, he embodied their fantasy of what a fake hitman is because hitmen don't exist. So he took this skillset to a whole new level and started putting on these disguises and all these different things. So I was like, ‘Who's the best person on the planet with character?’ So I called up Rick and told him I just read this amazing article called "Hit Man." And he told me, ‘Yeah, I read that article when you were in seventh grade.’ [laughs]

Richard: I was so excited to get this call from Glen because that story had been kicking around in my head. I had talked to Skip, I had had a couple meetings on it over the years, but it didn't really work. It didn't really work as a film because there was this repetition. It didn't really go anywhere. So I told this to Glen. I said, ‘Yeah, I don't think it really works.’ He said, ‘Well, let's talk about it.’ So, we did. We would just have hours of conversations. Glen kind of loosened the log jam I was in. He said, ‘What if we deviate? Why does he have to stick to the facts?’ Once that floodgate opened, we were off to the races. The genres kick in and it becomes this thrill ride. But it was grounded in that reality, what Glen had described, Gary Johnson's life reality. He was a real person with a real job and the strangest occupation anyone could ever have.

Glen: There’s this amazing character math where you have a guy who's teaching humanity, but not experiencing humanity. Getting stuck in the mask in the body of someone who embodies all the dangerous, exciting elements of what humanity is, this sort of roller coaster ride, and ends up finding that he can be a more three-dimensional fun version on the other side of it.

Adria Arjona Taking on the Role of Madison

Glen: Adria really brought so much nuance and mystery to this. So much humanity and authenticity to every single moment where I feel like this could have been, for a lesser actress, a very paint by number sort of thing. And this movie really cooks and cooks in a very unexpectedly vibrant way because Adria came in with a lot of very cool ideas. She was integral to the entire writing process.

The cast includes Glen Powell, Adria Arjona, Retta, and Sanjay Rao. 

Hit Man will be in select theaters on May 24, 2024 and will start streaming on Netflix on June 7, 2024.