In Richard Linklater’s new movie Everybody Wants Some!!, much male energy is spent picking up women. The joyful, '80s-set movie (which opens in limited release March 30) is the "spiritual sequel" to Dazed and Confused, dropping in on baseball players at a Texas college during the three days before classes start. Libidos run wild. One of the teammates, Finnegan (Glen Powell), has an interesting pickup technique: He attempts to charm the ladies by humble-bragging about his “average cock.” (Perhaps not an inaccurate assumption on his part.) What could be incredibly off-putting comes off as weirdly charming.
That’s a credit to Powell, 27, who you might recognize as the obnoxious Chad Radwell on Scream Queens. As the mustachioed Finn — the 'stache was real, the shag was not — Powell steals the movie so consistently that he may have you thinking of a certain actor from Dazed and Confused: Matthew McConaughey.
“I think Finn’s an original guy,” Powell tells me during a recent phone interview. “I’ve never seen that before. Why would a guy say that to a girl? But it’s original and obviously it works.” Wait...does it really, in real life? “You know, I’ve never tried that line,” he says. “I think my girlfriend would probably be a little upset if I tried that.”
Powell happens to be calling me from a car in Phoenix, packed in with his co-stars Wyatt Russell, J. Quinton Johnson, and Forrest Vickery. So I follow up: Have any of them tried the "average cock" line? “We could try it live if you want,” Powell suggests. “We’re literally pulling up to the hotel right now. We could walk up to the bar and you could live-hear one of these guys attempt it.” Alas, our interview ended before I could bear witness to this sociological experiment.
In any case, Powell believes that the line represents the “magic” of a Linklater movie, in this case, one that invites us to listen in on a close-knit community of male athletes on the prowl. And so, in the following slides, Powell walks us through four key factors in the timeless art of seduction, according to Everybody Wants Some!!
Correction: An earlier version of this story misquoted Powell's character. He describes his member as "average," not "average-sized."
Be A Chameleon
In addition to pure magnetism, one of the reasons that Powell's performance recalls McConaughey’s is that Finn is similarly into philosophizing and getting with women. (That said, unlike McConaughey’s sometimes creepy Wooderson, Finn goes for girls who are also in college, not high schoolers who “stay the same age.”)
Finn talks a mile a minute, smokes a pipe, and reads Kerouac. He not only participates in the revelry, but also comments on it in order to educate newbie Jake (Blake Jenner). Finn realizes that baseball isn’t his future.
Powell says that Linklater pitched Finn to him as an “amalgamation of a guy that you wish you could have been back then: the guy who has it all together, the guy who’s got theories about things and knows how to adapt.” And adapt he does, especially to appeal to different sorts of women. Over the course of the movie, the men go to a disco, a country club, and a punk venue. Finn embraces each one with relish.
“I think he’s got several different approaches," Powell explains. "Just as he adapts to different clubs and scenarios with his dress or the way he talks or the way he dances, I think he does that with women as well.” When Finn sees a girl with a typewriter in the back of her car, he decides to be extra loquacious. (Talking is sort of his thing, anyway.) She, however, doesn’t buy that. At the end of the movie, he runs into her again at a theater-kid party. This time, he describes himself as a the quiet type — a beat Powell and Linklater added at the last minute. She instantly starts making out with him. While this chameleon quality makes him seem like a cad, he also defends his strategy to his teammates when they call him out for his bullshit: At least he’s trying to appeal to girls’ interests.
Pictured: Blake Jenner and Glen Powell in Everybody Wants Some!!
It’s All About Intent
Powell acknowledges that, without context, the Everybody Wants Some!! team members’ comments may sound, well, “douchey.” And thanks to Scream Queens, Powell is no stranger to playing that type. “Man, I’m kind of getting typecast — this is rough,” he says when I bring this up. “I'm starting to learn a little bit about myself, geez.” But, he insists, it’s all about reading the character’s motivation.
What are some of the douchiest things they say? Well, the guys aren't exactly eloquent or overly respectful when talking about women. They do not shy away from talking about their quest for "pussy."
“There’s no malicious intent at any point in this movie. It’s all about fun and all about having a good time," Powell says. "Saying things for selfish or dirty reasons — that’s not what this movie is about, and that’s not what this team is about.”
Linklater is singularly focused on the male point of view in the film. In fact, only one woman (Zoey Deutch), Jake's love interest, gets significant screen time. Yes, this is can be frustrating for female viewers. But to Linklater's credit, the guys are just so genuine that you can’t help but have a good time watching them. Perhaps it's because they have such strong feelings for one another. "They are in constant competition and they are constantly fucking with each other," Powell says. "And at the same time they love each other so much, it’s palpable."
Pictured: Glen Powell, Wyatt Russell, Blake Jenner, J. Quinton Johnson, and Temple Baker in Everybody Wants Some!!
Times Have Changed
Everybody Wants Some!!’s politically incorrect but gleeful men are also products of a different time period. They wear short shorts, have mustaches, and sing along to Sugar Hill Gang's “Rapper’s Delight." When Linklater decided the song would be used in the movie, he asked the cast to memorize "all 13-and-a-half minutes of it," Powell says. "We're like, 'Are you kidding me dude?' We got a pretty good chunk of the way in."
In addition to changing tastes in music, the art of wooing has evolved thanks to the internet. During his first day on campus, Jake meets a mystery woman (Deutch) who flirts with him. He makes note of the room she lives in — which his friends do point out is a stalker-ish move. Later, he pins a message and flowers on her door. She's skeptical, but gives Jake a call. “I think girls these days would be totally creeped out by that. I’m not sure they would find it a romantic gesture or chivalrous,” Powell says. “I think they would find it to be a little shocking and a little intense.” Powell — who, remember, is still in his 20s and is therefore purely speculating about the Reagan era — thinks people aren't as willing to put themselves out on a limb as they once were. "It’s all about hedging your bets and not being hurt," he says. "I think there’s a certain amount of safety, whether it be on a dance floor or with apps or with dating."
This team really does let loose on the dance floor. Watching them boogie and line dance is a treat.
Guys Aren't That Different From Girls
One of the things you’ll notice when watching the film is that stereotypical guy behavior can often look a lot like stereotypical girl behavior. The team members are concerned about wearing the appropriate attire for parties. They primp. They analyze their bodies. In one memorable moment, Ryan Guzman’s Roper gazes at his butt in the mirror. “Girls, they come up to me and say, 'You’ve got the best cheese on campus,'” he says.
Powell has found that the women in his life are just as receptive to the movie as the men. “If you’ve ever played on a girls' sports team, you find that things aren’t that different," Powell says. “Getting dressed up, that excitement of going out, playing a little chameleon. It’s all the same game.”
Pictured: Zoey Deutch and Blake Jenner in Everybody Wants Some!!
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