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Glen Powell’s role in Chad Powers is drawing comparison to Robin Williams — and he’s all too happy to have his show be likened to “one of the greats.”
In the new Hulu show, Chad Powers, 37-year-old Powell plays former star quarterback Russ Holliday, who goes undercover as Chad Powers to walk onto the struggling South Georgia Catfish team eight years after becoming an embarrassment following a costly mistake at the national championship.
Because Holliday is in disguise, he wears elaborate prosthetics — which have drawn comparisons to Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire, the 1993 movie in which the comedian played a divorced dad who poses as a matronly Scottish housekeeper to be closer to his kids.
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While on the red carpet ahead of the 2026 Golden Globes in Beverly Hills, California on Sunday, January 11, Powell acknowledged that his new show has yielded comparisons to Mrs. Doubtfire
“Robin Williams was one of the greats,” Powell said, while speaking to E!. “He really made movies that were fun in terms of the joy they gave people, but they also had a lot of heart. He figured out that duality.”
Williams died by suicide at age 63 on Aug. 11, 2014, at his Paradise Cay mansion in San Francisco after struggling with an undiagnosed case of the debilitating brain disorder Lewy Body Dementia (LBD).
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Before Powell portrayed the fictional athlete, former professional football player Eli Manning originated the character of Chad Powers.
While the show itself is fictional, it is based on and inspired by Eli’s character of the same name in the 2022 ESPN docuseries, Eli’s Places. The episode from the viral miniseries starred Eli, using professional hair and makeup artists to disguise him as Powers, trying out as a walk-on quarterback for Penn State.
“We took that concept and that inspiration and have doubled down on the prosthetics, updated it, improved it, new model, new Chad, and we’re making a hell of a show here,” Powell explained in an interview with Good Morning America.
