The Running Man, of course, is the title of the 1982 Stephen King novel (published under the pen-name Richard Bachman) that has been made into a movie twice, once in 1987 as an Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle and again as the Edgar Wright film releasing this weekend. But the title “running man” may also belong to the guy who has one of the most famous sprints in Hollywood, Tom Cruise.So it makes perfect sense that The Running Man star Glen Powell would reach out to Cruise for some advice about his latest blockbuster film. Cruise didn’t tell Powell, who together in Top Gun: Maverick, how to give the latter’s character Ben Richards a distinctive sprint; but he did tell Powell how to pull off great stunts. “Most of the advice I got was really just about how not to die on this movie,” Powell recalled to Hollywood Reporter. “That was most of it.”cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});“He was just always telling me, ‘Don’t do some of these stunts late at night when you’re tired.’ He was asking me questions about what the movie was like and what it looked like and how it spanned,” continued Powell. Upon learning that many of Powell’s stunt sequences for Running Man took place at night, Cruise expressed concerned. “He was like, ‘That’s going to be a problem. Your body is extremely tired at night. People get hurt more often when shooting at five in the morning [because] you’re rushing to make it before sunrise.'”Cruise’s advice is very useful, for a couple of reasons. First, staying alive is a big part of The Running Man experience, both on and off the screen. Set in a dystopian future, The Running Man is also the title of a gameshow in which contestants try to stay alive for thirty days to win cash prizes, evading both highly-trained hunters and even ordinary citizens looking to collect a bounty. Desperate for money to help his daughter, Powell’s character Richards joins the game.Second, the advice matters because it comes from Tom Cruise. For years now, Cruise has added to his movie star persona a certain daredevil streak, a commitment to doing real stunts himself, not relying on CGI or a stunt man. Cruise’s death-defying set-pieces have become a hallmark of the Mission: Impossible series, setting a standard that movies like The Running Man have to clear.For his part, Powell is just glad that he has access to such a unique expert. “I feel so grateful that I can call him for advice,” he said. “The reality is there’s probably only one person on the planet that can give this type of advice, and it’s him. So the fact that he’s one call away and he’s always willing to pick up, it’s unbelievable.”The friendship may be unbelievable to Powell, but Cruise is in the business of making us believe the unbelievable. So if Powell and Wright want to their version of The Running Man to stand out against its predecessors, then they’ve got to sell the danger, making Cruise’s advice invaluable.The Running Man is now playing in theaters across the country.The post Tom Cruise Taught Glen Powell How to Not Die Making The Running Man appeared first on Den of Geek.