Glen Powell needed emergency surgery after a retractable knife injured his hand during a stunt for The Running Man. At a hospital in Bulgaria, he learned the tissue had been completely severed and he’d developed a septic infection. He was warned he “could wake up without a hand.”
The injury happened while filming a confrontation in the 2025 thriller: Lee Pace’s character, Evan McCone, stabs Powell’s character, Ben Richards, in the hand. Powell kept his attention on the production until pain and worsening swelling sent him to the emergency room.
“Running Man had a release date, and I had the J. J. Abrams movie on deck,” Powell said. He recalled doctors telling him, “This is the real deal.” Sepsis can threaten a person’s life when the body’s response to infection damages its own tissues and organs.
The surgery saved his hand. Medical staff advised him to “keep the injury dry, warm, and at rest,” but he returned to filming the next day. His character’s bandaged arm was worked into the script.
One sequence required Powell to climb an apartment building wearing only a bath towel around his waist. He said he filmed it in “negative 10-degree weather with one arm.”
Powell said he “left that movie broken, physically and emotionally” and found himself asking, “Do you keep sprinting?”
