The day I met Glen Powell
And other exciting things that happen in London even if I'm the only one to notice them.
It was just another unremarkable week and things were proceeding normally.
The weather was miserable, my landlady had called me to ask when I’d be in to send someone to value the flat (shit, shit, shit, shit and more shit), my bank account was still not multiplying by the thousands while London rent, rather annoyingly, was, and I had been sucked up into the latest soul-crushing conversation about the future of AI once more against my will.
Business as usual as I’ve said.
And then an email from a colleague in one of our overseas offices arrived to our common inbox where we process enquiries for new clients.
“Could you please have a look at this company and let me know if it falls under the creative sector team remit? If so, who could join me in a call with them on Wednesday?”
After the standard due diligence (checking the company’s website and what they do), the answer came easy and fast, “Happy to join the call, feel free to send a calendar inviation directly so it’s in my diary for Wednesday.”
And with that I went back to checking prices for one bedroom flats in London only to realise that my best chance to afford living on my own (sharing with someone is as expensive, in case you’re wondering) if my landlady was about to sell the flat was to relocate to Iceland. Plenty of land available, I’ve heard, so I’m sure rents are reasonable.
Not sure I’d be allowed to work remotely from there, though, but at least I would have a roof over my head. Let’s solve one problem at a time for the time being. On the other hand, if I have to really move out of London, do I want to settle in a country with even worse weather only because it’s the only place I can afford to live?
The thing that really sucks about being poor is not so much not having money per se, but how the lack of financial security pushes you to make hasty decisions -often terrible ones- in total panic. People with money can not only compare options, but buy time to make decisions. If nothing else because with money you can afford anything. Bloody capitalistic bastards.
After spending the following 48 hours frantically comparing the state of my finances and London’s property market to realise that at best, stretching my budget a little, I could afford a Barbie Dreamhouse, Wednesday arrives and it’s time for the call with my colleague and the company he wants to introduce me to.
Contrary to what people believe, time does fly when you’re self-absorbed in a never-ending spiral of gloom considering worse-case scenario after worse-case scenario.
“Hello Cristina,” the voice of my colleague comes from the other side of the screen, his face showing a big smile. “Thanks so much for joining this call, let me introduce you to …”
“Hello, everyone. Can you hear me?” an unknown masculine voice cuts off my colleague. It’s the man from the company we’re talking to, but the screen is still not showing him, so there are a few akward seconds where my colleague and I speak to a dark canvas.
“Ah, there you are, thanks for joining us,” my colleague says as the screen reveals the face that belongs to the voice we’ve just heard.
Well, hello.
This man is extremely attractive.
Not attractive as in he has a cute face, but attractive as in “my atavic need to procreate, which I’ve never had any intention to, has been suddenly awakened and I’m not sure I can’t stop it now” attractive.
And he looks very familiar for some reason.
“Oh hi, very nice to meet you,” Shit, my voice is pitch high and I can’t stop smiling. Am I actually giggling? Where did that come from?
“Very nice to meet you, too,” Is he flirting back? I think he is, he’s way too smiley for a business call with someone he’s just met. Where have I seen his face before?
My colleague leads on the conversation to explain how he connected to the company’s co-founder a while back while he was on a business trip to Austin and how they discussed the company’s potential expansion plans to London, which is the reason we’re having this call with the hot client, who looks after international development.
“So … tells us, are you based in Austin too?”
“Actually, I’m in London at the moment to oversee a few things about our set up in the coming months,” he says.
Wait, he lives in the same city as moi?
“Oh, that’s great. Cristina is also based in London,” my colleague says. “Actually, she’s organising an event next week that you should attend as she can introduce you to a few people.” I confirm. I’d be happy to introduce him. To people, I mean.
“Is the one you’ve shared with me earlier? I’ve signed up already, so thanks for that.”
Hold on a second. Am I going to meet this man in a few days? I should have washed my hair this morning, shit, it’s looks like such a mess. I’m sure he can tell. Why am I still giggling like an idiot? I’m so glad I’m not doing this call on my own because I can’t focus on anything right now.
“… so maybe you want to elaborate on that, Cristina.”
“Sorry, what was that?,” Have I seen him on something on Instagram maybe?
“I was just saying that maybe you want to elaborate on how you can support from London in terms of connections,” my very lovely colleague says tactfully ignoring what is a painfully obvious full-fledged infatuation by now.
“Sure, of course.”
Somehow I manage to return to my professional self setting and do a great job of explaining how I help companies and ask some questions to clarify a few things on this company’s strategy, business model, ideal client target and a few other bits and bobs that are very helpful to suggest a couple of organisations I can introduce him to.
“Actually, they’ll be at the event next week so I’ll try my best to introduce you in person,” and with that our call comes to and end as I promise to follow up with an email summing up the action points we’ve talked about.
“See you next week, then. Looking forward to that event,” the hot client says.
“It’ll be a good one, so glad you can attend,” I say still smiling like an idiot. Was it maybe on TikTok? No, that can’t be because I don’t have TikTok, to begin with, but people copy and paste videos from there on Instagram, so maybe I’ve remember one of those.
When I log off from the call my jaw hurts from all the smiling.
It’s not that I don’t smile in other calls, but something’s going on here. I actually had to make an effort to contain myself because I was seeing my face on the screen and it was a bit creepy. I’m sure I’ve already come across as a weirdo. Let’s hope I can recoup a bit of credibility when I meet him in person at the event next week.
Where have I seen this man before and why am I reacting so strongly to him?
Is it because I don’t want to think that I may be destitute very shortly and my survival instinct is prevailing over my stay-single-no-matter what instinct? Hard to tell.
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The days go by faster than I expected and next thing I know it’s the day of our event and I have new worries to distract me with. For instance, in French class a colleague has decided to do a presentation on the AI Action Summit in Paris.
Serioulsy? Of all the things he could have picked?
I specifically joined this French class because we talk about books and that gives me a respite from work, which is very much AI-related. Besides, a few days ago I was writing about the AI Action Summit in relation to Substack’s free speech issues and it left me drained. I really don’t have the energy to discuss it ever again. Pas en français en tout cas. But as I can’t help being a know-it-all, I feel the obligation to correct my classmate on a few points where he is completely mistaken.
Since no one in this class is exactly fluent in French our interactions on complex topics usually result in the kind of Chinese Whispers that would drive anyone mad with reason. So our exchange, which in English would be engaging and include full sentences, in French goes along the lines of, “I think AI is very difficult and I’m scared it can steal me” and “I believe AI is good for health but terrible for people.” Luckily neither the future of AI nor that of the French language depends on either of us.
When the class ends, the teachers calls my name as I’m heading for the door. “Oui?,” I say turning back to her. I’m sure I’ve impressed her with my AI insights and wants to thank me for elevating the tone of our conversation. It turns out she just wants to remark the mistakes I’ve made as I rambled on AI endlessly, and goes over a piece of paper where she has noted every single one of them. ”On dit pas au moment que, mais au moment où, rappelle-toi, Cristina.”
So much for trying to help people understand a subject très important when I could have just minded my own business. Which unfortunately is still AI. Merde.
To clear my head a bit after French class, which I considered a safe space free from tech talk and now I need to come to terms with the bursting of that bubble, I go for a walk before taking the tube back home. As I pass by a fancy café with a few tables set outside on the pavement, a very elegant man stands up graciously and gets ready to leave.
It’s Bill Nighy.
It’s the second time I bump into him in about a year and like the previous time, no one seems to have recognised him.
The other time I bumped into him it was at Foyles as he was browsing books and I followed him along to try and see what he bought. I’m sure he noticed but was too polite to say anything. I want to send a message to someone to share my excitement at having seen him for a second time, but no one I have in mind would know him and the moment would be ruined by having to explain who he is.
However, this new chance encounter with him a year after our first has made me realise something.
I can’t definitely leave London if my landlady sells the flat. Even if that means I have to live on Tesco’s yellow stickers and literally set up camp somewhere along Tottenham Court Road. Where else am I going to randomly spot world-known actors going about their day as I’m going about mine even if I’m the only one to notice or recognise them?
These are the things that make life in this city worth living.
Back home time flies between having lunch and sending emails to people I’m expecting to see this evening.
As I work with companies that are looking at setting up in London, most of my clients live abroad and I haven’t met them in person before. I want to drop them a line to tell them to ask a colleague for me in case they can’t find me as the event this evening is an annual get together for companies and organisations in the creative industries ecosystem and I have lots of people to greet.
I arrive at the venue half an hour before doors open at 6 pm, which is perhaps the only chance I’ll have to speak to my colleagues this evening. In fact, at 6:05 I’m already chatting to a client I hadn’t spoken to since September last year and who is very impressed I can recall our conversation in so much detail.
“It’s my job,” I tell him.
“But still, it’s very impressive you can remember all that information. I can’t remember sometimes my kid’s names and I see them everyday,” he jokes, I think.
“The thing is that I’m good recalling information, especially if it’s a bit unusual or obscure. With AI advancing so fast, I thought I’d better focus on something niche,”I joke as well.
“Well, you do have a gift for that, that’s for sure,” my client tells me, still surprised I was able to remember specific words from a conversation that took place so long ago, our only spoken interaction until today.
By 6:30 pm we have almost a full house. A testament to how popular this event is and how much people enjoyed it last year.
I’m speaking to another client who’s taken a flight from Italy this morning to attend this event when, out of the corner of my eye, I spot a colleague pointing in my direction and speaking to a man whose back is turned on me. Clearly another client who is looking for me and I haven’t met in person yet. I don’t have time to see who he is as someone else appears right behind the Italian client waiting for our conversation to end. I had anticipated this to be a busy evening, but not actually having people queueing up to speak to me.
Is this what being a celebrity feels like?
As I end the conversation with the Italian client and start speaking to the person behind her, I notice someone moving closer to me from my left side. Once you attend events regularly you develop a sixth sense for knowing when someone is strategically moving closer to you to grab you as soon as you’re done speaking with someone else. The problem is that I feel anxious if I know someone’s waiting to speak to me, so I need to look up to acknowledge their presence and let them know I’ll be with them soon.
And that’s when I see my hot client right in front of me. All six feet of him. Damn.
What’s with the bloody giggling again?
“Hello! Lovely meeting you, great event by the way,” he says with an amazing ear-to-ear smile. Now that I have him in front of me, I confirm that I’ve most definitely seen his face before but for all my efforts and ability to recall information, I can’t still quite place him.
I don’t have time to give him a proper reply because a clink clink clink sound comes from the other side of the room announcing it’s time for speeches. Great. Now I have to wait at least 20 minutes until I can have a conversation with him.
I decide to use this time wisely and focus on where I may have seen him before. Is it from something on Netflix? I watch so many things lately that sometimes I no longer remember who’s on what. Or perhaps a show on Channel 4? He has movie star looks, that’s for sure. It’ll come to me before the end of the evening.
After the speeches, I turn to face the hot client and speak to him but he’s vanished. I want to look for him but someone grabs me by the arm.
“Cristina, what a fantastic event!,” this is Stakeholder 2, a lovely man who has introduced me to some great clients and has been recently awarded an MBE for his services to the film industry.
He’s with someone I don’t know and whose name badge I can’t quite see, but the three of us immediately engage in conversation all the same. “Their events are the best. I still remember when you did that breakfast with the Tom Cruise guy,” Stakeholder 2 tells the unknown man very enthusiastically.
“You do events with Tom Cruise?”
It’s funny how much Stakeholder 2 enjoyed that specific event, to the point that every time we meet and there are other people with us he mentions it, so I always have to clarify it’s wasn’t actually Tom Cruise.
“What he means is that we did an event where the guy who was behind the Tom Cruise deepfakes came as a guest. His name is Miles Fisher, and he has created an entertainment company as a result of that experience, actually.”
“Oh that’s right, Miles. Great guy, very clever, too,” Stakeholder 2 adds. “He did look like Tom Cruise, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did. I was seated next to him and it was quite mind-blowing,” I say. “He was very nice, too, and we even spoke a bit of Spanish.”
I leave Stakeholder 2 to carry on glorifying us to the unknown guest and set out to find my hot client. So far I’ve only managed to giggle in front of him rather sheepishly. Not a good second impression.
I spot him speaking to Stakeholder 3, who is someone I know well and I also wanted to talk to this evening, so I can join their conversation easily. “Doesn’t he remind you of someone?,” Stakeholder 3 asks me. I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s noticed.
“Actually, yes, but I can’t quite place him yet,” I manage to respond before a colleague comes to fetch me because another client I haven’t met in person yet is asking for me. Would I ever manage to speak to my hot client tonight? Seems unlikely.
When I begin to lose hope, Stakeholder 4, a towering man of benign face that reminds me of Santa Claus and who is the CEO of a national membership organisation, appears out of nowhere and asks me if we have any companies this evening in the sector of … “Yes, actually I have a client doing exactly that. Would you like to speak to him now?”
“If they’re still around, that’d be great, but only if you’re not too busy speaking to other people.” Stakeholder 4 is always a very considerate person and that’s probably why he gets everyone to help him very willingly. Also, he’s provided me the perfect excuse to go find my hot client because he’s exactly working in the sector Stakeholder 4 is interested in.
The two of us go together around the room and I realise that having someone in tow, especially when he’s a soft giant over 6 feet tall, is a great deterrent preventing other people from approaching me. Yes, definitely this is what being a celebrity must feel like.
I spot Stakeholder 2 with my hot client at the other side of the room. I bet he’s telling him about that event “with the Tom Cruise guy.”
Stakeholder 4 and I make a beeline towards them undisturbed, which seems a miracle.
“I was looking for you as I’d like to introduce you to Stakeholder 4, who just happens to be very interested in what you guys are doing,” I tell to my hot client with only a smile, no giggles this time.
“You remind me of someone,” Stakeholder 4 says to hot client by way of greeting.
“Really? It’s the third time this evening I’ve been told,” the hot client says looking at the three of us for confirmation.
“Now that you’ve mentioned it,” Stakeholder 2 says, “you do look very familiar. Cristina, what do you think?”
The hot client looks at me waiting for an answer, and his smile expands a fraction more as he does.
And then it hits me in the face.
How didn’t I notice before? I’ve had a crush on this man all summer.
“You look like Glen Powell!!!” I say giving a little jump, looking to Stakeholder 3 and Stakeholder 4 for a nod of approval at having finally deciphered something that has been bugging me for a whole week.
“Who?,” they both respond.
Clearly their summer wasn’t spent having sinful thoughts that involved rubbing naked body parts with a man they’ll never meet. How can you call that living?
“Glen Powell, the actor. Twisters, Top Gun 2, Hit Man,” I recite without breathing.
“Top Gun the first one?,” Stakeholder 3 asks. This question alone should be reason enough to withdraw the MBE for services to the film industry he’s just been awarded, for Christ’s sake.
“No, no, the second Top Gun. The new one,” I say looking at them in shock they don’t know who I am talking about. “Come on, Glen Powell, he’s been everywhere this summer! He’s even been nominated for a Golden Globe. Glen Powell!”
Under what god-forsaken rock do these people live?
“Is he that famous?” Stakeholder 4 asks, visibly worried about me having a seizure anytime now.
I seriously need to stop talking to people who don’t share my interests. They make me feel so misunderstood when I’m clearly an underrated genius.
“Yeah. I mean, he’s had his own look-alike contest and all.”
“I’m sorry but is that a good thing?” the hot client asks in earnest, looking very confused, smile completely erased off his face.
Is he serious now?
The man is not only from Austin but also a walking real-life deepfake of one of the city’s most illustrious sons, who is by the way ridiculously attractive. I’m sure he has caught many eyes before mine. And he wants me to believe he doesn’t even know who am I talking about and that no one until tonight has made the connection? I don’t buy it.
“I thought you would all knew him. He’s done lots of interviews with Tom Cruise,” I say feebly looking at Stakeholder 2, hoping his obsession with the fake Tom Cruise also applies to the real one. But there’s only emptiness in his eyes. He’s long gone to a place I can’t reach. I bet he’s reliving that bloody breakfast again.
I can’t hide my disappointment and I feel my frustration building up.
Time to leave this conversation before I start being very angry at these three people for their glaring ignorance in matters of straight hot men straight women were crushing very hard on during the summer of 2024. My hot client has been downgraded to cold in seconds by ignoring this obvious compliment, huge actually, considering not only my massive crush on Glen Powell but more importantly that I usually don’t find many men attractive. I feel doubly betrayed.
“I have a few people I still need to say hi, so if you’ll excuse me,” I say as I leave them to their conversation and I make my way to the exit to process in solitude my bittersweet victory at finally having realised who my hot cold client looks the spitting image of but having no one to appreciate it or share it with. Not even him.
As I walk past the cloakroom towards the exit, a former client I worked with last year is collecting his bag and coat.
“Cristina, very sorry we didn’t manage to speak, I was looking for you,” he says in his lovely French accent. “I’m very sorry, but I have to leave early because I have to catch a train back home.”
“Where do you live again? I believe you told me last year but I forgot.”
“Outside London, in a small town near the sea. It’s quite boring, but my wife is British and she wanted a big house,” he says. “I don’t understand what’s wrong with a flat in London and being close to everything and coming to events more often. I grew up in a flat in Paris and it was perfectly fine.”
“As I’m sure you know, for British people living in a flat is a déclassement,” we’ve switched to French now, almost without realising. “And they are obsessed with having a garden.”
“Ah oui, ce putain de jardin,” he says rolling his eyes, “I don’t understand it, the weather is always shit. When do they enjoy it?”
We carry on for a few more minutes discussing our common puzzlement at British living arrangements and how expensive London has become. I share that it’s impossible for me to afford to live here on my own, but also how I don’t want to move elsewhere because “au moment où tu quittes Londres, c’est la mort.” I feel very smug for having remembered that it’s always “au moment où” and not “au moment que” when I’m still in the middle of processing the trauma the Glen Powell fiasco has inflicted on me.
“I know, it’d be so much easier for me too to live here,” he says putting on his coat as he speaks.
“Tu sais quoi?” he stops buttoning his coat for a second and looks back at the event room as if something had caught his eye unexpectedly. “There’s someone who looks like the actor from Twisters,” his left hand now pointing towards the room. “Not sure if you’ve watched it? I went to see it with my kids this summer and we loved it. The second one, I mean. Anyway, when I saw this guy tonight for a moment I thought it was him, but c’est pas lui, n’est pas?”
“No, it’s not Glen Powell.” I say with a big smile at finally having met a kindred spirit this evening. “But he does look like him a lot, you’re right.”
“Bon, now I can say to my kids that I’ve been to an event avec le mec de Twisters,” he says laughing as we hug. “This is something that can only happen in London, don’t leave this city if you can,” and he winks at me before heading off towards an ungodly long commute to a village no one has ever heard of but where his wife can afford a house with a big garden neither them nor their children are able to enjoy for most of the year.
Say what you want about Parisians but this is a man who has sacrificed common sense for love.
And he’s definitely right about something.
Where else would I be meeting the one and only Bill Nighy, a Glen Powell look-alike or the deepfake of Tom Cruise in real life if not in London? Even though I’m one of the very few people to recognise any of them anyway.
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Abroad is an independent publication about London, living in between cultures, languages, books, music, films, creativity, and being human in the age of artificial intelligence.
Loved it! You're such a good storyteller! 👏
I've also see Bill Nighy a couple of times in a cafe near the Burlington Arcade. I wonder if he lives near there? Really happy to now know who Glen Powell is!! Ha quite good looking...
My husband says the only way he will get me out of London is in a cofin! Still love it after so many years! But yes, how has it got soo expensive!