Glen Powell reacts to 'Twisters' backlash over no-kiss ending (2024)

Glen Powell has seen your criticism of Twisters' strictly platonic ending — and he has a positive spin.

In an interview with Screenrant, the Hit Man actor responded to fan backlash over the finale of his tornado-chasing summer blockbuster, which infamously ended without a kiss between Powell and the film's lead, Daisy Edgar-Jones. "I really think that even that [backlash] shows that people care, which is really great," Powell said. "I just love how excited people have gotten about that movie.

Powell went on to say that he and Edgar-Jones are exchanging memes about the movie's lack of lip-locks. "Daisy and I send each other the TikToks and the gifs," he said. "There's so much funny stuff coming out of it. It's fun. That's what summer movies are about. It creates this conversation and cultural moment, and people dress up and do the thing. It's been really awesome."

When the subject of kiss-less criticism first came up, Powell joked that he's "taking it very personally." However, he immediately added, "I'm sure you've seen the behind-the-scenes, where I did get to kiss Daisy Edgar-Jones, which really is all that counts. We had a great time, and I'm really proud of the movie."

"Kiss or no kiss, everybody's a winner," Powell concluded.

In the movie, Powell's multifaceted adrenaline junkie-slash-YouTuber Tyler Owens shares simmering tension with Edgar-Jones' traumatized meteorologist Kate Carter. After chasing tons of tornados together, the duo ends the movie in an airport scene straight out of a romantic comedy. After a lackluster goodbye, Tyler drills his truck into the concrete outside the terminal, and rushes through the building to catch Kate before her flight. Many viewers understandably expected the sequence to culminate in a kiss between the two leads, especially since the original 1996 Twister was anchored by an on-screen romance between Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. Instead, Tyler and Kate just… decide to chase more storms together, as friends, I guess.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Powell confirmed that he shot an alternate version of the ending in which he and Edgar-Jones did kiss (and behind-the-scenes footage of that shoot has circulated online since the movie's release). "I'm taking a little offense that they didn't want to use it.," Powell joked. "Maybe it's just my abilities, I don't know."

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However, Powell also indicated that he ultimately approved of the smoochless finale. "Most of this movie, they're looking towards the weather," Powell told EW. "And this is one moment in the movie where they're facing each other, just two people without any weather to look at, wondering if they are more than just the weather around them. The beautiful part about the ending is you hear the [severe weather announcement on the airport loudspeaker], and you see two people...[chasing storms] is their love language. That is what brings them together. And the chase is really what their relationship's about. I think it's a beautiful ending."

Edgar-Jones agreed. "I think there was something kind of magic about it being this level partnership without it passing into something else," she told EW. "It felt like the perfect balance where they nearly kiss, which is just as sort of exciting, but the fact that they don’t leaves you wanting more… It felt nice and refreshing to not have to end up on that beat because what you're ending it on is two individuals who are so equal in their love and interest and intelligence and understanding of weather."

Director Lee Isaac Chung explained the creative decision to forgo the kiss. "I feel like audiences are in a different place now in terms of wanting a kiss or not wanting a kiss," Chung said in an interview with EW. "I actually tried the kiss, and it was very polarizing — and it's not because of their performance of the kiss."

Chung said that after reviewing the two options, the no-kiss ending was his clear favorite. "I think it's a better ending," he said. "And I think that people who want a kiss within it, they can probably assume that these guys will kiss someday. And maybe we can give them privacy for that. In a way, this ending is a means to make sure that we really wrap things up with it in a celebratory, good way."

Edgar-Jones later suggested that axing the kiss was executive producer Steven Spielberg's idea. "I think it's a Spielberg note, wasn’t it?" she told Collider. "I think it stops the film feeling too cliched, actually. I think there's something really wonderful about it feeling like there's a continuation." Powell agreed: "It is a good Spielberg note. It's why that kid is still in this game. It's amazing."