The True Story Behind Hulu’s Football Comedy ‘Chad Powers’

Russ Holliday had everything but a national championship. As star quarterback of the Oregon Ducks, he marched his team to the brink of victory, a single yard from sealing the win. Instead, he dropped the ball on the 1-yard line, leaving the door open for the other team to score. His worst moment wasn’t the fumble, but what came after: after a cancer-stricken fan in a wheelchair called him his favorite player, Holliday lashed out and socked the boy’s father on national TV, knocking over the child in his wheelchair. “It’s the kind of thing that will haunt him for the rest of his life,” announcer Chris Fowler says during the scene. In the world of Chad Powers, that prophecy sticks.

It also fuels the show’s premise. Chad Powers, a six-episode limited series premiering Sept. 30 on Hulu, follows Holliday (Glen Powell) as he concocts an alter ego—a gifted homeschooled prodigy who sneaks onto a college team roster donning a shaggy wig and facial prosthetic. The disguise may sound far-fetched, but the concept is drawn from a real-life stunt successfully executed by NFL great Eli Manning back in 2022. And the series leans into a deeper question: how does a person remake themselves when the world won’t let them forget who they once were? Alongside Powell, who also co-created, co-wrote, and co-produced, the cast includes Steve Zahn, Perry Mattfeld, Frankie A. Rodriguez, Wynn Everett, and Colton Ryan.

For Powell, the story is just as much about transformation as it is about football. His 2023 film Hitman toyed with the thrill of inhabiting multiple identities; Chad Powers expands a real-life stunt into a meditation on failure, accountability, and the cost of reinvention. 

The challenge for the actor included embodying two very different sides of a character, mastering football’s technical demands, and balancing humor with pain. “I just knew it was not going to be easy.” Powell tells TIME. “It’s a big swing, and as an actor, when you take on a big…