Glen Powell Says Sydney Sweeney Intentionally Leaned Into Dating Rumors Amid His 'Very Real Breakup'

"I'll pretty much give Sydney all the credit for this. I don't have the mental capacity to pull anything like this off, but she's very smart," Sweeney told Business Insider of his co-star. "She's very smart. And look, Sydney and I do have authentic chemistry

You might not have even heard of the film -- which marks a big-studio return for the rom-com on the big screen -- had it not been for the speculation about the relationship between Sweeney and Powell.

While the two embarked on their promotional tour of the film together -- which is all about chemistry, after all -- news broke that Powell had broken up with Paris. All the while, he and Sweeney were looking more and more cozy on the various red carpets they hit.

As noted by BI, the murmur became a furor after they hit Las Vegas' CinemaCon to premiere some footage from the film, looking particularly cozy while doing so. That's when the breakup reports hit and suddenly it was at a fever pitch.

All the while, Sweeney has been in a committed relationship with Jonathan Davino since 2018, having gotten engaged in March 2022. Fans started wondering how things were with them, but it sounds like all was well in her real romantic world.

In fact, according to Powell, that's what made it easier for her to play along with the speculation.

"The only reason it made things harder for me to lean into that stuff was that I was going through a very real breakup amidst a promotional tour," explained Powell. "I was with someone that I really loved and cared about and was trying to kind of make sense of a lot of stuff."

"It was a lot easier for Sydney to lean into something like that because she's in a very committed and wonderful relationship and she's very happy," he continued. "So it was a little harder for me."

Nevertheless, Powell had nothing but praise for Sweeney, who was also an executive producer on the film. "She has such an impressive sense of marketing, story, what is new and fresh and cool," he said. "She's an impressive person and what she does on-screen is electric."

As for the possibility of future collaborations a la some of the great rom-com pairings like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, or even Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, Powell says, "I would work with her again in a heartbeat."

As recently as December 21, one day before the film's theatrical release, Sweeney was still playing with the speculation, telling Glamour, per TMZ, that she has no problems with the rumors, but that it's been harder for Powell.

She also theorized it was easier for some to run with their speculation because she's rarely seen publicly with her fiance. "I've never really shared that much [about my relationship]," she told Glamour, "so the press loves to create drama in stories."

Anyone But You is in theaters now.