Long before Glen Powell starred in the hit blockbuster "Twisters," he played one of the silliest characters in an already-silly Ryan Murphy show: "Scream Queens." It was a horror series in the sense that a lot of characters died, but it was a comedy series in the sense that most of them had it coming. The main characters are a bunch of shallow sorority girls led by Chanel Oberlin (Emma Roberts), whose love interest is Powell's frat boy character Chad Radwell.
At first, Chad seems like the standard frat guy jerk you'll often see in college comedies, and that's exactly what he is throughout the series: he's shallow, dumb, vain, rich, and these aspects of him never really change. Still, Chad became a fan favorite through the sheer force of Glen Powell's charisma, to the point where fans were rooting for his survival far more than they ever rooted for Chanel's. Chad might be a terrible person, but he was also a funny, terrible person, and that makes up for a lot.
Chad's most interesting trait, the one thing in the script that sets him apart from other frat guy archetypes, is his obsession with death. In an interview for his 2023 movie "Hit Man," Powell described Chad as someone with a strong capacity to become a hitman one day. "He's kind of like a douchebag who's, you know, entitled and obsessed with death," Powell said. "That kind of feels like the perfect recipe for a hitman."
This quality led to many fans suspecting Chad of being the killer in season 1, although they certainly hoped this handsome diva would be proven innocent in the end. Today, Chad Radwell is widely considered to be one of Powell's best roles.