All Elite Wrestling’s William Regal was almost a movie star.
William Regal recently sat down with Chris Mueller of Bleacher Report to discuss a wide variety of subjects. When asked if he had ever been offered an acting role before, Regal revealed that he had almost 20 years ago while he was part of WWE, but it never got the funding to get off the ground. The movie would end up getting made years later under the name My Name Is Lenny.
“I got offered a film once about a bare-knuckle fighter from Britain called Lenny McLean,” William Regal revealed. “And this was 20-something years ago, and I was probably a year into my second, which really is my whole WWE career because I don’t count the first one at all in 98. But this was going into 2000. This was maybe 2001. I was just getting going in WWE, being the commissioner, and having a great, incredible run here. It would have meant going out of that. And so I said that I would play his father. I’d read the book, and his father was a horrible human being, which I thought I could pull off very well.
“And the guy said we could probably do this in a couple of weeks, your bits, but then they never got the funding for it. They actually, I haven’t seen the film yet, but I know they got the funding for about three or four years ago, and somebody was a different director who made it. Apart from that, nobody has, and the thing that always puts me off a little bit about offering myself up for that. I’m not a red light person. I can’t do rehearsals. I’m scared to death. I fail miserably at trying to just go out and do me. Not without the actual camera on me just filming, and so if somebody came up to me with the right role and knew me, and there’s quite obviously people have seen me or know me. They came up to me with the right thing and said, you don’t have to do rehearsal, we trust you, and we’ll just make it work because I’m very open to listening to that. They can just direct me, and I’ll do it. I would love to do something.
“But the thought of actually putting myself out there because I know when I’ve run through rehearsals in WWE and again I used to get my own freedom, but I can’t do it in the afternoons and stuff. I just can’t. I just go out and just say my words. And it’s Darren Matthews just saying words. It’s not William Regal; I just don’t have it in me. There’s always been that thing of like; I don’t really want to try acting. One day I hope that something would come my way where somebody would say, we’ve got a part for you. And you’d fit it, and then I can just go and do it. And yes, I would love to.”
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Check out the trailer for My Name Is Lenny below:
What do you make of William Regal’s comments? Would you like to see the All Elite Wrestling star appear in a movie someday? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
