John Cena opens up about his growth in the realms of acting and professional wrestling.
It’s no doubt that John Cena has successfully engrained himself into the Hollywood acting scene at this point, but the journey to get there certainly took some time. While he was a full-time performer for WWE, Cena began branching out into the acting world to take on various roles in television and film. Eventually, his responsibilities reversed themselves, as he took a step back from the squared circle to make acting a full-time gig in its place.
In a recent episode of Busted Open Radio, Cena discussed when he felt he became a legitimate actor, as opposed to a wrestler trying to be an actor. For Cena, it took over a decade for him to feel confident with his placement in the industry.
“In WWE, I started on TV with Vince [McMahon] in 2002. Trainwreck I did in 2012/13, came out in ’14, so if we do a ten-year period of like now it’s 2023 and we do ten years in the WWE of 2012, I was still gaining fluency. I didn’t feel comfortable until about 2015, 2016. So, it took 15 or so years before I saw ones and zeros. And even then, upon seeing like that fluency, it’s like, ‘Oh, now there’s a whole bunch of more stuff to learn.'”
“So, I don’t feel like I’m an outcast anymore. I certainly don’t feel like I don’t belong, but I also know I still have to work some main events with some marquee veterans to be able to absorb what I feel I need to get from my fluency. So, I’m not there yet, but I don’t feel like I’m on the outside looking in. I don’t feel like, ‘Ah, we need the wrestler guy because [of] the audience.’ It’s more like, ‘We welcome you in the environment to try what you can and we’re going to coach you along.’ I still am getting heavily coached through a lot of the stuff.”
With the previous discussion geared toward his growth in Hollywood, Cena then revealed when he first started seeing the ones and zeros in WWE. “Again, there’s no such thing as an overnight sensation. I got to work with really gifted entertainers coming up — Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Rikishi, Booker T, JBL, all these guys who embraced the Shakespeare of what we did. That was a period where I just didn’t say anything and shut up and listened and asked afterwards. I was lucky enough to be able to ask some, ‘Hey, why did this happen?’ and get some great answers and insight,” Cena explained.
“So, I was surrounded by people better and smarter than me with more knowledge and they’re at all points in their career where they wanted to pass that knowledge on. That’s kind of what got me there And at the pace I got there. And like I said, I think it was in 2015 where I felt pretty fluent, like right around the time of the US Open challenge. That kind of encompasses like, bring anybody out here, I’ll figure it out.”
“But I think until then it was still a deep diving into — and I don’t ever not get into my opponent or the why or the story. But it wasn’t until like, Yeah, I have this quote-unquote middle-of-the-road championship. I’m going to do the best to elevate it and send anybody out the tunnel. And we’re just going to make entertaining TV and I’ll figure it out.'”
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