WWE Hall of Famer Edge recently spoke with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated’s Extra Mustard, and below are some interview highlights. You can check out Barrasso appearing on this week’s edition of WZ Weekly in the audio player above.
Do you have to force yourself to have a different mindset in acting than you did in wrestling? And is there a scene you are particularly proud of in “Interrogation”
“There is a different mindset in acting. It’s much more nuanced. Wrestling has to be more aggressive, it has to be bigger, it has to translate to the back of a football stadium. With acting, when that camera is up close, they can see your nose hairs twitch, and you have to pull back everything for it not to look clownish. There is that different mindset. However, what wrestling gave me is to be able to reach into that maniac aggressive persona when needed. They are both on the same tree, just different branches.
“I’m proud of the fight scenes. They’re very intricate, and I had three days to learn them. For me, the initial Interrogation scene was an eight-page scene, and that’s a lot of dialogue. I had done a fight scene and then we came to that, and it’s two different mindsets that you have to have within hours of each other, and a lot to have crammed in your brain. For me, I had to get the fight scene done before I could really focus on the “Interrogation” scene. That one was one I’m proud we pulled off.”
Was headlining WrestleMania 24 at the Florida Citrus Bowl, in front of 74,000 people, the highlight of your career? Were you more stressed than usual before the match with The Undertaker?
“It’s interesting, I never got stressed before wrestling matches. I always felt completely confident that I had done everything I could do, all my mental preparations when I sat down and envisioned the match, so I never felt stressed. But that is the one that if someone said, ‘What is the pinnacle of your career?’, then it would be main-eventing WrestleMania against The Undertaker. That has to be the top, but thankfully there were a lot of moments that were just as rewarding. Teaming with Christian and winning the tag team titles—and doing it at WrestleMania; helping with the introduction of an entire match that is now a themed [TLC] pay per view; getting to wrestle guys like Ric Flair and Terry Funk, and teaming with Hulk Hogan and all of these legendary names in wrestling that I never thought I’d get to rub shoulders with, let alone defend the world title with Flair in Raleigh, North Carolina in a TLC match with his daughter—who is now women’s champion—at ringside. There were a lot of surreal, amazing moments during my career that I’m very lucky to have had.”
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Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
