John Cena admits he wasn’t exactly giving Hollywood his best effort during the early stages of his acting career.
Cena has now established himself as a legitimate Hollywood star, but his journey into acting dates back roughly two decades. After making an early appearance in “Ready to Rumble,” the WWE legend landed his first major starring role in 2006’s “The Marine.”
Several more acting projects followed, but Cena recently acknowledged that his early films weren’t particularly successful — and believes much of the blame falls on him.
During an appearance on “Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend” (see video below), Cena admitted his heart was still firmly in professional wrestling at the time.
“What can I control and what can I learn from my experiences? The reason those movies, or the reason I can control that those movies sucked, I wasn’t wholeheartedly invested. I wanted to be in the ring.
“Because as a 27-year-old, spending 15 hours a day to watch one thing blow up in a library, quiet set, is not near as cool as being in an arena in Lexington with 22,000 people going apeshit, to be like, ‘This is the fucking best thing I’ve ever seen in my life,’ and then you drive to the next town and do it again. I wanted to be there. My focus was elsewhere,” Cena added.
Cena’s fortunes in Hollywood began changing significantly after he appeared alongside Amy Schumer in the 2015 comedy “Trainwreck.” The performance helped show a different side of the longtime WWE Superstar and opened the door for increasingly prominent roles.
Cena explained that by the time he auditioned for “Trainwreck,” he had already accepted that his first attempt at breaking into the movie business hadn’t worked. This time around, however, he approached acting with the same commitment he had given professional wrestling.
“By the time I auditioned for Trainwreck, I was like, ‘Hey, you’ve already been run out of the movie business once.’ And you’re also doing okay. You have other things going on. I was hosting the Today show. I was reading the news, doing live programming. I was having fun.
“So if you’re gonna get back into this, I just told myself, ‘Put the same amount of passion you do in wrestling into this,’ and at the very least you won’t regret your choices. And that’s exactly what I did in that audition.”
That change in approach ultimately paid off. Cena went on to land roles in major projects and franchises, including “Bumblebee,” the “Fast & Furious” series and “The Suicide Squad.” His portrayal of Christopher Smith also led to him starring in the title role of DC’s “Peacemaker.”
Cena has continued balancing his Hollywood career with WWE appearances in the years since, becoming one of the most successful wrestlers to make the transition from the squared circle to mainstream film and television.
