The latest guest on Ryan Satin’s Out of Character podcast was former WWE analyst, interviewer, and commentator Renee Paquette, who spoke about her favorite person to work with during her stint with the company, as well as what she believes were her proudest moments. Highlights from the interview are below.
Says Paul Heyman was her favorite person to work with in WWE:
“The first person that comes to mind for me is Paul Heyman. I love working with Paul Heyman because he’s Paul Heyman, obviously, but he and I always had such a great chemistry and he was somebody that always pushed me to push him. I remember we did sit down with Brock and he had just turned on him and he’s distraught, he’s not shaved, I don’t think he’s slept the night before because that’s how Heyman works, he’s method to a T. It was one of those moments where he wanted me to push him. He’s sitting in that moment, being so vulnerable that that’s pushing me to go a certain place and then our characters had this push and pull relationship that it made me kind of want to take advantage of the fact like, oh, is Heyman sad about this? How do I get him with this, how do I grind him down? I always really loved working with Paul, he was so generous to me as a performer and one of the absolute best to ever do it. He really gave me a spotlight very early on and I know that he was somebody, whether he was talking to Vince [McMahon], Kevin Dunne, I know he went to bat for me a lot. I just loved working with him, he would get in my face and yell and be Paul Heyman. I always really loved those moments.”
Reveals her proudest moments in WWE:
“I want to say slapping The Miz, but I actually think the moment was when Maryse slapped me. I’m more proud of that moment because I took that slap right to the face, right to the side of the head and that was a really cool moment for me where I did get to feel like I could flex my acting chops and really sell that. Then I have another moment, it’s pretty subtle but it was a moment that I really loved. Jon was doing a program with Drew McIntyre and I was on commentary, and they had come up onto the announce table and they do whatever, smash the announce table, and Drew took a pencil and was going to stab Jon in the eye with it. I let out this guttural wife scream that I was like, ‘nailed it.’ I feel like that was one of those moments, whether people noticed it or not, that was a moment that I just wanted to be as present as a wife as I could and not as an announcer, and I tried to really lean into that as much as I could.”
(H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.)