Mark Shanahan of the Boston Globe got an recent interview with WWE Superstar, John Cena when he had a recent stay in Boston. Here are a few snippets:
Q. What does that mean? As a kid, I know you used to stage strange wrestling matches at your house.
A. I wouldn’t necessarily call them strange. Just kids being kids. I grew up in a house of five brothers. And [the matches] probably happened between the ages of 6 and 12. My father was always a huge sports and entertainment fan. He’d watch professional wrestling all the time, and we’d watch it with him. Instead of having a catch with my dad, it would be us sitting around the TV watching wrestling.
Q. Like who? What generation of wrestlers?
A. My dad was one of the first in our region to buy cable, so we’d get all the affiliates: The old WWF, which was Captain Lou Albano and Hulk Hogan. He’d get AWA, which was the Baron Von Raschkes and the Gagnes. He’d get World Class Wrestling Championship, which was the Fritz Von Erichs and the Freebirds. He’d get NWA, which was the Four Horsemen and Dusty Rhodes. We got everything, even got the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.
Q. Finally, what about music? Your 2005 rap CD “You Can’t See Me” sold very well.
A. It did. I still do hip-hop - I did a track with Snoop Dogg not too long ago - but I have a different focus these days. I’ve fallen in love with country music. . . . The old guys: Hank Williams, Hank Jr., Hank Williams III, Willie, Waylon, Johnny Cash, all of them. Read the complete interview, go here.
-Another article of John Cena promotes “12 Rounds”..
Cena doesn’t miss a beat, especially when talking about the WWE chairman, who also served as a producer on “12 Rounds.”
“No, Vince pulled me aside and said, ‘You’re going to make a movie,’” he says, breaking into a big laugh.
Cena admits that the experience of acting in the new film was more relaxed than acting in the first one.
“This time I didn’t have to be some superhuman guy who was impervious to bullets and couldn’t be destroyed. I got to be a normal guy. I got to have weaknesses and have moments of failure and indecision. I got to have a good, believable relationship with my girl. It was really easier to do this than ‘The Marine,’ because this is more me.”
He says acting in the ring is radically different from acting in front of a camera.
“It’s like Broadway to cinema. In the WWE we’re almost doing Broadway. When you perform to 15,000 in the live audience, you have to make sure your image is projected. You want to be larger than life. You want to be a superhero.
“In movies, the screen is big enough. You don’t have to be larger than life. I prepared for it by telling everybody, from the director to the other actors to the crew members, ‘Listen, this is what I do well on television, and this is what I think I lack in movies. I’m OK with criticism. If you see something that’s not good, tell me and we’ll fix it.’” Read the article go here.
