John Cena uses his WWE background for new action comedy Jackpot!by teaching co-star Awkwafina how to throw a punch in a scene where she was supposed to break his nose.
“I broke my nose in real life and that was a prosthetic, so that was awesome. I really think it was fun to prepare for that and when she actually did it and we did the gag, it looked great and it comes across well in the movie,” said Cena The Hollywood Reporter at the film’s premiere on Tuesday, adding that he told Awkwafina to “go all out, and she did.”
In Paul Feig’s film, a new lottery is created in California that allows lottery losers to kill the winner before sunset to legally claim their multi-billion dollar jackpot. Awkwafina is the fugitive lottery winner, with Cena as an accomplice.
Speaking about the chemistry between their unlikely pair, Cena said: “She played a scared character who didn’t know what the hell was going on, and I got to be a peaceful, calming voice of reason. And I think those are both really strong strengths of our craft, so we were able to just be ourselves and joke and make jokes about it.”
Feig explained that he was banking on the two working well together, especially since he’s been a longtime Cena fan. “When I first talked to him, the first thing he said was, ‘Don’t think you have to make me look cool.’ And I thought, I kind of love that, because that’s all I want from my comedy stars, and with a big action star, you never know if they’re going to say, ‘I’m not going to do this, I’m not going to do that, I’m not going to look silly.’ And he just does it all.”
This includes a cameo appearance in the third season of The bearCena appears as Carmy’s (Jeremy Allen White) cousin Sammy Fak. He told THR that creator Christopher Storer contacted his team and asked him to join the cast, and “I just thought, ‘Is this a joke?’ It was a dream.”
He continued, “I have the utmost respect for the cast and crew. I admire their work, they entertained me – I have to tell them all how much they entertained me and how much their work means to me. I think that’s important because a lot of times people say, ‘I love your stuff,’ but they don’t say, ‘Hey, your work has impacted my life.’ My wife and I really enjoy this show. Man, it was great, it was a great experience.”
Jackpot!which also stars Simu Liu, has been compared to a comedic version of The Cleansing or John Wickbut Feig points out that these films “don’t have a great picture of humanity. I wanted it to be good-natured, so even though it has a really dark core, it’s the fact that you’re entering the lottery — if you’re entering the lottery, you’ve decided that you approve of it. But as the film goes on, you realize that most people actually don’t approve of the lottery and are actually more fans of Awkwafina, rooting for her to make it to the end.” The filmmaker pointed out that he was inspired by a desire “for this to be a Jackie Chan film — he’s my favorite comedy director of modern times, but I also love the The Pink Panther Also films and all these things that are all very physical.”
Jackpot! comes to cinemas on Thursday.
