LOS ANGELES, Aug. 15 (UPI) — John Cena said martial artist Jackie Chan sets the bar very high for action comedies and his film Jackpot!The premiere on Prime Video will take place on Thursday.
Cena, 47, plays Noel, a private security guard who protects lottery winner Katie (Awkwafina) from people trying to murder her for her winnings. In the film, it is legal in California to kill a lottery winner and keep your winnings.
“Someone like Jackie Chan is the benchmark for me,” Cena said recently in a Zoom interview with UPI.
Cena said he admired how high the stakes were in Chan’s action scenes because the heroes were in danger. Chan and Cena starred together in the film. Hidden Strikereleased on Netflix last year.
In Jackpot!Cena fends off hordes of aspiring millionaires in choreographed fight scenes. The improbability of yoga students and tourists brawling, along with Noel and Katie’s one-line reactions, provides some of the comedy.
Cena said he hopes his films make sensible jokes about the threats their heroes face.
“Sometimes you can ruin the stakes by telling too many jokes,” Cena warned. “There’s always a joke, but you don’t want to tell a joke that ruins the stakes.”
Jackpot! gets even more comedy by turning the tables and forcing Katie to save Noel before the day is over. Cena said he enjoyed “every single minute” of playing the damsel in distress.
When Noel is captured, however, he is not completely helpless. In a fight scene, he fends off attackers while tied to a chair.
“I like the challenge of ‘taking away your physical advantage,'” Cena said.
The film maintains a light touch even with its macabre theme. Although Jackpot! is about legally sanctioned murder, but the film emphasizes the fun of escaping the killers to claim Katie’s winnings.
As Katie’s protector, Noel takes great joy in his task of helping one person survive so they can achieve their financial dream. Noel receives a percentage of the profits and uses them to help others.
“I’m supposed to be a perhaps ignorantly virtuous, larger-than-life, smiling face of hope in a place where there’s not much faith in humanity,” Cena said.
He is also the butt of several jokes in the film – or rather the ear. Katie tells Noel his face looks like an ear, a line that director Paul Feig says Cena told her privately.
“I’m not going to see the jokes,” Cena said of Feig. “I can hear them both giggling and I know something’s coming.”
Cena is currently filming season 2 of his Max series. Peacemakerand said he could not provide any details. He also said he had never seen Coyote vs Acmethe Wile E. Coyote movie that Warner Bros. Discovery didn’t want to release.
Between film and television projects, he continues to appear in WWE, where he has been a wrestler since 2001, adding that the advantage of wrestling is the immediate reaction from a live audience.
“If it goes bad and the audience doesn’t understand it, you have a chance to change it,” Cena said. “It’s more like stand-up comedy than filmmaking.”
