{"id":620502,"date":"2026-10-04T17:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T17:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/620502\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T17:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T17:12:11","slug":"its-ok-to-love-somebody-when-theyre-not-perfect-how-john-cena-conquered-hollywood-and-why-he-refuses-to-abandon-vince-mcmahon-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/620502\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s OK to love somebody when they\u2019re not perfect\u2019: how John Cena conquered Hollywood \u2013 and why he refuses to abandon Vince McMahon | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

I must admit, I was apprehensive about meeting John Cena. The WWE wrestler turned actor has built an enviable Hollywood career playing idiots \u2013 capable idiots with real heart, but dimwits nevertheless. Still, Cena is obviously nobody\u2019s fool; fools don\u2019t rise from humble beginnings to become their generation\u2019s answer to Hulk Hogan or The Rock. Would the Cena who appears on my computer screen be the real one? Or something closer to the comic-book characters he embodies so well: guileless, silly and fond of a deliberate misunderstanding?<\/p>\n

It is immediately clear that this is no manchild. Perfectly punctual, he greets me with a lavish formality befitting a man who made his film debut as the title character in The Marine. Within a minute he has volunteered, unprompted, that \u201ca core value of mine is respect\u201d. Cena, 49, is speaking to me on behalf of Matchbox: The Movie, a film extension of the Mattel toy car brand for Apple TV, and for 45 minutes he is generous, funny, complimentary and elusive without ever being evasive. It\u2019s a genuinely radical thing for a man built like a chest freezer \u2013 having only recently retired from wrestling after 26 years \u2013 to be so relaxed about being ridiculous, and in an age of such joyless online strongmen as Trump, Musk and Andrew Tate, his buff charm is welcome.<\/p>\n

John Cena is a company man. The word \u201cloyalty\u201d comes up often, and about everything from his friends back home to the wrestling to the US itself. Admirable, no doubt. But Cena\u2019s loyalty has drawn him into some uncomfortable positions, and for 20 minutes our good-natured chat about reliability, discipline and what it means to owe everything to something bigger than yourself has set us on a collision course with one of the most disgraced figures in modern entertainment.<\/p>\n

Car trouble \u2026 John Cena in Matchbox: The Movie. Photograph: Jasin Boland<\/p>\n

In January 2024, Vince McMahon, the all-powerful chairman and CEO of WWE, resigned from the organisation and its parent company TKO Group Holdings following a slew of sexual assault allegations and pending lawsuits that made his position in the company he\u2019d spent his life building untenable. The final straw was a suit filed by a former WWE employee, Janel Grant, alleging that McMahon sexually assaulted her and pressed her into sexual acts during her time at the company, sent explicit images of her with other men without her consent, and passed her to others \u2013 in one instance, the filing says, to help secure a wrestler the company hoped to sign. McMahon denies all the allegations and in June, the litigation between him, the WWE and Grant was transferred voluntarily by all parties from the federal court into confidential private arbitration.<\/p>\n

McMahon was a mentor to Cena, and as well as sponsoring his career, provided him a second family amid the travelling circus of 00s wrestling. \u201cI have no guilt nor shame about my friendship and my relationship with Vince McMahon,\u201d he says, swiftly followed by \u201cyou\u2019re obviously going to put this in [your] article\u201d. He\u2019s right, of course. What is strange isn\u2019t that he foresaw this line of questioning \u2013 it\u2019s that Cena took such an unequivocal stance in the face of something so potentially damaging. He is audibly proud of the association, revelling in the idea that he\u2019s abiding by his principles in the face of what he calls \u201cthe storm\u201d. \u201cIt\u2019s OK to love somebody when they\u2019re not perfect,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Cena was born in West Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1977, one of five boys in a household that watched every dollar. His grandma and grandpa lived in an adjoining house. \u201cThere was a lot of \u2018How are we going to pay the bills, how are we going to keep the lights on?\u2019\u201d Cena says. He worshipped the movie action men of the era \u2013 Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis \u2013 but he also loved hip-hop, which in suburban Massachusetts made him a target for bullies. Bodybuilding was the answer, and it doubles as an origin story \u2013 the boy bullied for dressing like a white rapper, growing up to become an icon for the next generation of suburban youth.<\/p>\n

Still, when I raise it, Cena is quick to correct the emphasis: the bullying wasn\u2019t the point; his response to it was. \u201cI didn\u2019t treat hostility with hostility,\u201d he says. \u201cI got bullied for the way that I dressed, so I dressed more outlandish.\u201d The muscle was a visible deterrent. \u201cI\u2019ll just project a physical sense of: Man, I don\u2019t want to press my luck with that guy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

After college, he drove to California in 1999 with about $500 to follow Schwarzenegger\u2019s playbook to bodybuilding glory. He worked on the shop floor at Gold\u2019s Gym in Venice Beach for six dollars an hour, and for a stretch, slept in the back of his 1991 Lincoln. A wrestler who worked out at Gold\u2019s steered him towards the industry and in 2000 he made his debut in WWF (now WWE) as The Prototype, a robotic character whose deliberate speech was a clear nod to his idol Arnie. He was paid $250 a week \u201cwhich meant I spiralled into debt\u201d. To Cena\u2019s credit he understood that the short-term loss had the potential to lead to long-term gain. \u201cI\u2019ve been pretty astute at understanding when luck arrives,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Lord of the ring \u2026 John Cena at a WWE event in Toronto in 2024. Photograph: WWE\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

What followed was a 24-year stint as a WWE superstar, a period Cena describes without irony as \u201cservice\u201d. \u201cYou can\u2019t fake that,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you\u2019re in the business of bullshit, somebody\u2019s going to see through it.\u201d He stumbled on a character that stuck: a jersey-wearing, battle-rapping white kid from Massachusetts, who literally went by the name John Cena. Despite some distrust from fans \u2013 over his general clean-living, wholesome persona \u2013 and fellow wrestlers who initially ostracised him for not engaging in the hard-boozing that was par for the course, the gimmick worked. In fact it was so successful that it led to the slightly odd ongoing situation where Cena doesn\u2019t own his own name.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn Cena is who I am as a human being,\u201d he says, \u201cand there is a company \u2013 WWE\/TKO \u2013 that has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the intellectual property of the character John Cena. And rightfully so; they have earned their share of ownership of that.\u201d In Cena\u2019s words he read and understood the agreement and he thought it was fair. However, the lingering sense that a career at the top of WWE requires a deal with the devil prevails (Dwayne Johnson only got his own moniker, \u201cThe Rock\u201d, back in 2024<\/a>, and now sits on the board of TKO). But Cena explicitly rejects the idea that he has had to make sacrifices along the way. \u201cI prefer to use the word choice \u2026 When we say yes to something, we say no to everything else.\u201d In effect, he gave up his name for the rare chance to live his dream.<\/p>\n

And for more than a decade he did. Cena was beloved throughout the 2000s and early 2010s primarily as an avatar for a certain brand of flag-waving, white masculinity that was firmly in tune with the climate of post-9\/11 America but is maybe less so now. Donald Trump was a recurring presence in WWE during this period, memorably shaving McMahon\u2019s head after besting him at WrestleMania and even \u201cbuying\u201d flagship brand Raw as part of the pair\u2019s staged rivalry. The DNA of today\u2019s toxic masculinity can be seen in the WWE\u2019s Attitude era: Muslim performers were painted as would-be terrorists; female wrestlers, known as \u201cdivas\u201d, were sexualised, fighting in \u201cbra and panties\u201d matches; and scandals around steroid abuse and traumatic head injuries were raised in lawsuits.<\/p>\n

double quotation markRather than trying to take the reins of a movement or be the poster child for something, I\u2019m just trying to be me<\/p>\n

The miracle of Cena\u2019s career is that the man who spent a decade as the straight-faced embodiment of American masculinity proved to be equally good at sending it up. After a handful of underwhelming action and sports film roles, he was cast against type by Judd Apatow for the 2015 romcom Trainwreck<\/a>, playing a musclebound hunk whose attempts to be threatening just sound homoerotic. Then as the pumped-up Peacemaker, first in superhero movie The Suicide Squad<\/a> (2021), then in the comedy spin-off series<\/a> named after the character, Cena managed to strike a balance between serious man and silly goose that would be tricky without a healthy amount of self-awareness. This quality was on full display during Cena\u2019s small but charming turn as a merman in Barbie<\/a>, a commitment to the bit that was all the more admirable given his agents tried to talk him out of the role.<\/p>\n

Matchbox, his latest film, is a vague attempt to recapture Barbie\u2019s magic in the more contained format of a traditional action comedy. Cena admits feeling relieved when he read the script and found the cars to be \u201cso far down the list of things they were doing with the IP\u201d. He plays Sean, an undercover operative whose entire life is a performance. When I wonder aloud whether the part sits close to the bone, he eagerly connects the dots himself: \u201cHow does someone who thinks they\u2019re always being watched act in a public place? That I got a little bit of familiarity with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cena\u2019s onscreen persona is an intriguing model of masculinity: the strongman remade as softie. What\u2019s more, his wall-to-wall presence in the childhoods of millennial men makes him a far more credible advocate of positive manhood than a Joe Rogan or a Jordan Peterson. But he is reluctant to assume the mantle. \u201cRather than trying to take the reins of a movement or be the poster child for something, I\u2019m just trying to be me,\u201d he says, before offering his own diagnosis of why so many people are in the business of selling a personal vision of masculinity. \u201cThe appetite for a certain kind of manhood is just supply and demand,\u201d he says. To the people clamouring for it, \u201cmy advice would be: go get it\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Hero move \u2026 John Cena and Danielle Brooks in Peacemaker. Photograph: HBO<\/p>\n

Perhaps Cena\u2019s lack of desire to be cast in the role is emblematic of why it would suit him. The system, he says, \u201cis real fragile \u2026 if I say I\u2019m going to be the showcase of masculinity and the supply-and-demand chain pivots in five minutes, I\u2019m shit out of luck.\u201d He is keen to underscore how much he \u201cloves the United States and admires its military force that makes the vow to, under the ultimate sacrifice, protect that piece of paper that says \u2018We the People\u2019. To me, that\u2019s extremely heroic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cena\u2019s own heroism came into question in 2021 when, while promoting Fast & Furious 9<\/a>, he referred to Taiwan as \u201ca country\u201d. The Chinese audience took offence, and he filmed a contrite apology in Mandarin, a language he had been learning for six years in an attempt to grow the WWE\u2019s presence in China. In the US, the grovelling video read less as an apology than a capitulation to the weight of China\u2019s economic might. The fan backlash was so intense that he told James Gunn he\u2019d understand if he had to be fired from Peacemaker. He takes full responsibility for the episode. \u201cJust because you know the language doesn\u2019t mean you know the culture,\u201d he says, admitting, \u201cI got way too overconfident. I thought I was the smartest guy in the room.\u201d Part of what frightened him was the very real possibility of \u201cthe termination of employment that I love\u201d. The same reflex to remain loyal to the brand has carried him, without complaint, to numerous events in Saudi Arabia. \u201cWWE offers a universal language of diplomacy,\u201d he says. \u201cSo, to your question of: \u2018Hey, the thing that you\u2019re in is sometimes criticised for the moves that it makes as an entity \u2013 is that difficult?\u2019 Of course it is, especially when you believe in the entity.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a man who prides himself on saying yes, it is revealing what he has time and time again said no to. Cena does not want children, and the reasoning is entirely in keeping with his sense of discipline: they\u2019d simply require too much of him. From 2002 to 2015 he was home \u201cabout 15 days a year and even now it\u2019s maybe 70\u201d, he says. \u201cIf I said yes to children, I have to say no to everything else.\u201d His engagement to fellow wrestler Nikki Bella \u2013 his co-star on the reality show Total Bellas \u2013 collapsed in 2018, in large part over whether to have them. Cena, who\u2019d had a vasectomy, offered to reverse it, but the relationship ended shortly after.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really enjoy my life,\u201d he says. Cena has granted more than 650 Make-a-Wish<\/a> wishes, more than anyone alive. He sees his ability to do so much work for the organisation as inextricably linked to being child-free. \u201cIf I have a family of my own, I don\u2019t have those 650 moments \u2026 I\u2019m flying with just my partner on this one.\u201d Cena married Shay Shariatzadeh, an Iranian Canadian tech product manager, in 2020, after meeting in Vancouver while he was shooting a film. They had only been together a year but he\u2019s said he would have proposed after three months. \u201cI have a loving connection that people don\u2019t see,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t need the world to totally know me as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n

He remains on the WWE\u2019s books as a \u201cbrand ambassador\u201d, a reflection of his gratitude to the company, but also an unresolved transition back into civilian life. Next up, he will star in One Attempt Remaining, a comedy from Kay Cannon (director of Blockers and the writer-producer behind the Pitch Perfect series). He plays one half of a divorced couple who is forced to team up with his ex in order to track down the lost password to a crypto account worth millions. Whereas Dwayne Johnson has become a brand bigger than his wrestling fame, you get the sense Cena will never fully escape his WWE persona, his screen performances a callback to the exaggerated version of himself he\u2019s been playing since 2002.<\/p>\n

Perhaps that\u2019s what it is to be a company man: not an empty suit or a servile mouthpiece but a person so thoroughly committed to the brand it is simply who he is. Present, punctual, polite and perfunctory. The job is done and it\u2019s back to the gym.<\/p>\n

Matchbox: The Movie premieres on Apple TV on 9 October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I must admit, I was apprehensive about meeting John Cena. The WWE wrestler turned actor has built an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-620502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}