Cody Rhodes Opens Up About Playing Stardust, Ludwig Kaiser’s El Grande Americano Gimmick, & His Favorite Wrestler To Work With

Current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes’ journey to the top of the mountain in the Stamford-based company hasn’t been an easy one.

During the final few years of his first WWE stint, The American Nightmare portrayed the role of Stardust, which, even though it appealed to the kids, was essentially a midcard gimmick.

While Cody was admittedly motivated to portray it initially, he eventually felt frustrated with his creative direction and requested his release in 2016. He returned to WWE in 2022 as The American Nightmare and has not looked back since.

The 40-year-old recently appeared on the All The Smoke podcast, where he opened up about the Stardust character. He also gave his thoughts on Ludwig Kaiser portraying the El Grande Americano character currently, while also revealing his favorite opponent inside the squared circle.

Check out the highlights from the interview below:

On playing Stardust

“Well, so, at the beginning of Stardust, I looked at it as real; this was in the era of you’re not getting a lot of playing time, but they want you to do something special with this character. You’re going to be with your brother, Goldust. So, I looked at it as a challenge, to maximize, to really kind of make chicken salad out of chicken s**t’s essentially. That’s always a big thing in wrestling. Take something that’s a little silly, and then you blow it up,” he said.

Cody then went on to liken his Stardust to Ludwig Kaiser’s current portrayal of El Grande Americano and proceeded to give his flowers to the former Imperium member. He also detailed his initial motivation when he took up the Stardust character and how it impacted him once the shelf life he had in mind for the gimmick was over.

“El Grande Americano is a guy we got right now who is doing this exact thing. He has taken something that could have been a death sentence for another wrestler, and he’s just making it special. And they don’t mean it to be a death sentence; they mean it to be a challenge. At the beginning of Stardust, I thought, ‘This is a great challenge, and I’ve answered this challenge. We’re selling those gloves. I’m learning how to do the paint. I can be so ridiculous. Uh, my promos have almost moved into this realm where there’s a British accent to it. It’s just gone so ridiculous. All this sci-fi knowledge that I knew I can incorporate into this character.’ But I also gave it a shelf life of about six months. So over a year in was the lowest of low as a wrestler.” [1:01:52-1:03:06]

On his favorite wrestler to work with

“Ah, man, I change my answer a lot. But I’ll tell you one that’s sticking out to me. A lot of… I named a lot of luminary figures like Mr. Heyman and Michael Hayes, but the wrestler in the ring that I really enjoy working with—I mean, John, obviously—but I’m trying to think of something that… I’ll tell you one that I learned a lot from in a very short amount of time: Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts. I learned a lot from him in just a single promo. In a single promo, I learned how a guy can basically cut your legs, but if you’re strong as a character, you can stand up to that. But if you weren’t, he was going to move past you.” [1:05:25 onwards]

Please credit the All The Smoke podcast and give an H/T to 411Mania if you take quotes from this article.