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John Cena On Possibly Working With The Rock In a Fast & Furious Sequel, Playing the Villain In F9

June 16, 2021 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
John Cena F9

John Cena is set to debut in the Fast & Furious franchise in F9 this month, and if he gets a chance he’d love to face off with The Rock in a future film. Cena is playing Jakob Toretto, the brother of Vin Diesel’s Dom, in the film which arrives on June 25th. He spoke with Geek Culture in a new interview and discussed his role in the movie and more. You can check out the highlights below:

On playing the villain in the movie: “It seemed like no one would give me a chance, but I don’t blame them. You can’t really choose opportunity, opportunity finds you and you just got to be ready for it … Alot of the opportunities I’ve been given are to be a good guy and then the Fast franchise was brave enough to take a chance on me as a bad guy. All of the public is like ‘Well you can’t be a bad guy’, until they see the movie. And a lot of people thought ‘You’re just a WWE superstar and you can’t do it’, and then you finally get the chance to be the bad guy. So I’m making the impossible possible! I got to be a bad guy!”

On playing Dom’s brother: “The most difficult and dangerous [challenge] is the brother versus brother confrontations between Jakob and Dom. We knew we had to bring that action to another level because Fast is known for its action and especially known for Dom Toretto’s face-off with insurmountable odds but this had to be of a different nature. This had to be a fight between brothers, action between brothers and a face off between equal opponents. It was merely surreal to find out that I would be a Toretto and Dom’s brother. This being my first movie (in the franchise) and many folks have dedicated 20 years of their lives to the legacy of this too. My philosophy was just to be a sponge, keep your mouth shut, your ears open and listen to the people that have crafted this story over the past 20 years and that really served me great.”

On a possible confrontation between his character and The Rock’s Lucas Hobbs: “[laughs] The low hanging fruit answer to that is, ‘You can’t see me.’ The real answer is I don’t know if that’ll happen and that’s that’s very much up to the Fast audience to decide. As the Fast saga grows and evolves, I’m excited for a possible moment like that but there’s no guarantee. I hope it happens and if the audiences around the world hope the same thing, who knows.”

On if he’s returning for the remaining sequels: “I’d like to think I’m the best villain to match up, but it’s not up to me to decide. I think Jakob is deserving of being in the Fast franchise because of the excellent perspective we’ve seen in Dom Toretto [in response to Jakob’s existence]. Throughout the 20 year history, besides his sister, his chosen family are people that he loves and people that are close to him but don’t necessarily share a bloodline. He now looks at things with a perspective as a father, and also as a brother – a blood brother – and I think that’s a very interesting and curious one that keeps the movie moving.”