How did John Cena end up in The Suicide Squad? That much should be obvious.
After all, Cena has spent the better part of the last two decades playing a patriot, never give up superhero in a WWE ring, but since he moved primarily from the squared circle to the backlots of Hollywood, he’s found his voice not by repackaging his wrestling persona but by shedding it, growing into one of the funniest leading men in Hollywood, as well as one of the most versatile, at his best when he turns up his internal dials all the way to 11.
Ok, wait, it’s possible his casting is only obvious in hindsight, because according to Cena, it was anything but a sure thing.
“I operate under the construct of opportunity will find you and just be ready to answer the door when it does. It’s a difficult quest to seek opportunity. And this is no different. I’m not sure I was James’ first choice for Peacemaker. And I don’t care. Because I eventually was asked, and when asked you do the best you can deliver,” Cena tells Esquire Middle East.
Nevertheless, the growth he’s managed over his film career made him the perfect fit for Christopher Smith, also known as Peacemaker, a funhouse mirror version of his WWE character and a darker shadow of Captain America, a jingoistic madman who will do anything, as long as he can justify it in the name of his country.
“I have a huge gun as a compensation issue, a bright costume because I don’t want to blend in and I wear a toilet seat on my head. My slogan is, I love peace enough to kill men, women and children to defend it. That’s an oxymoron in itself. So as you can see, I’m pretty f*cked up,” Cena tells Esquire Middle East.
Peacemaker the character originally made his debut in Charlton Comics, who also created characters such as The Question, Blue Beetle and Captain Atom, all of whom eventually made the move over to DC when Charlton got bought in the 80s.
Most famously, the character served as the basis for Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s character The Comedian in the blockbuster graphic novel Watchmen, played by Jeffery Dean Morgan in Zack Snyder’s film adaptation in 2009.
In James Gunn’s version, he’s something of a comedian himself, delivering many of the film’s best one-liners and visual gags before (slight spoiler alert) morphing into someone much scarier as the film goes on.
Cena’s turn as Peacemaker is a revelation, and no one saw that more clearly than Gunn himself, who spun the character off into his own HBO Max TV series, which just wrapped filming and is headed for an eight-episode run in early 2022.
Ok, but how did that happen exactly? Did Cena know the entire time that a show would be happening, or this something that he earned with the performance he turned in?
It was the latter, Cena tells Esquire Middle East, and was partly the result of the Covid-19 pandemic, as James Gunn was stuck inside, struck with inspiration, and started writing a Peacemaker series just for fun after The Suicide Squad had already wrapped.
“This series was a thought after the movie was done. The pandemic situation was tough on every one of us, but I’m grateful that James had some time alone with his thoughts, because he was able to use his twisted brain and come up with a narrative for Peacemaker, but it all happened after the fact. So it’s not like I got an opportunity from the beginning. I was never like, ‘yo, I’m going to parlay this into a spin off.’” says Cena.
According to Cena, Gunn called him out of the blue, and he blurted out a yes before Gunn even explained what it was he was calling him about
“James is like, ‘OK, so I did this thing. And would you like to—?’ And before he can even tell me what it was, I said, ‘yes!’ There’s very few people I do that with because I really have to read the material. I’m not at a level where I can confidently make that commitment. I want to be able to read and know the tools that I have and what I can contribute. Working with James was such an experience that before he even said what he was doing I was interested,” says Cena,
“James said, ‘you don’t even know what it is yet.’ I said, ‘yea no, I’m in,’ and James said, ‘Well, OK, we’re going to do Peacemaker for HBO Max’. And I was flattered,” Cena continues.
Gunn had earned Cena’s utmost respect on the set of the film, and he particularly admired his ability to think on his feet, something Cena has had to do in front of tens of thousands with a mic in his hand for years.
“I certainly don’t want to speak for James, but I think he has an uncanny ability to adapt when he sees something, even if it was unexpected. He’s okay leaning into it. His ability to pivot and adapt to what he gets also attributes to his uncanny casting and ability to pull performances out of individuals. Rather than just cling to the material, if he does see something, that he is unexpected to him, he’s okay leaning into them,” says Cena.
Even then, Cena never imagined he’d have the opportunity to continue on with the character.
“I guess my mind doesn’t work like that. I just want to try to do the best I possibly can and not let the people that I’m working with down because making a film is such an arduous task. And it asks a lot of everyone, whether you’re the person cooking food, parking the cars, holding the microphone or in front of the camera, and I never want to look past that opportunity. It’s okay to have a plan, but if you look past it and don’t invest in it you do a disservice to everybody in the movie. I wasn’t thinking about anything except showing up putting that ridiculous costume on every day and loving every minute of it,” says Cena.
For Cena, who has never stopped pushing himself for the entirety of his career, revelled in the opportunity that The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker gave him, not only to work with Gunn, but to work alongside performers such as Idris Elba, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinneman and Sylvester Stallone.
“This is all kind of new for me. And that that’s a challenge that I enjoy. I enjoy having to rise to the occasion. I enjoy not being the smartest person in the room. I enjoy being surrounded by folks that can help me and that are in an environment that is geared to do that. But at the same time, I think the expectations of any sort of superhero or comic book venture now are so high, regardless of the tag that goes along with the franchise. I think there’s certainly some expectations to the movie goers and to the consumers out there that we deliver a good product. Good. Okay.”
Cena trails off for a moment, and it’s not immediately clear why.
“Sorry, I’m transfixed with a cat behind you. And I’m wondering how it defied gravity to get up there. That was pretty interesting,” adds Cena.
The Suicide Squad is only in theaters tomorrow, August 5, across the Middle East
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