John Cena knows what you’re thinking.
It’s been a long road from king of wrestling to newest member of the Fast & Furious family for Cena, who debuts in F9 as Jakob Toretto, the previously unmentioned superspy brother of Dom .
Fast-forward three years and F9’s year-plus delay due to a global pandemic, and Cena is not just starring in a Fast movie, but he’s a Toretto.
We were just getting to know each other, and like 30 seconds in, I’m like, ‘Okay, good, I can breathe.’ Right away, he understood the character, and it was just a part of him that I felt I hadn’t seen.
Cena, a Fast superfan who counts The Fast and the Furious and Tokyo Drift as his personal faves, knew the pressure was on him, between the expectations of the Toretto name and Diesel crediting the late Paul Walker for “sending” Cena to him.
“As someone who’s trying to hone my skills as an actor, I’m still still very much a rookie,” says Cena, who believes studying under the likes of Diesel and Lin “made me better.” “This movie is a success without me – Fast is going to be Fast.
It’s going to be a busy summer for Cena fans, with the now very in-demand actor starring in James Gunn’s superhero sequel The Suicide Squad , which Hollywood hopes can rev up the pandemic-deflated box office.
I just want to enjoy the now, and for me the now is, I’ve had to wait patiently, as we all have.
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During, he kind of puts on his phone and kind of welcomes me into the family, but doesn’t, and I just don’t know what’s going on.
As that icon once said, “The most important thing in life will always be the people in this Zoom, right here, right now.” And for me, that’s the Dom to my Brian, the Letty to my Mia, the Roman to my Tej, the Gisele to my Han, the Ramsey to my Queenie, and new edition alert, the Jakob to my Cipher, Chanelle Berlin Johnson.
Oh, I mean the road has been long and beautiful and so excited to finally be here and get to talk about this movie, which they always find a way to up the ante.
We’ve already chatted about the first 8 installments, so you can go back and check out our interviews with Vin Diesel, Ludacris, Lucas Black, Justin Lin, Jordana Brewster, Sung Kang, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, and Nathalie Emmanuel.
I mean, we’re just two geeks about this franchise and we’re lucky enough to have them all talk to us and it’s still mind-blowing.
On past installments, we went full spoilers, digging deep into the specifics of each film, but with this conversation dropping on June 25th, the glorious day that F9 is released.
We’ll be back next week with an all spoiler F9 episode, and there’ll be so much to be discussed that we’ll be joined by multiple members of the family.
So, of course, like we said, just when the Torettos think they might be out of the game, Dom and Mia’s enstranged brother, Jakob, pulls them right back in and the team is tasked with stopping him.
Plus like Vin Diesel told us way back in episode one of our BINGE pod here that there’s a lot in this movie that directly ties back to the first film of the franchise.
I’m not getting into the details.” And yet still we get a long lost brother, super spy brother at that, Han being alive and space, and then apparently an origin story.
As we talked about with him and with Ludacris, who’s the one who first told us that tidbit like, Justin’s not a guy, we’ve talked to him a lot of times now, he wouldn’t just say something to say something.” So, he really truly believes that, so we can’t wait to see if he’s right.
For the first eight Fast & Furious movies, we couldn’t see John Cena, but now he’s more visible than ever.
Already was a highly anticipated movie, but only even more so now after the last year plus after that first trailer dropped, so we’re almost there.
That compounded with the fact that we’re making great strides to a more safer, responsible environment, and it does seem as if we’re ready to go back and enjoy cinema again.
You kind of just did a little bit there, but we’ve been starting each of these episodes by quoting those famous words of Dominic Toretto.
I need that to happen.” And you said, it’s like, “Obviously, that’s out of my control, but that would be a dream come true.” Now, here we are.
I really put my heart and soul into this and I’m very proud of what’s going to show up on screen, but this movie is a success without me.
So, it captured my heart when it went after the zeitgeist of the tuna market, the import market, pitting American muscle versus tunas, that whole street racing philosophy.
And then after that, the franchise kind of took on a life of its own to be more global, to be more action-based, but then again, I was kind of traveling a similar path trying to be a global entertainer.
So, I didn’t want to overstep my bounds and kind of stay in my lane respectively, but I’m very glad with what I got to drive and what I got to see on set.
So, obviously, you’re a fan, but when this opportunity comes your way, how was it presented? What was your reaction to it? Because I know shortly before it came official, you met with Vin and he kind of put it out into the universe that maybe before it was fully real.
Me, like I said, as an entertainer, that’s somebody I can learn from, that’s somebody I can gain wisdom from, share perspectives that maybe other people can’t in a certain conversation.
He almost felt like Paul sent you his way, which is, obviously, someone who was a fan of the franchise and knows how important Paul was to it.
Please, even on those days that are tough and you wake up in the wrong side of the bed, leave it all in the lens.” And there are now tremendous expectations set on your shoulders.
Or not the comparison, but the invocation of Paul, and then also you’re brought in and find out you’re going to be a Toretto.
And they announced to me that I would be in the family and they sent me the script and they said they wanted me to specifically read Jakob and you read very early on that Jakob is a Toretto.
I remember talking to Justin when the trailer came out and he’s like, “Yeah.” He’s like, “When we came up with the idea of introducing an exploring family, actually through bloodlines for the first time, I was really excited,” but then he’s like, “I woke up the next morning, I was like…
And from Justin’s perspective, someone who really found their way back to the franchise because they wanted to tell all these stories and tie up all these loose ends.
I mean, that’s all creative stuff that you could go on and on and on about, but I guess basically my point is, I was put in the most informative, welcoming, encouraging environment that I could have possibly been put in with the heartbeat of Fast and Vin and someone like Justin who found his way back to the franchise because it’s a story he desperately wants to tell.
I mean, you mentioned his garage and kind of like helping him get in the mindset of Dom.
Like I said, Vin has all the wisdom accrued of two decades worth of investing into this.
When it came down to conversations, it would start with a wide range of talking about my family, talking about his family, talking about what do we think fights and families are? What do we think reconciliations and families are like? Why do people do this? All these open-ended questions, and then we would just begin to cleave off sections and narrow down, and narrow down, and narrow down.
The confrontation between Vin and I was discussed that it had to have certain elements, and it was very arduous and very long, but I don’t regret any of it.
There are people who are more intrinsic, there are people who are more extroverted, but every single person put it upon themselves to spend time with me and to put into perspective what was going on, where they held this body of work in their mind and their heart and moving forward, hoping we can make it the best we can.
You talked about all these conversations you had with Vin or Justin, but for yourself in preparing to play Jakob…
If I took a chance on a personality trait or a reaction or a delivery of something that I thought was, “This is what I think I’m reading.” And then they say, “Cut.” And if Vin or Justin or whomever comes over and be like, “Okay, great.
And a lot of the stuff I did was not funny, but out of all the not funny stuff, they got about six minutes of good laughs.
I know in the past we’ve talked about you get to play good guy roles and stuff.
They’re universally accepted of like, “What does this person think they’re doing?” But this person has truth and enough truth to their argument to justify their actions, but they are doing harm.
It felt like a nice contrast to the first movie where it’s like…
What are they doing?” You’ll just go and have a fun blockbuster ride and enjoy the movie, but if you want to take a look at it, you’re looking at it like, “Wow, it’s taken an arc of nine movies to kind of come full circle with Dom, but is this what they were up to all along? Have they written this tale all along?” It’s really cool to dive into that, and that’s where I think Vin and somebody like Justin are really special because they don’t leave those ropes hanging.
I think that there’s a lot to unpack there if you want, or if you just want to go out and watch a great action movie, you can do that too.
I remember Vin telling us, he’s like, “Yeah…” We were talking to him about the first movie and he’s like, “Yeah, the cool thing is F9, you’re going to be able to understand that first movie even more after F9.” Which he says kind of mind blowing.
And these are thoughts that they’ve only had to consider just recently because Jakob was just brought into the fold just recently, but every one of them is so into it that they would offer like, “Well, we ever considered that this happened,” or maybe something like this and that spawns a whole new track of thought to explain the behavior that’s written in the words.
At the same time with that too, there’s obviously another Toretto sibling.
That’s another moment where I was starstruck, but I think when you take the Toretto siblings in totality, especially in F9, it begins to become more exciting, as you said, as we kind of continue to tell the story on this long game that is the legacy of Fast.
Because it’s like, “Yeah, this is Dom’s brother, but this is also Mia’s brother as well.” I feel like when the trailer came out and it’s like, “Oh.” That moment of Letty revealing that Jakob is Dom’s brother.
And I think this is the reason that it continues to grow and have reach around the world is that even in the very first one, it approached the concept of family or those people that you love.
And I think film after film, after film, barbecue after barbecue, that’s the important concept of being thankful to have people around you that you love, trust, and believe in, and that believe in you.
So, with F9 and Suicide Squad and Vacation Friends, you got a lot lined up right now.
I always try to be as present as I can, and there’s not a day goes by where I don’t take at least a moment in a day and realize how lucky I am and how fortunate I am.
We see how long this cast has been together, but it also feels like Fast loves to bring someone in and kind of let them cook.
That’s like the conversation we had at the Blockers interview, but I got a chance and I really think I did a good job understanding of what the opportunity was and the perspective that I should take.
You see it on Vin, he’s wearing it, but then what happens when you put that on for the first time? And you’re staring down at Vin as Dom on set.
And someone who isn’t dedicated to the franchise and isn’t a long follower doesn’t understand that, but I just ask them and maybe trying to send a message to people who can’t conceptualize that.
I want to go back really quick as Derek mentioned, of course, bringing other characters and there is at least like a little bit.
I got to work with a lot of experienced performers in WWE and that’s how I gained my instincts and I just shut my mouth and listened.
You know what I mean? She can go do all sorts of different things, but she doesn’t show up doing what you would do in some Oscar bait type movie.
I remember when we had that Blockers conversation, his name came up because obviously he’s becomes such a big part of this franchise.
And if Jakob Toretto is F9 and that’s it, still, what an awesome thing to be able to grab the wheel of an automobile in a Fast & Furious franchise and be on screen doing that.
That’s why I’ve been in this chair, in this green void, and I’ll continue to do so until this thing comes out and we can get as many people back in cinemas as we possibly can.
You start reading the script and you’re reading it for Jakob and then you find out, “Wait a minute.
And we’re all in a conversation where we’ve all experienced that, but man, if my words keep someone back in their seat instead of moving them up to the edge, where’s the win in that for me? And especially because we’ve been this patient.
And knowing you have such a great movie in the bank, you’re like, “God, can I just get it out there?!” So, we’re so close and I just don’t want to steal anybody’s moment.
As you’ll see in the movie, it’s not a lot of interaction, but he really is a really good person to talk to, and has a tremendous story.
As I told you, Justin, I can’t believe they put that much on the trailer, but as he keeps promising, we have even more still to come.
Are they going to give away too much?” But the second trailer is just as riveting, just as exciting, just as charged.
And Chanelle just referenced how all these incredible looking movies that you have coming up where you said back maybe 2009 period you were like, “Okay.
So, then I began to look at like, “Why am I doing this? Why am I drawn to this? Why do I now have passion for this as well as WWE?” I love to tell stories.
If we could make movie stars out of WWE performers, more people would come to WWE events, but all those times I was sitting idly on a movie set from 2004 to 2009, I wanted to be on the canvas.
It’s a very patient process, and one that I’ve had to develop my own perspective towards, but as a 20-something and a 30-something living the life of a go to a different city every night, tear it up, everybody’s excited you’re there, and then do it again and again, and again, and again, five nights a week, every week, 52 weeks a year.
And I remembered being like, “Yo, we’re never doing movies again, are we?” And he was like, “You’re right.” And here we are, an overnight sensation that’s taken us 20 years.
But like you said, it’s obviously been a process of, I guess pun intended, like people seeing past just the John Cena they’ve come to know from WWE.
That’s very difficult sometimes, but when you started the interview with like, “Man, it’s just going to be a chair and a green screen.” That means something I’ve done in my life has affected you and it stuck with you.
Everything comes to an end, but I don’t think he’ll ever get tired or fed up with being known as Dom Toretto because he knows the contribution and his work is stuck with people.
And I think that’s been my main focus of what I’m trying to do so people don’t look up on the screen and be like, “Yo, the car is driving itself.” I hope they just get lost in the movie, and then if they want to make the joke a couple of days after they see the movie, but my biggest obstacle now is to have them just get lost in the experience of the movie.
Talking about evolution for yourself, was there anything in this movie because it sort of requires you to be like a big action force, but also there is that undercurrent of family and pathos throughout this movie.
But I’m also who you’ve come to see in your living room every Monday and Friday night for a long period of time.
So, I think combining the two elements, I really had a lot of fun diving into sibling relationship and blood family at its core and struggles between people who bear the same last name.
And everybody’s been patient, and we’re at such a good point where we feel that people can responsibly and safely go back to the cinema and enjoy it.
You know what I mean? A 2 Fast 2 Furious or Fate of the Furious type situation.
That’s a layup, right? Let’s put that out into the universe and hopefully Justin brings home.
You get the feeling that this isn’t just a job for John.
And I think such a testament to this franchise that people, again, come into it and they’re excited to be here for very specific reasons because they connected with something in the movies.
And like Brian O’Conner, we hope you earned your respect and that you keep listening to EW’s BINGE of the Fast Saga.