John Cena has a fear of heights that he says stems from his time in WWE, and the longtime wrestler had to confront that fear while filming Matchbox: The Movie.
Cena stars in the action comedy, which is set to be released on Apple TV on October 9. The film required Cena to perform several of his own stunts, including sequences involving significant heights.
Speaking with E! News, Cena discussed how his WWE career contributed to his fear of heights and how he dealt with it while working on the movie.
Additionally, Cena revealed his reaction to his WrestleMania 41 trading card selling for almost $330,000.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On his reaction to his WrestleMania 41 trading card selling for almost $330,000: “My indication of that is, there’s a lot of expendable income out there. I think collectibles might be overvalued at some point and — man, it’s really hard to put that into rational thought of excitement when a price like that [is raised] for a card. But also being an auto enthusiast, I understand how, man. If you want it and you’re passionate about it and you got the resources for it, it deems a price. I get that.
On having mixed feelings about it: “Goodness, yeah. That — it’s weird, it’s weird and I don’t — no, I want to choose my words carefully, and I want to reflect on it. I hope the person that used their resources to acquire that card has a lot of joy and connection to whatever they acquired, is not using it as a commodity to possibly flip for future gain. Because in my experience with autos, that’s a fool’s chase. But when you look at something, I always say material things are just material things, right? But we can give them meaning. And as long as we have connection and meaning to the material thing, that’s important. And sometimes you can’t put a price on that.”
On not being surprised by it: “No, I mean things are worth what we pay for them, and the market dictates price. It’s just hard for me to conceptualize that. And I guess that’s my hope. Just because I don’t understand it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. It also doesn’t mean it doesn’t cool. As a matter of fact, that’s kind of a cue that I’m old, because I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t understand. So I — again I just hope the person who has it has some joy with it.”
On facing his fear of heights in the movie: “There were very many times where I thought like, ‘Oh, this is unsafe. This is where the stuntman is, this is where a professional is going to come in and make this look smooth. Hat’s off to Sam Hargrave for being like, ‘I’m going to second guess you there.’ Sam’s origin story, he started as a performer and is a second unit director and a coordinator. So, he knows what it feels like to fall. He knows what all the the rigs feel like, he knows what’s safe. He knows when the professionals need to come in. And he wanted to push the limit of, ‘Hey, I want you, John, to do as much as we possibly can.’ Because of Sam’s fluency, I got to face a lot of my fears and do a lot of things that I’m uncomfortable with.”
On his fear coming from WWE: “And I think my fear of heights stems from falling down most of my life in the WWE, and knowing a fall that is going to hurt, and a fall that is going to injure, and a fall that it’s going to be greater than that. So I hadn’t been able to tackle that fear, I was still very scared in doing all that stuff. I didn’t overcome my fear, but I promised Sam I would lean into the uncomfortable. And he promised me I would be safe, and we both delivered on our promise.”
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