The NFL star recently signed on to produce an upcoming movie -- and who better than Cena to offer some advice?
For a professional athlete looking to make a career transition into Hollywood, there are few people better to ask for advice than John Cena.
The pro wrestler-turned-actor has been signed to the WWE since 2001, but began his transition from sports to acting in the mid-2010s. Cena gained acclaim for supporting roles in films like Trainwreck and Bumblebee before taking on leading parts in Peacemaker and the Fast & Furious franchise. (He has also continued to wrestle part-time, telling ET in January that he plans to retire for good in the next three years.)
While recent Super Bowl champion Travis Kelce has not yet announced any serious plans to retire from the NFL, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end did just take a major first step towards another possible career in signing on to executive produce an upcoming movie.
ET confirmed earlier this month that Kelce is breaking into the world of movies as an executive producer on the upcoming film My Dead Friend Zoe. The low-budget dark comedy, which stars Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman, is the first project to take advantage of 2022's Inflation Reduction Act to finance a film.
Kelce and his producing partners, Mike Field and Ray Maiello, are also using President Joe Biden's renewable energy tax credits to finance a Jean-Michel Basquiat documentary, King Pleasure.
Cena and his Ricky Stanicky co-star, Zac Efron, recently sat down with ET's Cassie DiLaura to discuss their upcoming comedy -- and Cena took a moment to offer a word of advice to Kelce on his possible upcoming career change.
"I would inspire him to reflect on his journey," Cena shared. "He didn't become a Super Bowl champion in a year. I bet he started playing football at a very young age."
"This is the one misconception that a lot of people have... 'You were born for this.' I was not. I worked very hard and suffered a lot of setbacks and looked ridiculous and had a lot of failures," he admitted. "But I have a lot of people supporting me, and I just never gave up."
"So my advice to Travis is, should he choose another skill, look at how [long] it took to be fluent in football," Cena concluded. "It's gonna take that long to be fluent in another skill. Just surround yourself with great teammates and good things will come from it."
"You can't put it any better than that, man," Efron agreed.
In Ricky Stanicky, Efron, Jermaine Fowler and Andrew Santino play a trio that have been friends since high school. They're all also "friends" with the titular character, Ricky Stanicky, who, it turns out, the pals made up to use as an excuse to get out of obligations at work and home. (Visiting Ricky in the hospital is a cover for a trip to Atlantic City, etc.)
However, when the lie is almost exposed, the friends hire a rock and roll impersonator who goes by the stage name "Rock Hard Rod" (Cena), to pretend to be Ricky Stanicky and protect their deceptions.
As expected, they end up a bit over their heads as Rod takes a liking to his newfound identity, infiltrating the friends' lives and jobs to an uncomfortable degree.
The film -- which also stars William H. Macy, Lex Scott Davis, Anja Savcic and Jane Badler -- marks writer-director Peter Farrelly's return to raunchy comedy after helming such classics as Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary.
Ricky Stanicky is set to be released on Prime Video on March 7.
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