ET caught up with Cena and Yvonne Orji at the East and West coast screenings of their new film, "Vacation Friends."
John Cena is looking to get one of his old rivals in the ring. The actor and WWE star spoke with ET at the screening of his new movie, Vacation Friends in New York Tuesday, where he talked about the film, getting Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson back into the ring and more.
Cena, who made his comeback to the WWE ring over the weekend, told ET's Lauren Zima that he's rooting for The Rock's return.
"He's earned the right not to be pressured into that choice. I can say he is a fan of the WWE. He is the most electrifying man in sports entertainment. So as a fan do, I want to see one of the greatest performers of all time step back in the WWE ring? Yeah. But in no way am I gonna call him and if I'm gonna talk to him about something, it's not gonna try to be to get him back in the WWE ring. He needs to come to that conclusion by himself," Cena shared.
He continued, "Because then, his performance will be, The Rock, he'll be the best he can be. So I do hope he comes back, as a fan, and I hope it's wonderful, and if he chooses not to, he's earned the right to choose not to."
Cena quickly transitions from work mode to party mode when talking about his new film, Vacation Friends. With a drink in his hand, Cena told ET that he allowed himself to let his hair down, almost literally, for the made for Hulu movie.
"Most of the budget went to my hair, because they had to make more of it. Clay wanted me to look like, just like something shot out of a cannon. And he asked me if I would grow my hair out, he asked me if I would grow a little stubble, which actually took me 6 months and I still couldn't grow anything. But I really liked it," the otherwise regimented actor and athlete said of his carefree character, Ron. "It actually helped me be kind of easy and fancy free, and present in the moment. And it was fun to have messed up hair all the time."
The cast, composed of Cena, Meredith Hagner, Lil Rel Howery and Yvonne Orji partied it up in Puerto Rico while filming Vacation Friends before their vacation was cut short by the pandemic. The time they spent on that secluded resort made them that much closer once they returned to film the rest of the movie when the world re-opened eight months later.
"I like to have my fun. Meredith also likes to have her fun. Like Rel, I think all of us. And I think that's what made our time in Puerto Rico so special," Cena explained. "So we filmed all the party stuff in Puerto Rico, and we filmed up to the last day of right before the world locked itself down, like the last day, but we didn't know it was going to happen. We had heard about something, and Puerto Rico was really secluded and not affected yet, so we were having a blast. We had a resort all to ourselves, we thought we were gonna get to Atlanta and everybody's like, 'Okay see you on Monday! 'And then 8 months later, Monday came, but it was cool because we had this like Vacation Friends bond where we were on a resort, just us for 2 weeks, hanging out sharing stories, partying and then we were the first human beings we saw after 8 months. So the party kept on going and it really made for the fun that you see on screen in Vacation Friends, and it really helped us kinda create that bond."
That bond is something that Orji, who was dressed for vacation in an aquamarine blue dress, felt too. ET spoke with her and Howery at the Vacation Friends screening in L.A., where they touched on their on-screen chemistry.
"Yvonne is so good in it, she's good in everything, she looks amazing in this movie, she looks amazing now, she always does," Howery said. "And John Cena, Meredith, we have such a great cast it was so much fun to do, and I'm really excited to watch it with people. I've watched this movie way too many times."
"He has and he texts me every time he watches it, 'I'm watching it again,'" Orji quipped.
You can watch it as many times as you like, when Vacation Friends hits Hulu on August 27.
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