SAN DIEGO – John Cena went from the "five knuckle shuffle" to white knuckling it through his latest film.
The "Peacemaker" star swung by Apple TV's panel at San Diego Comic-Con on July 25 to preview "Matchbox: The Movie," his new action comedy based on the Mattel toys. Jessica Biel, Sam Richardson, Teyonah Parris and Arturo Castro also star in the film, in which Cena plays an undercover CIA agent who inadvertently gets his buddies tied up in a globe-trotting adventure.
Speaking on stage, Cena recalled being terrified filming "Matchbox" and noted director Sam Hargrave asked him to do his own stunts. A trailer shown at Comic-Con highlighted a number of major stunt sequences, including a scene where Cena's character hangs off a helicopter.
"I like
fight choreography. Some of you have seen me do that in WWE. Becoming invisible, that’s my strength. I hate ledges. I hate heights. I hate cheating death," he said.
"Each day, I [pooped] my pants, because he had me jumping off of buildings. ... He had me hanging from a helicopter. I did a lot of stuff that I was afraid to do. I conquered none of my fears. I’m still afraid to do them," Cena joked, thanking his cast for being a "great support system at times when I was scared for my life."
Biel said she felt like "a kid again" driving real-life Matchbox cars, which she and her brothers played with growing up. "It kind of revitalized my feeling about the movie industry," she said.
Kenneth Branagh becomes an action star in 'Mayday'
Also in the panel, directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley discussed "Mayday," an upcoming action-comedy starring Ryan Reynolds as a Navy pilot who finds himself stranded in Russian territory during the Cold War, where he's discovered by an ex-KGB agent, played by Kenneth Branagh, and the pair become unlikely partners.
Goldstein said the idea stemmed from wanting to make "a comedic version of the movie 'Misery,'" mixed with buddy action comedies of the 1980s and 1990s like "Midnight Run" and "48 Hours."
"You haven't seen Ken Branagh the action star until you’ve seen 'Mayday,' and I think he’s going to start getting a lot of offers that usually go to Jason Statham," he quipped.
'Neuromancer' trailer released
On the TV side, the cast of "Widow's Bay" and "Silo" stopped by at the panel, and "Neuromancer," the long-awaited series based on the classic William Gibson cyberpunk novel, debuted a trailer.
Showrunner Graham Roland said it it felt like an "appropriate time for us to revisit the text," given many of the concepts popularized in the novel, including the term cyberspace, are now "part of our everyday lives." Callum Turner stars in the series, which premieres Jan. 22.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why John Cena was 'scared for my life' on 'Matchbox: The Movie'
