John Cena in ‘Jackpot!’ with Awkwafina and his appearance in ‘The Bear’

John Cena parlays WWE experience into new comedy Win the jackpot!co-star Awkwafina trained on how to throw a punch during the scene where she was supposed to break his nose.

“I broke my nose in real life and it was from a prosthetic so that was cool. I really think the setup for that was fun and when I actually did it and we did the comedy, it looked cool and it was good in the movie,” John Cena said. Hollywood Reporter At the film’s premiere on Tuesday, he added that he told Awkwafina to “hit it hard, and that’s what she did.”

In the Paul Feig-directed film, a newly created California lottery allows lottery losers to murder the winner before sunset in order to legally claim the multi-billion dollar jackpot. Awkwafina is the escaped lottery winner, with John Cena as her accomplice.

On finding chemistry in the unlikely duo, Cena noted, “She was playing a character who was anxious and didn’t know what was going on, and I have a calm, soothing voice. I think those are our strengths, so we had to be ourselves and share jokes and fun.”

Feige explained that he jumped at the chance to see that the duo would work well together, especially since he has been a huge fan of Cena for a long time. “The first time I talked to him, the first thing he said to me was, ‘Don’t think you have to make me look cool.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s what I like, because that’s all I want from a comedy star, and you never know what’s going to happen with a big action star, if he’s going to say, ‘I’m not going to do this, I’m not going to do that, I’m not going to look silly.’ And he just does it.”

Doing all of this includes a brief appearance in Season 3 of The bearwith John Cena appearing as Sammy Vack, Carmi’s (Jeremy Allen White) cousin. Tell Rich The creator, Christopher Storer, reached out to his team to ask me to join the team, and I said, “Are you kidding me?” It was a dream.

“I have so much respect for the cast,” he continued. “I admire their work, they entertained me — I had to tell them all how much they entertained me and how much their work meant to me. I think that’s important because a lot of times people say, ‘I love your work,’ but they don’t say, ‘Hey, your work has impacted my life.’ My wife and I really enjoy that show a lot. Man, it’s been great, it’s been a great experience.”

Win the jackpot!which also stars Simu Liu, has been compared to a comedic version of Purification or John WickBut Feige points out that these films “don’t offer a grand vision of humanity. I wanted them to be good-natured, so even though this movie has a really dark core, the truth is you’re buying the lottery — if you’re in the lottery, you’ve decided that you agree with it. But you discover as the movie progresses that most people don’t actually agree with the lottery and they’re actually fans of Awkwafina who are rooting for her to get to the end.” The filmmaker cited the inspiration for wanting “this to be a Jackie Chan movie — he’s my favorite modern comedy filmmaker but I also love pink panther “Movies and all that stuff too, which is all very physical.”

Win the jackpot! It will be shown in cinemas on Thursday.