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Cena channels 'douchey Captain America' in The Suicide Squad

A huge, hulking specimen with muscles on his muscles, Peacemaker is more than willing to fight, kill, and even start a war, but of course it’s all in the name of keeping the peace. 

For him, there is no act too low and no price too high to pay for liberty.

US wrestler-actor John Cena, 44, plays the single-minded do-or-die killer who is part of the gang of convicts sent on a suicide mission in the supervillain blockbuster The Suicide Squad, which opens in cinemas here on Aug 5.

He and writer-director discussed the role extensively — Peacemaker’s background, his moral compass, and so forth. 

Then, on the first day of shooting, everything went out the window when Gunn gave Cena one final note. 
Cena said: “On the third pass of the beach sequence, James said, ‘Be like a douchey Captain America who would shoot a kid’. That summed it up.”

Cena’s costume in the film mirrors the look from the comic books and was not given a sleek makeover for the movie. 

Peacemaker is adorned in the colours of the American flag with a yellow dove emblem symbolising peace on his costume and helmet. 

The helmet — a notable piece spawning more than one snide remark in the film — was made out of chrome, which Gunn desired in order to create a reflection.

The Suicide Squad’s costume designer Judianna Makovsky said of it: “It is so silly and outrageous and there are different iterations of it in the comic - some are big, some are just weird, hence the line that he’s wearing a toilet bowl on his head.

“So it was really hard to design something that was meant to be silly, but not too silly. 

“But funnily enough, it was very comfortable, and John wore it all the time and he wanted to wear it in every shot. He loved it.”

John Cena (extreme right) in The Suicide SquadWARNER BROS

Cena added: “Peacemaker’s costume is such a personification of how much of a d-bag he is. If you’re doing covert ops, you wear something like Bloodsport. You try to wear colours to blend in, to not be seen. Peacemaker wants to be seen. There’s some psychological subtext there, some compensating for something.”

What was it in particular about this project that drew you in?

James Gunn, 100 per cent. I admire him. I admire his work and his ability to tell stories. I was flat out completely impressed with what he did with the Guardians (Of The Galaxy) universe, making a group of unknowns not only known, but beloved. I got to meet him and understand his storytelling process even more before we started. I didn’t care if he was doing a superhero movie, or a period piece, a comedy, a war movie. He’ll tell you that The Suicide Squad’s probably all three. 

Could you talk about the environment that he creates on set? 

James gravitates towards these ensemble pieces. You get a lot of people together day after day of a 90- or 100-day shoot. It’s like the live touring business, which my experience with WWE gives me. The people become your family. That happens as a by-product, but first and foremost, he invests his whole self and casts accordingly. I think he organises a great team of people. That’s also in his skill set, the ability to cast great performers.

How did you prepare for this role? Did you study your character’s comic book canon?

When I found out what I was going to be doing, I dove into the mythology a little bit. I crafted what I thought would be the best version of who this person was based on the facts that I’d been given and the script that I read. 

As far as physical training, I don’t vary that for anything. What you have is what you get. I’ll never stop training, but I’ll also not cater training to a role. If anything, roles make training tougher, because the days are longer and there’s much more to do. I’m training less while shooting.

But James threw out all that prep on the first scene of the first day. I very much thought that Peacemaker was a collection of things that he did not end up being. I have great faith and trust in any director that I work with, but most certainly James, because he really is involved in every point of the process. Writing, directing, creating, editing, producing. 

He was like, “No, I don’t want you to do this. I just want you to be a douchey Captain America.” That, right there, as soon as he said that, I was like, “Oh, all right. I get it.” 

So all the prep work? There’s a great quote, I’m paraphrasing, but: “Every battle plan is great until the first shot’s fired.” 

Here I am ready and trying to prove myself. I’m trying to learn and grow as an actor. And he throws all that out the window and tells me to go in another direction. And I did.

You have a very memorable fight scene alongside Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman). What was that kind of fighting like as compared to your past experiences with WWE?

Well, my experience working with Joel was amazing. I learn from everyone I work with every day. There’s a lot of stuff that Joel taught me on set that I’ll take with me for every project from here on after.

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