Wrestler-turned-actor John Cena stars in Peacemaker, which is now streaming on HBO Max. The series is the best reviewed entry in the DC Extended Universe to date, having even surpassed the Rotten Tomatoes score of The Suicide Squad (of which it is a spinoff from).
However, the part of Christopher Smith, A.K.A. Peacemaker, wasn't Cena's first choice when it comes to comic book movie roles. The actor recently featured on the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast where he explained that, before landing the part in The Suicide Squad, he actually tried out for multiple other DC and Marvel film roles.
"I can't tell you how many superhero roles I've been rejected for," Cena began before specifically name-dropping a couple of them. "Shazam is certainly one. There was a brief try at the Deadpool universe, rejection." The Deadpool role that Cena is referring to is almost certainly that of edgy time-traveller, Cable.
The part of Cable ended up going to Josh Brolin and the role of Shazam to Zachary Levi. "Shazam! was Dikembe Mutumbo. There was a few in the Marvel universe, rejected. But you know, I kept trying." By the sounds of it, losing out on the titular role in Shazam! particularly stung for Cena. "I think like a child, so Shazam was super interesting to me."
"I read all those scripts, and I read all those parts, and I was like, 'Man, I really think I could add to this,' and just rejection after rejection after rejection after rejection," Cena said before recounting finally landing the role of Peacemaker:
But I guess that's what... the lows make the highs high. And the crazy thing was, I wasn't first on the list for Peacemaker. James had a long list, and it happened by accident, too. He's like, 'Hey, I'm in Atlanta, I'd just love to come and talk to you for a second.' We sat down in his pre-production office, which was literally like a war headquarters where you could see the whole movie in posterboard taped around his office, and he started talking about Peacemaker, and he's like, 'I think you should do it.' So I'm not rejected? They usually say, like, 'Hey, love you man, but we're just going in another direction.'
Good on him for finally getting a comic book movie role, and a great one at that. In fact, Peacemaker is the peak of Cena's acting career according to Josh Wilding's four-and-a-half-star review for the series that you can check out here.