How One Ad-Libbed ‘Trainwreck’ Line Got John Cena TWO Mark Wahlberg Movies

John Cena's career in comedy started where his career in wrestling left off, with an ad-libbed line in a Judd Apatow movie that put him on Mark Wahlberg's radar and earned him two films with the actor.

The movie was Trainwreck. Rich brought it up because he had been impressed by it in the theater.

"The two funniest people in that movie were LeBron and John Cena," Rich said. "Those two guys."

Cena said the movie was a real turning point for him.

"That was very much the second opportunity I had in the movie business," he said. He told Rich that earlier in his crossover years, his heart had been with WWE Studios. He was a young 20-something coming off arena shows with 10,000 fans chanting his name. The pace of a film set, with eight hours of waiting around to blow something up, did not match the energy of his day job.

Trainwreck changed that. Apatow let him improvise.

"Working with Judd Apatow first is great because he discovers a lot of material," Cena said. "There's a lot of ad-libs there. You do a few takes, you get what's on the page, and then you kind of explore whatever you want to."

The line that paid off, Cena said, was Mark Wahlberg-related.

Cena explained that he, Wahlberg, and Matt Damon, all of whom hail from New England, get compared to each other more than the average movie audience realizes. Cena had been called Mark Wahlberg in real life before. He had a punchline ready.

"I had been called Mark Wahlberg before, and I responded to that criticism," Cena said. "And that was the one thing this dude in the scene just hit me up with, like, man, you look like Mark Wahlberg. And I just had that in my back pocket."

The line, in Cena's telling, was a perfect setup-and-spike. It landed in the cut. It made the movie.

Then Wahlberg saw it.

"To the credit of that, Mark actually saw that," Cena said. "And it was his idea to cast me as the rival to him in Daddy's Home. Which eventually I came back to do Daddy's Home 2."

One ad-libbed line, in other words, became two films with Wahlberg, plus the chance to work with Will Ferrell and a roster of other comedy performers Cena said he had not previously been around at that level.

"You never know who's going to see what you're going to do and how it's going to resonate," Cena said.

The philosophy he was building toward at the end of the conversation was simple. Take the risk. Be willing to make fun of yourself. Trust that the line that lands is not always the one in the script.

"Just take being able to take a risk and not be okay with not making fun of yourself," Cena said.

Rich's compliment was direct.

"Another two movies. That's not bad," he said.

The Trainwreck moment, Cena agreed, was the assist.