John Cena shared how a tiny object could give away his character in the upcoming film Fast 9 and the lengths he took to conceal his character before the first trailer dropped.
In order to keep up the mystery, Cena said that he always made sure to take off his character’s silver cross necklace whenever the cameras aren’t rolling. This was because fans of the franchise would instantly recognize the necklace and know it’ll be linked to Dom.
“The costumes are the costumes and they can be whatever you needed it to be, but if there was ever a candid with a coffee in my hand and the cross, that’s a dead giveaway,“ he said in an interview with Digital Spy.
“It’s amazing that that one piece of jewelry has so much energy and gravity around it,“ he said. “That was the one thing I put on before they said roll and as soon as they said cut, I would take it off, and that was how we kept everything under wraps.”
When asked whether he would return for another film, it was an immediate yes. “They wouldn’t even have to ask,“ he said. “I would love to be associated with this group of human beings that do exceptionally well in making a product that the world wants to see, but also have such a great reputation for making the work itself enjoyable.”
“These are the jobs you want,” he added.
Cena’s casting also got the seal approval from Vin Diesel himself. Diesel admitted that he had some anxiety about finding the perfect actor who’s fit to play his brother.
“Obviously I’m multicultural. You could’ve cast anybody to be my brother,“ Diesel said during an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “Now the idea of the brother worked great on paper, but when the time came to cast it, anxiety. Who could you cast to be Dom’s brother and 20 years into the game? The audience knows our mythology so much.”
Diesel also shared that he thinks his late costar Paul Walker had a hand in casting Cena too. “[Cena] comes into the shrine one morning, and I had this strange feeling...that Paul Walker had sent him,“ Diesel said, calling the moment “very magical.”
View the motion posters of the cast below!
