How Amy Schumer & Judd Apatow Helped John Cena Improvise in Trainwreck

John Cena explained the way that Amy Schumer and Judd Apatow helped him improvise while on the set of the 2015 comedy Trainwreck. Cena is a well-known comedy presence now, finding the perfect blend between his action stardom and comedy in the character of Christopher Smith (aka Peacemaker), who was introduced in James Gunn’s 2021 DCEU movie The Suicide Squad. Cena is now the star of his own HBO Max spinoff series Peacemaker, opposite Robert Patrick, Danielle Brooks,  Christopher Heyerdahl, Freddie Stroma, Jennifer Holland, Steve Agee, and Chukwudi Iwuji. The character ultimately proved to be so popular that Peacemaker season 2 was renewed before its season 1 finale even aired.

Although by 2015 Cena was already famous as a WWE and movie star, having appeared in films like 12 Rounds and The Marine, he was best known as an action hero at the time. Although he had made cameos in several sitcoms or comedy films, they were all characters banking on his WWE persona more than a legitimate comedy role. Trainwreck was the first film where he was really allowed to branch out into a broader comic role, and that is what helped him to expand his career in that direction, eventually starring in films like Sisters, Blockers, and the Hulu original film Vacation Friends.

In a video for GQ, Cena sat down to break down some of his biggest roles – all while dressed as Peacemaker. When he got to Trainwreck, he explained how director Apatow and star Schumer created the perfect environment to help him improvise scenes. He explained that stand-up comedy is very similar to WWE in that “if you perform horribly, you can come back and say ‘That sucked. OK, it sucked because of why?’ and you go out there and do your best the next night.” He said that Schumer and Apatow “created an environment for me to miss, and fail, and learn,” because “all they need is one that makes them chuckle, and that’s the one the audience is gonna see.” Read the full quote below:

The audition ended up being, we read the script a few ties, and it’s me, Amy Schumer, and Judd Apatow. We read the script and Judd was like “Yeah, just put the script down and just riff,” and Amy was so inviting and Judd was so great. So we could just talk. And they’re all very funny so it ended up being funny.

I’m so lucky that people will smile and chuckle from timing or something I do on camera. But I think the most important thing is surrounding yourself with really funnyy people. Judd and Amy assembled a crew of all-star comedians and you just give them an environment to feel comfortable and do their job and just be as present as you can and have as much fun as you can and don’t be afraid to fail.

You gotta be like a goldfish in WWE because you got a show the next night. If you perform horribly, you can come back and say “That sucked. OK, it sucked because of why?” and you go out there and do your best the next night. Stand up’s very similar, so maybe that’s why workshopping and improving that material, I had a little more courage. Amy, Judd, they created an environment that it was OK to bomb. Cuz you could tell 80 bad jokes. All they need is one that makes them chuckle, and that’s the one the audience is gonna see. And they created an environment for me to miss, and fail, and learn.

Apatow certainly knows how to help facilitate improv. The director, who is best known for comedy films like Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, is one of the primary pioneers of the recent trend of improv comedy filmmaking. In his more recent films like This is 40 (which features a blooper reel that includes Melissa McCarthy doing a dozen alternate lines in a particular scene), he has a script but encourages the actors to riff and add their own material, creating a more shaggy, hangout approach to comedy that is full of surprises.

Cena’s role in Trainwreck is not particularly large, but it’s certainly a standout. In fact, the entire cast is packed with standout supporting performances from stars as varied as veteran performer Tilda Swinton and first-time film actor LeBron James. Clearly, the environment that they fostered helped everyone thrive, but there’s likely nobody it impacted more than Cena, who was able to leverage his experience on that set into a viable comedy career.

Source: GQ

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