‘Heads of State’ star John Cena admits he doesn’t ‘know any martial arts’ despite WWE persona

What if the President of the United States and the British Prime Minister were stranded during an international crisis and forced to rely on each other to save their lives and countries?

That’s the concept of Heads of State, a new action comedy from director Ilya Naishuller (Nobody) starring John Cena and Idris Elba as the leaders of their nations. The duo previously featured opposite each other in The Suicide Squad, trading barbs as Bloodsport (Elba) and Peacemaker (Cena).

“It was fun doing that whole tit for tat that he and I did in Suicide Squad, but with different characters,” Elba says of Heads of State, which hits Prime Video on July 2. “John’s very funny. He’s a big improvisational guy, so there was lots of that. When we left Suicide Squad, we wanted to work together again, and this was the perfect storm — we got to do a lot together, and it’s an old school two-hander — he’s playing a funny guy and I’m playing the straight man.”

The film started purely as an action movie, but Naishuller wanted to inject more jokes and situational humor to play to his cast’s strengths. “When I was pitched the film, it was a straight action thriller,” he says. “But with John Cena and Idris Elba on the run together, I saw huge potential for comedy. I’ve always been drawn to flawed, stumbling heroes, and this gave me a chance to lean into that while having some real old school fun.”

“In today’s world, seeing leaders who may not be perfect, but who genuinely care for their people and respect their jobs felt like the kind of hopeful escapism I wanted and perhaps needed to make,” Naishuller adds.

Cena plays Will Derringer, a former action movie star turned politician and U.S. president. He’s best known for his Water Cobra franchise, for which Heads of State created fake trailers. It feels very much like a franchise Cena might once have starred in, and he embraced that wholeheartedly.

“When we filmed the Water Cobra trailer, it looked so funny that they wanted to do more,” Cena says. “They didn’t think I’d be that into it, but that’s the core of the movie. Will Derringer has had success in a certain lane and has fallen under the spell of, ‘Oh, that just equals success in everything. I can handle this bureaucracy thing.'”

For the former pro wrestler, it was fun to play a warm, goofy man out of his depth, particularly against Elba’s career politician, Sam Clarke. “Every lane of mastery needs attention, and that makes a great juxtaposition with Iris’s character, who is a master of bureaucracy,” Cena continues. “Our styles are very different. Will legitimately thinks he’s a badass. He’s very much not that. And movies have made him drink his own Kool-Aid to think that he’s a badass. He finds out very quickly he’s not.”

It also allowed Cena to poke fun at his tough-guy WWE persona and the gap between that identity and his real life. “A lot of it I’m just getting my ass handed to me,” he quips. “That’s in my wheelhouse. I pride myself in being good at getting beat up.”

“Every director is like, ‘Do some of that fighting stuff you do,'” Cena adds. “I’m like, ‘I get really beat up and I’m good at picking people up and heavy things, but I don’t know any martial arts.’ I am proudly ‘gym strong.'”

So much so that “gym strong” is an insult Elba’s Sam wields effectively against Will’s ego and inflated sense of toughness, creating a bit of a meta-commentary on what audiences believe action stars are capable of versus the realities of movie magic.

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Elba relished the opportunity to do a full-out comedy. “I don’t get to play comedy very often,” he says. “Ilya really wanted to pay homage to those ’90s Lethal Weapon [type films] and those larger than life characters. I couldn’t be too overly dramatic, but always playing that slightly comedic sense of that larger, goofy masculinity.”

Naishuller wanted to lean into the contrasting energy between Elba and Cena, creating comedy purely from their juxtaposition. “They are significantly different from each other, and being very strong actors- both physically and craft-wise — willing and excited to be vulnerable and be the butt of a joke as well as wield guns and take punches,” the director says. “Their charisma, screen presence, and the chemistry they genuinely have with each other is off the charts, making them the perfect buddy movie protagonists.”

It’s buddy movies that proved to be Naishuller’s guiding light throughout the process, as he wanted to evoke the vibes of action classics like Tango and Cash and Lethal Weapon.

“I saw Heads of State as Midnight Run by way of Mission: Impossible, but with the genuine, non-synthetic warmth of films like Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” Naishuller explains. “I wanted to capture a little of that ever-slipping beauty of the past through the lens of a modern, big-budget thrill ride. So to prepare, I rewatched every buddy movie from the ’80s and ’90s. Best homework ever.”

And with a little over a month until the film’s release, audiences will have plenty of time to complete their extra credit assignment.