CM Punk on John Cena’s Acting Ability, Who The Next Breakout MCU Character Will Be

AEW’s CM Punk spoke with ET Canada this week while promoting the ongoing season of Heels and spoke about a number of topics outside of his recent return to pro wrestling. At one point the subject of John Cena, one of Punk’s rivals from his days in the WWE, came up. Punk had nothing but positive things to say about the 16-time former world champion, especially his recent success in comedic acting roles like as Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad. 

“100 percent (I was impressed, but I’m also not surprised,” Punk said. “I think a lot of people conflate the two. You see a guy like Dave Bautista killing it with this myriad of different roles. Dave can do comedy, Dave can do drama, he can do it all. Cena has always been that funny guy. I always thought behind the scenes, and I think anybody who has worked with him always thought. A lot of the guys at that top-level in WWE may not want to admit it, but alls we are are theatre actors. We’re doing live theatre every Monday, every Friday, Thursday, Tuesday, whatever the hell the schedule is now. All that is, is theatre. It gets you accustomed to improv and working on the fly. I read James Gunn said that John Cena was the best improv actor he’s ever worked with. That does not surprise me in the least. We do it every week for decades. When we transition to film, I think people are pleasantly surprised like, ‘Oh wow, I thought you were just going to be this muscled up stiff guy.’ I’m not surprised that John is killing it.”

The topic of comic books also came up, as Punk is a huge Marvel fan and has previously worked on series like Thor, Drax and Master of Kung Fu. He was asked which Marvel character he thinks will have the next big breakout in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Punk went with a character whose movie has been confirmed but has yet to be given a release date (or even a cast announcement) — The Thing from Fantastic Four.

“Obviously, I’m a Marvel fan. Cinematic and comic book and otherwise. I think we’re all crossing our fingers for a really, really well done ‘Fantastic Four’ movie. I’m a huge Ben Grimm [a.k.a] The Thing guy. I think that could be that next quote-unquote underrated character. He’s a lot like Drax, you know? He’s a big rough, tough, mean-looking guy but he’s gentle. I think that one given the same treatment they’ve given a lot of other characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe could really blow a lot of people away.”