John Cena Says His WWE Roots Led Him to Constantly Wearing His Peacemaker Costume

John Cena has been synonymous with his Peacemaker costume for nearly a full year as the 16-time former WWE Champion wore it to nearly every public event and interview while promoting both The Suicide Squad and the Peacemaker TV series, which recently wrapped its first season on HBO MAX. In a new interview with People, he explained that he got used to wearing a costume during his years in WWE, always wearing his wrestling gear and matching merchandise during interviews. 

Cena said, "With The Suicide Squad, there were so many characters and so many personalities. I just wanted to try to familiarize the audience with my little piece, pun intended. It's very similar to the approach that I use with the WWE when I was performing full-time there. I would be in all interviews in the John Cena outfit of a ball cap, T-shirt, shorts and wristbands. People began to associate that character and become familiar with that character. That's just the same approach I used in Peacemaker. A lot of people may shy away from that approach because it doesn't ... it's not indicative of who they genuinely are, and it's not who I am. That's Peacemaker. But I wanted the audience to be familiar with Peacemaker. Whether that's what worked or not, I don't know. 

"Man, I remember when we released a teaser at San Diego Comic-Con," he added. "There was already Peacemaker cosplay, there was already Peacemaker fan art. This is from a character that if you watch The Suicide Squad, isn't on-screen that much. So I was just trying to get people excited for the movie and certainly when we had the ... when James had the idea for the spinoff, I really wanted to go forward to do my part to familiarize people with the character."

Cena also talked about how training to star in Peacemaker, which recently got the thumbs up for a Season 2, was notably different than training for the WWE. He noted, "No, it's completely different. Movie coordinator stunt performers are massive amounts of repetition not only through practice, but through performance as well. Whereas you can practice your craft in WWE, but once you're out there live, it happens once and there really is no wrong. It just is. There's also no enormous, energetic, unbelievable crowd cheering you on as you do all this stuff and it has to be done from many angles and many perspectives. It's nuts. I remember when I started to do movies in 2004, '05, and really got frustrated with the process because as a young man, I really wanted to be in that ring as there really isn't much of anything that compares to the sensation of being in that ring performing in front of a live audience, for me. it's not the same. I've found a much greater appreciation for it now. Maybe that's because I'm working with great people and I'm a part of fantastic stories. I'm finding my stride as a performer but it's very different and if given the choice, I think 10 times out of 10 I would rather be in a ring performing action than on the screen performing action."