John Cena reveals his agency advised him not to do Barbie cameo: ‘This is beneath you’

John Cena had a short yet memorable cameo in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. The actor shared how he was warned against taking on the part.

John Cena’s brief role as merman Ken in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie made for a hilarious scene in the blockbuster film. Yet, in a new interview during his recent appearance on The Howard Stern Show, the star revealed that he was advised by his agency not to take on the part. (Also read: Margot Robbie opens up about crisis before filming Barbie: ‘I’d spent years trying to get this movie going’) John Cena starred in a cameo in Barbie.

What John Cena said

Speaking during his recent appearance, “So it’s not a big team, which I’m grateful for. I don’t have a publicity department. I have a manager only because it’s me and him. We’re kinda like a two-prong fork. And an agency that goes out and tries to look for work, and I don’t put it past them, they’re just going on what they know. And what they know is, ‘This entity, this commodity gravitates toward these things, we should stay in this lane.’ But I’m not a commodity, I’m a human being, and I operate under the construct of every opportunity is an opportunity.”
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‘This is beneath you’

He further added that his agency gave the explanation that the project did not match upto him. “I read the script of the movie and I tried my hardest to be in it. Margot [Robbie] was like, ‘We’ll make you a mermaid. You’ll be in it for half a day.’ ‘Yeah, sure. But I think the perspective from an agency standpoint was, ‘This is beneath you,’ which I get that. But also to the agency’s credit, immediately they acquiesced. I’ve always operated under the philosophy of good work gets you another chance,” he said.

Barbie received tremendous critical acclaim and earned eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. It grossed $1 billion at the box office globally. Barbie revolves around Margot’s stereotypical Barbie, who has an existential crisis when she starts to lose her vibe and her perched Barbie toe. To get to the bottom of the mystery, she’s told to go where no Barbie doll has gone before – ‘the real world’. Along with Ryan Gosling’s Ken, she jets off to experience the ‘real world’.