The WWE star chats Us up on hosting Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and the acting role he’s “excited” to start
John Cena is stepping out of the ring and into the classroom. The pro wrestler, actor and new Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? host, 42, tells Us how the Nickelodeon show (Mondays, 7 p.m.) is a radical departure from his other job — going to the mat on Monday Night Raw. “I’m literally just a vehicle to show how skilled and talented these kids are,” he says. “I can be the butt of every joke. I admit when I get things wrong.”
You’ve acted before, and you’ve obviously done a lot of other things in front of an audience. How was hosting this show?
JC I think, to a lot of hosts, being in front of a live audience is the one thing that’s, like, “Whoa… I didn’t know there’d be people here.” I want more and more and more people, because you feed off the energy of the audience — and so do the kids. When the audience is ecstatic, the kids become ecstatic. It makes for a really good environment.
And how is this audience different from the Raw crowd?
JC Everybody’s excited because it’s a live show with good energy — but we’re asking difficult trivia ques- tions, so sometimes there’s pin-drop silence in the crowd.
This story is from the July 15, 2019 edition of Us Weekly.
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This story is from the July 15, 2019 edition of Us Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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