Margot Robbie and John Cena star together in The Suicide Squad, in theaters and on HBO Max Aug. 6
Margot Robbie met John Cena before he met her — kind of.
The Suicide Squad costars appeared on Wednesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! alongside writer/director James Gunn, where Robbie, 31, recounted the hilarious story of why she slept in a room for two years with a life-size cardboard cut-out of Cena in the room.
“I watched WWE when I was growing up. When I was a kid, I loved The Undertaker. And then obviously, when I was a teenager, I stopped watching,” she said. “But then, as a late teen, early 20s, I had a boyfriend who was obsessed with John Cena.”
“So much so that he dressed as John Cena for his 21st birthday and had a cardboard cut-out of John Cena in his bedroom,” Robbie shared.
As a result, she “slept in a room for two years with a life-size cardboard cut-out of John Cena in the room.”
“And sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night and [gasp] and then I thought, ‘Oh, it’s just John Cena, it’s okay,’ ” continued the two-time Academy Award nominee.
When they met to do The Suicide Squad — in which Robbie reprises her role as Harley Quinn and Cena, 44, makes his debut as Peacemaker — the actress wondered whether she should tell him about the cardboard cut-out story or if it would “be a weird way to start our working relationship and friendship.”
But she ended up sharing the tale “five seconds into meeting him,” adding playfully on the show, “Now I know there’s very little to weird out this guy.”
To level the playing field, guest host Anthony Anderson brought out a cardboard cut-out of Robbie as Harley, which Cena (who was dressed as his character) hilariously approached with an awkward, ” ‘Sup?”
Following his appearance in The Suicide Squad this summer, Cena — who also recently announced his imminent return to the WWE — is set to star in an HBO Max series titled Peacemaker, about his character in the DC Universe.
Gunn, 54, will write all eight episodes of the upcoming action-adventure-comedy series and will also direct several of them, Deadline reported.
While details of the plot have not been released, the streaming service said it will “explore the origins” of Peacemaker, a man who “believes in peace at any cost — no matter how many people he has to kill to get it.”
Gunn and The Suicide Squad producer Peter Safran will serve as executive producers on the series, alongside Cena as a co-executive producer.
The Suicide Squad lands in theaters and on HBO Max Aug. 6, while Peacemaker the series will debut in January on HBO Max.
[People]
