Randy Orton Talks WWE Title Picture, Inspirations, Acting, and More

Former WWE Champion Randy Orton is doing promotional interviews to hype the release of his new movie, “12 Rounds: Reloaded.” One of these recent interviews comes from Mandatory.com, where they talk to Orton about his movies, what he would be doing if he wasn’t wrestling or acting, what wrestlers inspired him growing up in the business, and more. One notable portion of the interview is Orton claiming that he wants to be back in the WWE Championship picture very soon. Here are some highlights from the article…

Did you do your own stunts for the movie? “I did them all. There was one scene where I actually got kicked down a flight of stairs. I had a stunt double. His name was Ed. He was Triple H’s stunt double for “Blade: Trinity” with Wesley Snipes, as a matter of fact. Good guy. He told me about a bunch of cool stuff he had done. But he didn’t get to work much [on this film] so he didn’t like me too much I’d imagine. They get paid for every bump they take and the bigger the bump, the more money. I remember joking with him about taking bumps like, “Yeah I wish I got paid for every bump I took, I’d be a billionaire!”

What was it like working in front of a camera instead of an arena full of fans? “Well, in that arena full of fans there’s usually a couple of cameras keeping an eye on us there too, you know? When we do T.V., we’ve got 5, 6, 7 cameras on us at one time and that’s how this director liked to do things. He always had at least 4 or 5 cameras running so the whole multiple cameras and, you know, in front of people thing, I was used to that. Doing live TV, there’s nothing more stressful than that, but with the movie, I was very nervous. I had about 20 hours of acting classes crammed in the week before I flew up to Vancouver. We rehearsed up there for a week and that helped with some of the nerves, being up there around everybody. Everyone was great and really nice to me. They knew I was a beginner and that I needed to lean on them as much as possible, but it was kind of a lot less stressful than the whole wrestling thing because we had take after take after take. If something happened the director didn’t like, just do it again.”

Now obviously wrestling has been a part of your family for your entire life. Who were some of your favorite wrestlers when you were growing up? “Oh [Roddy] Piper was a big one. He’d be around the house a lot because he and my dad were buddies. Hogan would come by. We had a condo in St. Louis and whenever the guys were coming through or working in St. Louis, they’d pass through and eat with my dad, you know. Hillbilly Jim, when I was a kid, Junkyard Dog, Nikolai Volkoff. I remember the funniest characters, man and they were all really good to me. Bret Hart watched me for a summer. While my dad would go to the ring, Bret would watch me in the back and I was probably only 5 or 6 years old, you know. I wish I had a camera back then because there’s a lot of memories but you can only remember so much and I know I got to see a lot of interesting stuff.”

Last question and I’ll let you get out of here, what can fans expect from you next? “Wow, well I will be working on getting some gold around my waist because it has been too long. That’s what I’ll be focusing on next.”

You can read the entire interview here.

 

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