Lana on Inspiration for her Character, How She Started in WWE

What’s Russian for interesting? Lana debuted with Rusev on the main roster back in 2014 and has received a lot of praise in the nearly three years since. There’s something about her mannerisms that make her feel like the truly evil Russian from a James Bond movie. Now we’ve learned a little more about how that character came together.

Lana recently appeared on “Talk is Jericho” and spoke on a variety of topics, including what inspired the Ravishing Russian character:

“A lot of the ‘Ravishing Russian’ Lana, I take from my Russian teachers. My teacher would come in with a paddle, and she would smack us, and she had these long nails and would dig in. She was nuts. She would throw her shoes, and call us like, ‘you stupid fat cow!’”

She also spoke on how she got into WWE and earned her job there in the first place:

“I moved to LA right after college, and I would go from job to job, auditioning and auditioning, getting a job and then not getting a job for six months. Struggling, sleeping in my car at the time, trying to get an apartment; the struggle of pursuing your dream. But I was always like, ‘I’m not going to go home; I’m not going to return home until I can hold my head up high.’

“In 2012 [WWE] had a big Divas search, worldwide. And I was thinking the entire time, there was no way I was going to get this job. I was a wrestling fan, but I honestly felt like there was no way I was gonna get it. Every girl I knew in LA was being called in for this audition.

“So finally I came in, and I kept on being called back, and being called back again, and then one time, finally there was one of the final callbacks. There was about 40 of us girls, and literally standing in front of me is [Alexa Bliss], and standing behind me is JoJo. She’s standing in front of me, with her perfect little bikini body, and JoJo is going in there singing all these crazy things.

“So I just started speaking Russian. It was Triple H right in front of me, [various backstage WWE personnel], Bill Demott, and I literally just start speaking Russian, and then I switch over to speaking perfect English, and I knew I got their attention. After those 40 girls, they picked 12 of us.

“They were specifically looking for athletic models, actresses, dancers. And then before they signed us, they put us through a month boot camp of us training every day. It was like, ‘okay you look hot, but are you athletic?’ I remember the first bump I took. Sara [del Rey] was our coach, and Norman [Smiley], and the first bump I took I was like, ‘woah! That is painful! I’m gonna be doing this for the rest of my life?’”

Opinion: Whatever caused the character to come together, it’s certainly been working. Lana is one of the best characters in WWE today and it’s such a simple concept. The fans are clearly impressed by what she does with the WE WANT LANA chants being pretty solid proof. Talent like hers is always going to show up and that’s a good thing.

Do you prefer Lana or Bliss? Do you want to see Lana wrestle full time? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Talk is Jericho

Featured image courtesy of WWE.com