As noted, Paul Wight recently spoke with the folks at Mandatory for an in-depth interview where he promotes his role in the popular "Fast and the Furious" film franchise.
During the interview, the former WWE Superstar known as The Big Show -- now working as a commentator for All Elite Wrestling (AEW) under his real name -- Wight spoke about the popular movie series, speaking Russian for his role, as well as his main goal and reason for being a commentator.
Featured below are some additional highlights from the new Paul Wight interview.
On working on the Fast and the Furious film franchise: “The ‘Fast and Furious’ people have been so much fun to work with. I had an opportunity and I think I said this before, I had an opportunity to speak Russian [in the series]. And this is part of things about finding different ways to challenge yourself as a performer and do things outside of the norm. Granted, the energy is really high with Palindrome, but also there’s a lot of heart with Palindrome. There’s some subtle nuances with that but also I had to learn how to speak Russian for one of the things we were doing. And for me, I’m just a big redneck from South Carolina. So English kicks my butt every day, so the opportunity to work on this and work with a voice coach really nailed that Russian.”
On speaking Russian for his role in the popular movie series: “Like when I heard it back, it’s almost one of those things that I’ll never forget as a performer because it didn’t sound like me. I was like oh that’s me talking. ‘Wow, I sound Russian.’ Holy smokes, you know what I mean? And it’s a confidence booster, believe it or not, when you do that because you know that okay, that’s something I stuck my toe into, so now I won’t be afraid to try for roles that might have that more. It’s funny because yes, I’ve had a lot of time in front of the camera, I’ve done a lot of stuff, movies and television and whatnot, but you’re always finding ways to challenge yourself. And one of the things that I have with ‘Fast and Furious Spy Racers’ is I just had a lot of fun doing it.”
On his main goal for doing commentary in AEW: “It’s funny because when I first wanted to do this, this is one of the things I talked about with Tony Khan after my contract ended with WWE and I started entering negotiations with AEW, you know, what did I want to do. And he and I both agreed on, I wanted to come in and really understand the AEW product because I had been such a force for WWE for so long, [I had the] WWE way of thinking, WWE way of processing, WWE way of executing things. I really wanted to understand that this is not WWE,” Wight explained, “this is a different product entirely. I wanted to immerse myself as much as possible and kind of forget a lot of the things that I knew, if that makes any sense. I wanted to immerse myself in this product, become familiar with the talent, and color commentating was something I always had aspirations to do. I got a little taste of it here and there in WWE for brief instances, but this opportunity, Tony was like, ‘yeah we got a show we’re gonna launch, ‘Elevation.’ It’d be you and Tony Schiavone’, and it wasn’t a temporary thing. Tony just had the confidence in me to hit the ground running and go with it.”
Check out the complete interview at Mandatory.com.
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