WWE's Dean Ambrose: Your new fave action hero
In a pro wrestling ring “Dirty Deeds” may be Dean Ambrose’s smashing finishing move, yet in his film debut, the WWE superstar’s actions are all heroic.
Ambrose, a Cincinnati native, moonlights as a movie star in 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown (in select theaters and available on video-on-demand platforms Friday), a flick that plays like Die Hard in a police station. Ambrose’s Shaw is a police detective who’s newly back on active duty after the murder of his partner, and he becomes Public Enemy No. 1 at the precinct when he uncovers evidence implicating crooked fellow cops.
“It moves at a breakneck pace and it’s about all you can ask for an action movie,” says Ambrose, a TV regular on WWE’s Monday Night Raw on USA and Syfy’s Smackdown every Thursday.
A Lionsgate and WWE Studios production, Lockdown is the third installment in a franchise that's featured Ambrose’s co-workers: Fifteen-time champ John Cena (who had a role in the summer hit Trainwreck) starred in 2009’s 12 Rounds, while Randy Orton was in 2013’s 12 Rounds 2: Reloaded.
Shaw is a different kind of personality for Ambrose than his in-ring “Lunatic Fringe” character, which he describes as basically his regular persona writ larger-than-life. “I might be the only guy in WWE who isn’t acting ever.”
But for the movie, he says, “I didn’t want it to be ‘Dean Ambrose plays a cop’ and it’s exactly the person you see on WWE television but with a cop uniform on or a cheesy movie like that.
“I wanted to do a good, proper job. I want you to forget that I’m the guy on your TV every Monday night and buy into this … pretty straight-laced, no-nonsense detective who internalizes a lot of stuff.”
Ambrose, though, was certainly surprised when he was asked one day at a Monday Night Raw event if he wanted to be in a movie.
“I was thinking I’d just be a background part or a guy standing there or a cameo kind of thing, like having a WWE guy in the movie for a second. Something easy,” he recalls. “But I found out I was the lead character, the main hero in the story, and I went, ‘Oh, OK.’
“I was talking with the producer and was like, ‘You’re aware I’m completely unqualified for this, right?’ And he’s like, ‘No, you’ll be fine.’ ”
As it turns out, even more fine than he originally thought. Ambrose took some acting lessons in Los Angeles, but he quickly realized that WWE is akin to “show-business boot camp,” he says. “You learn a little bit of everything and you’re put to the test every week.”
An average segment on WWE TV for Ambrose might consist of the following: coming to the ring solo (or with current tag-team partner Roman Reigns), “cutting a promo” (or threatening trash-talking, in wrestling-speak) on a guy who then comes down to the ring, followed by a match that by its end might include Ambrose being thrown off the stage, being flipped through a table and/or jumping off a ladder.
He breaks it down in acting terms: “You may have a bunch of dialogue followed by a 15-minute fight scene essentially and then a stunt. All in one take and so much of it on the fly and all on live TV.”
Ambrose was warned about doing takes over and over again on a movie, yet “to me, it was such a pleasurable experience to do something different.”
Unsurprisingly, he took to the fight scenes naturally, even ad-libbing a few moves here and there. Ambrose was surprised, though, that he didn’t have to be worried about hitting anybody — he’d punch six inches in front of another actor’s face, his counterpart would react, and because of the angle of the camera, it looked like an authentic hit.
While admittedly being in the WWE involves “sleight of hand and a little bit of magicianship,” Ambrose says, in the movie “everything was 100% fake. I’m so used to getting beat up and punched in the face for real, it was a refreshing change of pace.”
In his indie days as Jonathan Moxley in the 2000s and even when he debuted with WWE in 2011 as Ambrose, the wrestler most loved playing the villain because it was fun behaving in a way you usually can’t in real life, he says. “I had always previously really fed off of negativity and enjoyed being the guy who everybody hated.”
He’s had to get used to being one of WWE's more popular antiheroes and somebody who’s cheered by thousands of fans, many of whom are wearing an “Ambrose Asylum” shirt or other paraphernalia.
“What I do in WWE is essentially a lovable bad guy,” says Ambrose, who tags with Reigns and a mystery partner in a match vs. The Wyatt Family at the Night of Champions event live on WWE Network Sept. 20.
“I look dirty, I do terrible things. The only difference is at the end of the day, I always make the right choice and I never lie. But other than that, I’m what would be a bad guy in another movie or television show.”
Ambrose wouldn’t mind reprising his 12 Rounds role, but he expects many will check out his film debut due to sheer curiosity.
“You expect to see John Cena in a movie, a superhero like that,” he says. “Even if they’re WWE fans, that might not be enough to see John Cena in a movie. But it’s so different with me being the complete exact opposite of him. That might be a more interesting allure to make you want to click on iTunes and buy it.”