Maria: I hope, Raj, you thought I was good enough and it looked like I trained. [laughs] I had trained prior to it. They didn't really believe me that I wanted to wrestle, I think. They figured oh, she's a celebrity. She's probably going to throw an elbow or something. And I trained really hard and it all kind of came together that night, which was so cool.
Wrestling INC: You also wrestled at that Tribute to the Troops, and then at WrestleMania 28 and worked with Beth Phoenix for all of those matches. What was it like working with her and wrestling at WrestleMania 28?
Maria: She is such an incredible talent. As a fan, Beth Phoenix is unbelievably talented. So, to even be able to be in the same ring as her was an honor and a privilege. So my experiences were incredible.
Wrestling INC: You've wrestled at WrestleMania, you've acted in movies, appeared in TV shows, and now you have a reality show. How did that reality show come about?
Maria: We've been asked for a long time to kind of get to it and do this and we've always said no. Eventually, the right kind of package came together and we had a good story to tell, or an interesting story to tell, and so we went forward with it. The fact that Kevin and I have been together for 16 years, we're not married, we don't have kids, my Greek immigrant parents live with us. They're very traditional and hounding us for all of those traditional things. We live this kind of Hollywood fairy tale, but we're not really Hollywood. There are a lot of different elements in there that were interesting not only to the network and the producers, but for us to share too. And this journey of when do you do all of these traditional things? How do you fit them in when you go wrestle at WrestleMania and do cool things? I feel like I am so blessed to be in this business and I want to get the most out of it. I want to experience everything I possibly can. I want to go to the moon. I want to do all of these things and I feel like… I struggle with when to settle down and do all that stuff.
Wrestling INC: What was Kevin's reaction to the reality show? Did he have to be talked into it or was he game?
Maria: We made it a family decision together with my parents. It was kind of like, we're either all in or we're not. For him, he's lived such a private life behind closed doors and kind of like the wizard behind the curtain, working so hard on my career and our businesses, kind of just shied away from the cameras. He never walked the red carpets with me or anything like that. And now he's front and center talking about his fertility issues and all kinds of things. Like I said, it's like once you make your decision, you do it.
Wrestling INC: This Tuesday's episode takes place before last year's SummerSlam and features WWE inviting you to wrestle at the event [she teamed with Natalya to face Brie Bella and Eva Marie]. In one of the clips on the episode, you talked to your boss about wrestling at the show. What was the reaction to that and what is the reaction in general whenever you have done these wrestling appearances?
Maria: It's always tough to get your bosses to sign off on something like that because it doesn't really help them that much to see me get hurt and then be out of commission here. So that's always a big decision for them. I always use the whole angle of well, it's such a big audience. Maybe we'll get more viewers here and we tried to make it mutually beneficial to both parties. But it's always a tough thing for anyone to kind of get behind, you know? Especially when it's not a full time thing. Luckily I'm able to get it by.
Read more at http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2014/0505/575813/maria-menounos-talks-wrestling-in-wwe/#B6vsZGTizSPiPwTD.99
No comments:
Post a Comment