Michael Cera Reflects on Rihanna Slapping Him: ‘I Don’t Think It Took Much Convincing’
Acting, singing and getting slapped across the face by global superstar Rihanna — what can’t Michael Cera do? The Tony Award-nominated actor took some time to reflect on the filming process for his 2013 film This Is the End in a new interview with Rolling Stone.
“I thought it would look a lot better if she hit me. I don’t think it took much convincing to get her to do it,” the Barbie actor joked. “I just thought it would look a lot better than a fake slap would because you can really feel it. It just looks a lot funnier!”
In the scene, Cera’s character slaps the derrière of Rihanna’s character, who then slaps him across the face in return. Allegedly, Rihanna agreed to let Cera actually slap her backside on the condition that she could slap him in the face. “I definitely did not regret it! I was into it,” Cera said.
The Superbad star continued, “The take that is in the movie, she really did hit my ear, which was disorienting. But I have no regrets. I didn’t lose any hearing over it, fortunately!” This Is the End, a Seth Rogen-helmed apocalyptic black comedy that also starred Jonah Hill, Emma Watson, Kevin Hart, Backstreet Boys, Paul Rudd, Mindy Kaling and Channing Tatum, grossed $126 million at the worldwide box office.
In addition to his acting endeavors, Michael Cera also made his formal music debut in 2014. The indie folk album, titled True That, featured 21 tracks written, produced, engineered and mixed entirely by Cera himself. Rihanna, who, of course, needs no introduction, boasts 14 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and a pair of chart-topping albums on the Billboard 200.
Kyle-Brandon Denis
Billboard
