Fast and Furious actor enjoys 'destroying' Edinburgh

Hollywood actor John Cena has praised Edinburgh as a great location "to destroy" during filming for the latest Fast & Furious movie.

The star, famed for his World Wresting Entertainment (WWE) performances, filmed scenes in Edinburgh in September 2019 alongside Vin Diesel.

The F9 film was released in UK cinemas on Thursday.

Cena told the BBC the landscape of Edinburgh "worked really well" as a location for the franchise.

Speaking to BBC Scotland's The Edit, he said: "The varying terrain - the beautiful look of the buildings - it's a very definable city, but it also a great landscape to say 'yeah let's destroy some of this, this would be fun'.

"It's better than just your typical landscape of buildings which are all identical or all glass and you can't tell the distinction from one to the next.

"It really shows the dedication to Fast and Furious to take something that is wonderfully beautiful and hundreds of years old - if not older - and just destroy it".

Set in Los Angeles, the original movie centred on the world of illegal street racing. It introduced the world to Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), the leader of a criminal heist group that LAPD officer Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) tries to infiltrate.

Since then, the franchise has grown more ambitious across its eight sequels, with action sequences more closely resembling the globe-trotting Mission: Impossible films.

The widening scope of the movies means the plot lines and car chases have become increasingly imaginative.

In the latest film audiences meet Diesel's brother Jacob, played by Cena - whose prowess in choreographed combat helps bring sibling rivalry to life.

Diesel told the BBC: "As an actor to be able to create fight sequences with someone who has spent their life mastering combat entertainment for wrestling - it's a luxury. I think the film benefits from that.

"There's a showdown that happens in Scotland, we filmed it there. Dom and Jacob's relationship comes to a head right there - you'll see it in the movie. I had a great time filming in Scotland. I love Scotland, clearly."

Cena said he had visited Edinburgh previously on a "lightning fast" WWE schedule, but it was the F9 shoot that allowed him to experience city culture.

He enjoyed its landscapes, architecture and the food and drink offering, developing a taste for a single malt - but on set, it was very much business as usual.

He said: "The only thing that broke my heart in Edinburgh and I saw this first hand - they wrecked a $250,000 limited edition Jaguar in front of my eyes.

"I couldn't scream out loud because I was on camera but a piece of me was heavily hurt to see that jag just get totalled.

"That just goes to show that Fast keeps its roots to car culture - it wants to show these unbelievable rides. Something has to get sacrificed but that was a tough day."

The Fast & Furious franchise, including the spin-off Hobbs and Shaw, has so far grossed more than $6.1bn and has used locations around the world including California, Mexico and Abu Dhabi in the UAE.

F9 also does its fair share of globetrotting and for the first time also sends two characters into space in an effort to destroy a satellite.

But director Justin Lin described how Edinburgh was "meant to be" for some of the action sequences he had envisioned.

"Everything that I said I was looking for existed in Edinburgh," he said. "I had never had it happen where I had something in my head and then when I landed somewhere - the whole city already existed.

"It really was about elevation - I wanted to do something with the zip line with the brothers and obstacles through buildings.

"The energy of the city was great - when we were shooting even though we were blocking traffic and making things hard for the citizens of Edinburgh, everyone just felt positive and it really did affect us when we were shooting the scenes.

"I feel like it is so special - in filmmaking those are special moments."

The stars of Fast and Furious 9 will be on The Edit which is on the BBC Scotland channel at 19:15 on Saturday.