Dustin Rhodes discusses his role in AEW, why he left WWE, and becoming an actor (Exclusive)

Dustin Rhodes is still at the top of his game in AEW

It's pretty obvious to see even looking back at your lengthy and such a versatile wrestling career that you have a talent for it. You must have honed some skills that you can transfer to acting. What do you feel wrestling has given you that you can transfer to acting?

Well, the biggest advantage I think is time, and I've had a lot of time to craft the acting backstage in WWE or AEW with vignettes and promos I have a big leap and an advantage in that area because I know how stuff is shot, I know how production goes and what goes into it. The producers, directors, scripts, all the things, so it's really easy for me to just get into somebody else's character and do something.

You look at the Goldust character for years, it was one of those hard things that I had to figure out and we just ran with it. And it went in a funny direction, which was funny for a while, it was great. People like it, let's keep doing it for a while. You kind of think of different ways to keep this character relevant over the years and that is the big advantage I have as far as going and stepping into the acting world, because I already know most of this stuff and the script, the scripting and just memorizing your lines and stuff.

Back when I'm doing the Goldust character or the Dustin Rhodes character and I'm improvising stuff, some directors will allow you that freedom to improv if you're good at it and I think I'm one of those that's good at it and I've had years to really craft that.

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No arguments here on that one. One of my favourite things, I watched Scare Package - which, in case anyone doesn't know, is a comedy horror movie. What was your experience like of working on that set, and being in the role of a horror villain, which isn't something we've really saw from Dustin Rhodes?

Well, this was kind of easy for me. I mean, I didn't have any lines in the movie. It was just...

As far as people watching this movie for the first time, Scare Package, they're gonna say, "Where is Dustin Rhodes?" Well, I'm not going to spoil it for you until you watch the movie but it was a character, the villain, there was a lot of blood lost in this movie and it was a comedy, and it was fun - but I was behind the mask. I was behind a mask and you just try to create this crazy character, and I look at all the past things that have happened in the wrestling world or from the Freddys, to the Jasons, to the Michael Myers, to the Hellraiser characters and I just tried to make it my own. It was a lot of fun and really easy to do.

Dustin Rhodes took some horror inspiration for his role in Scare Package

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NEXT: Why did Dustin leave WWE?

COMING UP: "I'm going to Bob Orton some fools!"