After spending months trying to get himself signed on as Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat 2, The Miz has finally reacted to Karl Urban getting the role and revealed that he never even got to audition for the character.
Out of all of the characters in Mortal Kombat, there are none that are more important to cast right than Johnny Cage. Not only is he one of the most popular and beloved fighters on the whole roster, but he's also key to the overall plot of the series, was crucial to the 1995 movie, and is canonically a Hollywood actor, making him one of the hardest people to cast right. In fact, despite Karl Urban being beloved for his role as Billy Butcher in The Boys, many have argued that he's not the right pick for the role.
If there's one person that we all expected to call out Karl Urban being cast as Johnny Cage, it's WWE's The Miz (whose real name is Michael Gregory Mizanin), who spent years trying to push himself forward for the role, even directly telling Ed Boon that he was the right pick. While The Miz certainly had Johnny Cage's attitude and looks down, it seemingly wasn't enough as the role instead went to Urban earlier this year.
Despite being very vocal about the role, The Miz has been silent about the situation ever since Urban was cast. However, as reported by IGN, he's finally spoken up about it during an interview with ComicBook.com. You might have expected him to be annoyed, but he's actually been very decent about it and seems like he just really wanted the part.
"I'll be honest, I really wanted to be Johnny Cage," Miz said. "When I saw the movie, the Mortal Kombat movie, I really liked it. I know there was a lot of... Some people critiqued it. I really enjoyed it. I loved it. I thought it was amazing. It just brought me back to my childhood. I've always loved the character Johnny Cage, and when it wasn't in there, I was like, 'Oh, wow man, I can't believe they didn't put Johnny Cage in.' And then at the end, you're like, 'Oh man, he's coming in part two, episode two'. And then... my name was trending with Johnny Cage."
Miz also revealed that he never actually got an audition for the role, despite campaigning for it over the course of several years and making it clear that he was interested. Despite that, he's not angry about not being considered for Cage and instead gave his support to Urban, saying "I imagine they're going to work as hard as I will work to make sure that that character is honed in, locked in, and is the character that the audience wants and loves".