Paul Walter Hauser: Emmy Winner To Pro Wrestler, AEW, Hardcore Matches, Playing Mick Foley In A Movie?

Paul Walter Hauser (@paulwhausergram) is an actor and professional wrestler. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his roles in "Cobra Kai" and "I, Tonya", why he turned down the opportunity to be in a movie with John Cena, having wrestling as a side quest, not being discussed in the celebrity wrestling conversation, taking bumps through glass and onto thumbtacks, working with AEW and MLW, which spot hurt the most, his upcoming role as Chris Farley, potentially starring in a Mick Foley biopic, and more!

On the Jamie Taco sketch in “I think you should leave”:

"It was like a nine-page sketch. It was so long. We shot for like a 13-hour day. It was like the last day of shooting before they shut down for COVID back in 2020. He’s a line stealer, he’s so fast, and I'm so emasculated by it, you know, as a man and as an actor, which is also funny the way they cast it, because the guy looks like he's a senior in high school and he's the mouthy guy working behind the snack shop or something after school. He just doesn't seem like a real threat. It's so funny the way Tim Robinson had me play it. He literally gave me line reads like, Tim Robinson would be like, say it like this, honey, I auditioned for a play, and I got the part, and it's like, when you see him do it, you're like, oh, and then you see me doing it's like, clearly there's Tim's DNA in the delivery." 

On playing Chris Farley in a biopic:

"We'll see. The movie is not greenlit. The script is great, though, dude. They sent me a brand new draft. This is like the fifth draft or something. I read it on the plane ride here to come here this week, and I was like, Oh, it was like this funny feeling in my belly. It was like, Oh, wow. Based on where the script is, it's like there's nothing else to do. It's truly ready. Now it's like the baton is about to get past to me, and it's all my responsibility to not screw it up."

On which role he is the most associated with:

"It's definitely Cobra Kai, the stingray character, that would be number one. Number two is probably Richard Jewell. That movie's really grown on people in a sense of like, I think people found that on Amazon Prime to rent, or it was free if you have the subscription. And then Airplanes, people were watching Richard Jewell on Airplanes. It's still on Delta. I was flying Delta the other day, and they had, I Tonya, Richard Jewell and Luckiest Man in America." 

Do you put it on and look around?

 "No, can you imagine? I did it once with I, Tonya, though, where I did purposely, but it was me going, Oh, I haven't watched this in a minute. So I threw it on. Was like, it's such a weird little movie."

On turning down a John Cena movie:

"I got offered Ricky Staniki at one point, the Efron Cena movie, and it just wasn't a lot of money. They didn't want to fly my whole family first class to Australia. I was like, that's a long flight. That's not mad chill. I kind of had that Matt Riddle moment, he had that thing where he's like, You guys put me in second class with a ham sandwich between three people squished like he had that. But this was me seven weeks out, going, I don't think that makes sense for me. I passed and I felt horrible because I think Zac Efron is really fun."

On wrestling being a side quest:

"My pay differs based on the company too. If I were to do something with TNA, and they were like, Hey, come do a match with AJ Francis, or a tag match, you're gonna be paired with the Rascalz against three heels. I would want 10 grand for that match, because, to me, you're also getting eyeballs and press and whatever else comes with it, and I'm going to go out of my way to make it as good as it possibly can be, at the risk of hurting myself. But if Action Wrestling down in Georgia is like, Hey, do you want to come fighl, take an L to Adam Priest or tag with your buddy Darian Bankston, I'm not going to charge them more than three or 400 bucks. I still got to drive down there and drive back. I don't know if I'm selling merch or not. I don't know if they're not going to have catering, there's X amount of things that you give up to just wrestle and have fun." 

On not being considered a celebrity wrestler:

"I know, and it's frustrating. I'm not gonna pretend it doesn't bother me a little bit. I'm working really hard, and I'm, you know, not every match is a banger. For goodness sake. I've had some smelly ass matches. There's probably six or seven of those 22 that I would like to hide somewhere and never show anyone. But there's probably four or five, even six that I'm very proud of. You should watch me and Joey Janella at DEFY, you should watch me and Steve Maclin at Revolver. You should watch this promo I cut in MLW."

On what his wife thinks to it:

She does not like it at all, but I also tell her the truth. I take calculated risks. There was a time when I was taking edibles and drinking scotch and partying around this city in Hollywood, and that was way more dangerous than wrestling. 

So this is your outlet?

"It's one of them. Yeah, I think cooking, screenwriting, wrestling, I have a couple different outlets that really serve me. I would love to take up golf at some point. Wahlberg helped me get my first pair of clubs, and was really sweet and gifted something to me. But I just haven't gotten out there yet. I need to do that."

On the conversation that if he gets injured, it could delay shooting:

"I did a pre-tape in 2024 for MLW. We did a match that was famously panned by the online community. They despised it. I had a match with Tom Waller, and it was cinematic. Re watching it, there were a couple of things I would do differently. I would shave off three or four minutes, and I would also make it more 60 or 70% of him, I would change the ratio a little bit on who takes what. But that match, we had already shot, and I was doing whatever I was doing that summer. It must have been the Wahlberg movie, because I was in Australia, and they're like, Is Paul fighting a match tonight? Because they saw it on Instagram or something. And my manager is like, no, he already taped that. They're just gonna air it. But they were freaking out, ready to read me the riot act, because they thought I was wrestling while I was shooting."

On which weapon hurts the most:

"First off, that kendo stick hurt like hell. Kendo sticks, the only way to fake a kendo stick is for a guy to hit you very lightly. And nobody does that because they know you can’t sell that. So that hurt a lot. The thumbtacks, I didn't even feel. The thumbtacks were my idea. They're all like, Are you sure you want to do this? I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna be doing this in match. Just wait. But when I poured out the thumbtacks, I didn't pour them out in the middle of the ring, which I should have, because that's the softest, bounciest part of the ring. Not thinking. 15 minutes into a match or blown up, I poured them near the turnbuckle, which is arguably the hardest part of the mat, pretty equivalent to the apron that everybody's like. That's the hardest part of the mat. The turnbuckle is too. So when I took that Power Bomb, well, for one you can see me pulling up my shirt. I was hoping he was going to pull up my shirt like a hockey fight, to expose the back, and then we could see the tax, see the blood. That was the plan. He didn't for whatever reason. So I'm literally trying to pull up my shirt as I'm in the Power Bomb position. It looks so goofy and stupid. He powerbombs me, and the wind got knocked out of me. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't talk, so him and the ref were like, Let's close this up. And then he didn't want to get thumbtacks in his hands or body, so you see him roll me up with my legs, but it was weak, so I could kick out easily, and and then I was trying to set something up in the corner, and of course, he hits me in the ball bag and got me with the diamond cutter, which was more offensive, because I'm dear friends with Diamond Dallas Page."

On what will happen if WWE tickets keep rising:

"It'll become this douchey, uppity thing that only a bunch of rich tech bros and investment bankers go see. Average people won't be going to that."

So the hardcore fans are being priced out?

"I think that's factually happening. Yeah, not, not, not that everybody's destitute, but the country, if you look at the trends, because I'm only going off trends, I'm not saying like I've arrived at this knowledge. It's more me tracking and with AI and with job loss and us being on the verge of another recession, all the trends tell you that people have less and less disposable income, and it will be more necessity-based income. So the way the world's going, people aren't going to be able to afford it."

On possibly working a match with Mark Wahlberg:

"I've talked to Mark about it. He's talked to Ari Emanuel about it once or twice. So you never know that could happen. I've met Jelly Roll. We got along really well. We got a lot of commonalities with being Jesus guys, being wrestling fans. I could see doing something with him. He and I do a no dq, you know, hardcore tag team match where we get to be these big burly white dudes showing up, looking like we came off the couch, but still doing some cool stuff." 

On his favorite storylines:

"If that's a story or a movie, the movie of McMahon Austin is kind of like R-rated Looney Tunes, almost. It's kind of just bizarro set piece, absurdity stuff, but it's also hyper violent woth the stuff they're doing to each other. I think for me, I always go back to, can I say a handful? I don't think I can choose one. But I would say, like, Ric Flair and Vader in 94 at I think it was SuperBrawl. Flair is saying goodbye to his kids and being documented in the car, in the limousine, going to the fight. And it's kind of like him saying, like, I might die in that ring, that's the best acting Ric Flair ever did, you believe everything he's saying, and you believe that Vader is this other worldly power that kind of can't be beat, and that he's the savior at WCW, in this moment. That I think was tremendous, albeit kind of brief. I don't think that dragged out longer. I honestly think that my favorite story lines have been Sting and Darby Allin teaming up and him having that third act in wrestling. I think that is an awesome story, and how it started as one cinematic match, and then it just grew and grew and grew. Another one I'm obsessed with is Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa. That lasted a while, and I never got sick of it. I always liked it. I always cared about both guys, even if I was mad at one or the other."

On the match that hurt the most:

"The elbow drop I delivered onto BRG at Battle riot for MLW, [off the ladder?] Yep, that hurt. And by the way, it wouldn't have hurt that much. There was a padding outside next to the ring. We weren't on the padding. Had we just moved it slightly and I landed on the padding would have been fine. I hit the elbow perfectly in the middle, but then my butt cheek, my right butt cheek, and my hips slammed into concrete, seven, eight feet off the ground. Hard to recover from that and fake that, that sucks. Also, I didn't want to put too much of my body on him to crush him. I was like, just hit the elbow. Maybe you'll twist your ankle or something, but you'll be fine. In the moment, you're not thinking totally you're just like, I believe I'm going to be okay. That's a, that's a big belief thing, too. I believe these guys are going to catch me if I do a Senton off the apron. You know. The other thing is, of course, the Power Bomb from Qt Marshall. Maven, who I'm a big fan of his YouTube page, I loved your interview with him recently. Maven, I want to see him make some form of a comeback in a company, and be an active member of a company. I would like to see that. But Maven said, of all the moves he took in his video, where he takes all the finishes, he said the Power Bomb still hurt the most. And I was like, You're telling me, man! I took one Power Bomb and I felt like I was out of commission. So, yeah, falling on a concrete and getting a hematoma in my ass cheek and being power bombed in the corner turnbuckle area, that was the worst."

On his Mount Rushmore of future stars:

"So you named you named two that I knew for sure were gonna be in there, which was Dom and MJF. I was gonna say them for sure, and I was going to say Kyle Fletcher and Bron Breakker are the other two sure. But I now have a little hesitation and pause because I'm like Rhea Ripley man. But who do I eliminate from that group? Rhea Ripley deserves to be up there. I'm gonna have her replace MJF, because I could see MJF not wrestling in the future because he's enjoying Hollywood, it's way safer and he can make the same amount of money eventually." 

On possibly playing Mick Foley in a biopic:

"I won't get into details, but I've been approached about it, and we're talking to the producers right now, and we've been in discussion for a while. I also got approached to play two other people in the wrestling world in the last couple of months alone. So I'm just kind of like waiting it out to see what what rises to the top. Because movie making is so weird. It might seem like a sure thing, and it goes away, and then sometimes something just pops up out of nowhere. The way we're talking about it, I want to do a Mick Foley limited series, do like a four to six episode thing, and be able to tell the story a little more fully and not just be like, remember the time you fell off the cage? It's like, the guy's done so much more than that. He deserves more respect than that, too."

What is Paul Walter Hauser grateful for?

"The dinner I got to have with Sting, and my wife and kids."

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