In a recent interview with the WWE After The Bell podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Edge discussed several topics, including his acting roles, the origins of The Judgment Day faction, and much more.

Highlights of the interview are below:

On his acting roles: “I’ve still been taking the occasional auditions if I think in terms of timeframe that it could possibly pan out, I mean thankfully the company has been so good with me throughout it all, and making sure that the time can be carved out to make certain things happen. So, I read to play Ares, the God of War on Disney+, they are doing a Percy Jackson television series, the author of the books is also an Executive Producer, he’s on board, he wasn’t on board with the movies, but he’s on board with this. He wrote some of the script, so the fan base is like, Rick’s involved, this is going to be the way that Rick wanted it. So, I read for it, forgot about it as you do with auditions, this is what you do, then I guess about two months later, I had a Zoom meeting with all of the Executive Producers and they said okay, when can you get out to Vancouver and I went oh, I got it and they’re like yeah and I went oh crap, I better talk to everybody then. Thankfully, we were able to figure it out and make it work within the story, and if anything, it added gas to The Judgment Day, because you know, from the I Quit Match, I really did the bulk of my work for Percy Jackson, but even the week before the I Quit Match, I was out in Vancouver filming all that week, a month actually, it was such a blast. If you had told me at 49 years old that I’m going to be working for WWE and Disney at the same time, come on. I’ve been so lucky and there’s been work involved, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve done so many things that I can check off a list that wouldn’t have even been on the list, because I assume they’re absolutely impossible, yet they are.”

On the origins of The Judgment Day: “It’s been a year now since we first conceptualized the idea of The Judgment Day, it was over a year ago now, it really started at WrestleMania the night that Priest and I first joined together and that became the initial nucleus of what this thing was, but then it turned into something entirely different and better honestly. Where it’s at now was the goal that I had in mind, I really thought the concept of Judgment Day, the idea behind it was, here’s these really talented individuals who I truly felt weren’t getting the opportunity that they deserved and if they got that opportunity, they could fly with it, they could run with it, whatever analogy you want to use. I had been watching them all since NXT and kind of kept tabs on them and kept my eye on them all these years, so when I was asked about starting a group and was asked who would be in it, the first names I said were Priest, Ripley, Balor, it changed and morphed and went through a lot of different permutations.”

On whether he believed The Judgment Day would reach this point: “I mean no, I honestly thought maybe we would get to this part of the story now, you just have to make do and figure it out and thankfully, they were given the reins to take this in a different direction and an entirely different direction than it would have with Edge at the helm, Again, because with Edge at the helm, it’s swimming upstream, because we’re trying to get an audience to turn on a character, but they know the backstory to this character, they know the real-life story behind this character, they know Adam’s story, so it’s like, well we don’t really want to hate this guy, because he fought back for something that he wanted to get back, he’s also doing something that nobody’s ever done before, he’s wrestling with a triple fusion in his neck, like no one has ever done that, so it can be hard to hate that and I was trying, I was trying every little old school heel trick in the back, I was trying to call them Cheetoh eating b******s and whatever else, but it just wasn’t going to work. It might have eventually with more time, but it would have takent a lot more work, where as Balor, not being as firmly established, even though he is established, not 25 years of equity within the company. This June is the 25 Year Anniversary of my TV debut, so you’ve got to figure like, people have grown up watching me, and now they’re bringing their kids and they’re saying to their kids, hey check this guy out, he was there when I was a kid, that’s where I am at now. You have to look at it and kind of work with what you’ve got and thankfully, all four of them with the addition of Dom have taken this thing in completely different directions. I think they’re being more of themselves, and when you can be more yourself, then chances are it’s going to work, because you’re going to inject the actual person behind the character with some reality, with some truths, with some actual interests with the way you would actually speak and that to me is absolutely key.”

The full interview is available at this link.