Steve Austin ‘Vulnerable’ in ‘Stone Cold Takes on America’

Six-time WWE champion, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, poses for a portrait to promote his new reality series "Stone Cold Takes On America" on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, in Gardenerville, Nev. (AP)
Six-time WWE champion, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, poses for a portrait to promote his new reality series "Stone Cold Takes On America" on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, in Gardenerville, Nev. (AP)
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Steve Austin ‘Vulnerable’ in ‘Stone Cold Takes on America’

Six-time WWE champion, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, poses for a portrait to promote his new reality series "Stone Cold Takes On America" on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, in Gardenerville, Nev. (AP)
Six-time WWE champion, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, poses for a portrait to promote his new reality series "Stone Cold Takes On America" on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, in Gardenerville, Nev. (AP)

“Stone Cold” Steve Austin missed out on many seemingly mundane experiences during his legendary, bloodied, broken-bodied rise to becoming one of the most popular wrestlers of all time. But the Texas Rattlesnake is making up for lost time with his new adventure reality series, “Stone Cold Takes on America.”

“It’s about doing different things in America and doing some of the things that I’ve always wanted to do,” said the six-time WWE champion. “Like almost anything in life, to reach a high level, you sacrifice a lot of stuff. … It sounded like a great idea to go do a lot of bucket list items.”

The A&E series, premiering Sunday at 10 p.m. ET/PT, gives a glimpse into Austin’s post-wrestling lighter side as he attempts to conquer activities like competing against skilled senior citizen bowlers. He also does live TV weather forecasting and waits tables at a steak restaurant (no patrons were hit with the Stone Cold Stunner).

“There are some things I’m loving … and there are some things that I’m little bit of a fish out of water, and it’s painful. But through it all, I think we had 12 or 13 people on the crew, and we traveled all around in an RV, and I drove every single mile,” said the 2009 WWE Hall of Fame inductee.

“I was just trying to perform a job the best that I could — someone else’s job — on one hour of training. So yeah, man, I don’t like to use the word vulnerable, but I guess I’m a little bit more vulnerable than Stone Cold.”

The 58-year-old shot to wrestling fame in the late ’90s before spilling into pop culture stardom with his brash, charismatic, profanity-laced attitude that eventually moved fans from disdain to adoration. Helping lead the WWE’s popular “Attitude” era, his “Stone Cold” persona resonated with blue collar fans as well as anyone who hated their boss. (He had a running storyline of bickering and battling with WWE CEO Vince McMahon). He created crowd-participating catchphrases like “Give me a hell yeah!”

Hollywood recognized his gravitas, and he went on to star in 2007’s “The Condemned,” and joined the ensemble cast that included Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis in 2010’s “The Expendables.” In recent years, he beefed up his reality TV experience by hosting the “WWE Tough Enough” reality competition as well as several seasons of CMT’s “Redneck Island.”

But if fans expect to see the tough guy in the black wrestling trunks, black leather vest with a scowled face while he’s learning new jobs, they might be disappointed.

“For the first few episodes, there was a little bit of an identity crisis on my part,” explained the three-time Royal Rumble champion. “I live my life as Steve Austin, and so I’m not trying to be ‘Stone Cold’ in this show.”

But that doesn’t mean his alter ego is gone forever. Rumors swirled with frenzy that the native Texan would appear at WrestleMania 39 earlier this month, but filming conflicts didn’t allow him enough time to get into wrestling shape. However, he’s not ruling out future surprises WWE appearances.

“If the stars aligned again, then yes, I would,” said Austin, who acknowledged there were discussions with fellow wrestling legend and current WWE executive Paul “Triple H” Levesque.

But Austin isn’t begging to go back in the ring. He’s enjoying his post-wrestling life and wishes that much like his “Stone Cold” character inspired a legion of fans, this show motivates viewers to try something new, while hoping they follow these adventures with as much fervor as his wrestling storylines.

“I dropped out of college with 17 hours left to graduate, and all my jobs were manual labor jobs. I was driving a forklift before I got to the wrestling business. But I tell people I never had a plan B. Plan A was to succeed. I never had any desires of being a world champion … I just wanted to be a wrestler,” said Austin. “But as you learn the business, you learn that you want to climb the ladder to get to the very top. So, just whatever you want to do, don’t let anybody hold you back and go for it.”



Movie Review: A Weird ‘Superman’ Is Better than a Boring One

 Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
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Movie Review: A Weird ‘Superman’ Is Better than a Boring One

 Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a ... a purple and orange shape-shifting chemical compound?

Writer-director James Gunn’s “Superman” was always going to be a strange chemistry of filmmaker and material. Gunn, the mind behind “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “The Suicide Squad,” has reliably drifted toward a B-movie superhero realm populated (usually over-populated) with the lesser-known freaks, oddities and grotesquerie of back-issue comics.

But you don’t get more mainstream than Superman. And let’s face it, unless Christopher Reeve is in the suit, the rock-jawed Man of Steel can be a bit of a bore. Much of the fun and frustration of Gunn’s movie is seeing how he stretches and strains to make Superman, you know, interesting.

In the latest revamp for the archetypal superhero, Gunn does a lot to give Superman (played with an easy charm by David Corenswet) a lift. He scraps the origin story. He gives Superman a dog. And he ropes in not just expected regulars like Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) but some less conventional choices — none more so than that colorful jumble of elements, Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan).

Metamorpho, a melancholy, mutilated man whose powers were born out of tragedy, is just one of many side shows in “Superman.” But he’s the most representative of what Gunn is going for. Gunn might favor a traditional-looking hero at the center, like Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord in “Guardians of the Galaxy.” And Corenswet, complete with hair curl, looks the part, too. But Gunn’s heart is with the weirdos who soldier on.

The heavy lift of “Superman” is making the case that the perfect superhuman being with “S” on his chest is strange, too. He’s a do-gooder at a time when no one does good anymore.

Not everything works in “Superman.” For those who like their Superman classically drawn, Gunn’s film will probably seem too irreverent and messy. But for anyone who found Zack Snyder’s previous administration painfully ponderous, this “Superman,” at least, has a pulse.

It would be hard to find a more drastic 180 in franchise stewardship. Where Snyder’s films were super-serious mythical clashes of colossuses, Gunn’s “Superman” is lightly earthbound, quirky and sentimental. When this Superman flies, he even keeps his arms back, like an Olympic skeleton rider.

We begin not on Krypton or Kansas but in Antarctica, near the Fortress of Solitude. The opening titles set-up the medias res beginning. Three centuries ago, metahumans first appeared on Earth. Three minutes ago, Superman lost a battle for the first time. Lying bloodied in the snow, he whistles and his faithful super dog, Krypto, comes running.

Like some of Gunn’s other novelty gags (I’m looking at you Groot), Krypto is both a highlight and overused gag throughout. Superman is in the midst of a battle by proxy with Luthor. From atop his Luthor Corp. skyscraper headquarters, Luther gives instructions to a team sitting before computer screens while, on a headset, barking out coded battle directions to drone-assisted henchmen. “13-B!” he shouts, like a Bingo caller.

Whether this is an ideal localizing of main characters in conflict is a debate that recedes a bit when, back in Metropolis, Clark Kent returns to the Daily Planet. There’s Wendell Pierce as the editor-in-chief, Perry White, and Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen. But the character of real interest here is, of course, Lois.

She and Kent are already an item in “Superman.” When alone, Lois chides him over the journalistic ethics of interviewing himself after some daring do, and questions his flying into countries without their leaders’ approval. Brosnahan slides so comfortably into the role that I wonder if “Superman” ought to have been “Lois,” instead. Her scenes with Corenswet are the best in the film, and the movie loses its snap when she’s not around.

That’s unfortunately for a substantial amount of time. Luthor traps Superman in a pocket universe (enter Metamorpho, among others) and the eccentric members of the Justice Gang — Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern, Edi Gathegi’s Mister Terrific and Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl — are called upon to lend a hand. They come begrudgingly. But if there’s anyone else that comes close to stealing the movie, it’s Gathegi, who meets increasingly absurd cataclysm with wry deadpan.

The fate of the world, naturally, again turns iffy. There’s a rift in the universe, not to mention some vaguely defined trouble in Boravia and Jarhanpur. In such scenes, Gunn's juggling act is especially uneasy and you can feel the movie lurching from one thing to another. Usually, that's Krypto's cue to fly back into the movie and run amok.

Gunn, who now presides over DC Studios with producer Peter Safran, is better with internal strife than he is international politics. Superman is often called “the Kryptonian” or “the alien" by humans, and Gunn leans into his outsider status. Not for the first time, Superman’s opponents try to paint him as an untrustworthy foreigner. With a modicum of timeliness, “Superman” is an immigrant story.

Mileage will inevitably vary when it comes to Gunn’s idiosyncratic touch. He can be outlandish and sweet, often at once. In a conversation between metahumans, he will insert a donut into the scene for no real reason, and cut from a body falling through the air to an Alka-Seltzer tablet dropping into a glass. Some might call such moments glib, a not-unfair label for Gunn. But I’d say they make this pleasantly imperfect “Superman” something quite rare in the assembly line-style of superhero moviemaking today: human.