Michael Cera is really glad Rihanna slapped him in This Is The End

Michael Cera’s most recent film (Barbie, of course) may have featured a grand beach-off that was more dance battle than down and dirty brawl, but the actor has not always been so lucky to emerge so unscathed from shooting a fight scene. But, according to Cera, he’s actually been very lucky to take a few bumps and bruises along the way. Specifically from international superstar Rihanna.

Remember the (very) 2013 film This Is The End? Written by an actively high Seth Rogen (per his own admission, as well as anyone with a brain and a movie ticket), the film starred pretty much every comedian of the era as partygoers who face the apocalypse and a very large demon to eventually end up in heaven with the Backstreet Boys. Michael Cera got hit on by Mindy Kaling, hit in the face by Rihanna, and did a whole mountain of coke. It was… a lot.

It was also awesome, according to Cera. The actor revisited his scene-stealing cameo and specifically the slap in a recent interview with GQ, saying “Yeah, I mean she definitely hit me. But I really, I wanted that, you know? I mean, I think it’s a lot funnier and a lot more convincing.”

“A fake slap just doesn’t look good, so she hit me hard. She really sent me flying, and it was great,” he continued. “And now it’s on film forever, this pain that I experienced.”

Rogen previously discussed the moment around the time of the film’s release with Sway’s Universe. “He asked her, ‘can I slap your ass for real?’ And she said, ‘You can slap my ass for real, if I can slap you back in the face for real.’ And he was like, ‘Okay!’” he said, before adding that the two filmed the scene “like three or four times.” “She cupped his ear and actually, like, whacked out his equilibrium, and he had to go lie down in his trailer [for] around half an hour,” he continued. “That’s the take we used in the movie, like we didn’t add any sound to that or anything.” Now that is how you do practical effects in a film.