Wrestler-turned-actor opens up about new, old career

	Stone Cold Steve Austin is making the transition from the wrestling ring to the movie scren. Eric Charbonneau/WireImage.com

Veteran movie-goers have learned the lesson many times before, but it can't be repeated too often: when it comes to hunting, the most dangerous prey of all is man.

Here to prove it again is former WWE champion Steve Austin, who stars in The Condemned, which opens Friday. Austin plays Jack Conrad, one of 10 death-row inmates who are dropped onto an island and forced to hunt each other down -- all for an Internet reality show.

On Wednesday, I spoke to Austin about the movie and wrestling and more.

SI.com: How's your day been?

Austin: It's been fun. Busy. Working on the promos, getting awareness up and doing the legwork. It's interesting. I'm learning a lot.

SI.com: I read that you live in Malibu these days. Is that correct?

Austin: I bought a house in Malibu, but I'm about to sell. It's a little difficult to take meetings, stuff like that. When you are coming in from Malibu, you have 25 miles of Pacific Coast Highway. It's very narrow, not the safest highway in the word. So if there's a wreck or construction or a mudslide, it really throws a monkey wrench into your day. So I'm moving closer in, probably the Venice area.

SI.com: Steve Austin in L.A. sounds the premise for a fish out of water movie. Do you feel at home out there?

Austin: Now I do, but first and foremost I'm from Texas. I have a ranch in south Texas and I'm going to spend more time there when I get a chance. I love the weather [in California]. The traffic and the real estate prices are killing me.

SI.com: Have you picked up any of the local culture out there? Do you own a yoga mat, or go to AA meetings or anything?

Austin: In Malibu, there were like 45 rehab places out there. Everybody's in rehab. I'm not. And on the yoga end of it, a good friend of mine, Dallas Page, has a "yoga for regular guys" thing he's involved with. One day he comes over to Malibu and brings two exercise mats. We're out there, doing yoga for about 30 minutes. Let me tell you, I was sweating, it was a hard workout. He's awesome at it. But afterward, I said, 'Dallas, take your mat, I'm sticking to my weights.'

SI.com: In the '90s you had a recurring character on Nash Bridges. It seemed like you might be in movies a lot sooner than this. What took so long?

Austin: I did 13 episodes of Nash Bridges, and they were the shows 13 highest-rated episodes. They offered me a series based on that character. I talked to Vince McMahon about it, but I was making too much money. I still loved wrestling too much, it was still in my blood, so I kept going. I was having a blast and I was making a killing.

Fast forward, now I'm ready to get out of the ring, and here comes a movie called The Marine [a WWE Films production, like The Condemned], which was written for me. I decided I didn't like it, so I passed, and John Cena [the current WWE champion] starred in it. I needed to find a script. The Condemned found me about two years ago. Twelve extensive rewrites later, here we are. That's why it didn't happen sooner. I had been offered smaller parts that weren't really that interesting. I think timing is everything.