Ronda Rousey on Dating: I May be a 'Tough Girl,' but 'at the End of the Day I Want to Cuddle Too' [Exclusive]
Dubbed "The First Lady of the Octagon," there's no doubt that UFC champ Ronda Rousey is a bad-ass force to be reckoned with - and while she's a tough cookie that doesn't mean she doesn't have a sweet side that needs some TLC.
The incredibly skilled mixed martial artist and UFC Women's Bantamweight champ plays herself in "Entourage" and gets a chance to show off her feminine and vulnerable side with Turtle (played by Jerry Ferrara).
The half-Venezuelan MMA fighter also gets to show off what she's made of, which includes her killer arm bar, but Hollywood-style. Rousey has a stellar track record of finishing all of her opponents with this fierce move in the first round (a move that she "gently" pulled on Turtle in "Entourage.")
"It was fun kind of showing Turtle that side of my life, where he would always see me outside of it. It's very different who I am outside in the world as opposed to in the gym," Rousey told Latin Post in an exclusive interview in Los Angeles. "It's almost like I have a different person, like part of my brain or personality there."
"It's cute that in the beginning of the movie, it's more my girly in skirts, kind of coy side and suddenly flipped where I get to bring him to the gym where I'm like this Superman kind of person when the rest of the time I am Clark Kent," she added. "It was fun bringing him over there and showing him a few moves."
In "Entourage," Rousey and Turtle have a somewhat volatile reunion following a misunderstanding, and an even more explosive meeting when she invites him to her place.
Rousey often gets hit on by guys with a financial agenda who are trying to make money off of her, or guys "who are big meathead athletes." She's fed up with that approach and type.
On the other hand, Turtle seems like a good-looking, successful, normal guy who wants to hang with her, but then she gets the impression that he's really is just trying to make money off of her as well. This bruises her ego, which she says isn't good for Turtle -- hence the octagon scene where Turtle has to take a beating in order to take her out to dinner.
What was it like showing Turtle who is boss?
"I knew that we were on to something when everyone was dying laughing while we were shooting. I think the guys got a little too much pleasure out of watching me throw Turtle around a little bit," she said.
Facing off with Rousey "was everything you thought it would be!" Ferrara told Latin Post in an exclusive interview, also in L.A. "No really, it was just really cool. It's kind of like the best part of acting. You get to play all of these different professions that you couldn't do in your regular life. So getting into the octagon with Ronda is something that I know I would never have a shot at doing in regular life."
Ferrara's been a fan of Rousey's and has witnessed her fights long before Hollywood came knocking.
"She's very intense when she has to be, so I enjoyed seeing that armor come off a bit, and her personality come through," Ferrara said in an earlier interview. "She has a lot of heart and takes her work very seriously, and is just a really talented, impressive person."
Like her role in "Entourage," art imitates life for Rousey as men often assume she's not interested in a love connection.
"There's parallels in that I get frustrated with the misconceptions and assumptions people make about me that that I am always walking around like this super, callous tough chick when I'm a tough girl at the gym and people are trying to beat me up all day and when I go home at the end of the day, I really just want to be made to feel like a girl and get cuddled a little bit. It is frustrating when people assume otherwise," she explained.
"It's frustrating when, say, I really got a crush on Turtle and he likes me, but he assumes that I wouldn't be into him," she added. "Those assumptions are something that I have to deal with in real life."
Check out Latin Post's exclusive interview with Ronda Rousey. "Entourage" is now in theaters.