Ronda Rousey talks about ‘Entourage,’ ‘The Athena Project’

Ronda Rousey said Monday she “manifested” her next acting job on the “Entourage” movie, scheduled to begin filming in mid-March after Rousey defends her Ultimate Fighting Championship women’s bantamweight title Feb. 22 against Sara McMann.

Rousey, 27, who last year filmed the latest versions of “The Expendables” and “The Fast and the Furious” series, said after breezing through all the episodes of CBS’ “Big Bang Theory” with roommates following training before her Dec. 28 victory over Miesha Tate that she was looking for another series to follow.

“I’d just be laying on the couch, just wanted some brain junk food to look at,” Rousey said, dismissing the suggestion of “Breaking Bad” as “really depressing.”

“I was like, I’ve never seen ‘Entourage,’ everyone’s been talking about it for years, I’ve never seen a single episode, let’s start watching it. … I was on the third season when I got word of the movie.

“I was like, ‘I just manifested the [heck] out of that. I didn’t even know there was a movie.”

Rousey, as first reported by Variety last week, has also been tapped for a role in “The Athena Project,” but acknowledged a script for that book has yet to be submitted, so a filming date is uncertain.

She said her agent forwarded her the book while she was filming “The Expendables 3” in Bulgaria, “and I tore through it in 48 hours. It was amazing. You read it like a movie.”

Rousey agreed to “The Athena Project” before fighting Tate. She declined to say what characters she’ll play in either film.

Training now in Glendale for McMann (7-0), a 2004 Olympic silver medalist in wrestling, Rousey (8-0) said at her UFC media day Monday that she’s gotten pretty good at blocking out her new career while preparing for an opponent.

“I’m a fighter, not an actress,” she said. “It’s cool to have the future security of another career.

“I’ve been avoiding talking about movies for so long, I almost feel uncomfortable about it now. I’m excited about it, but can’t devote too much time to thinking about it.”

Rousey said the “Entourage” filming will take place in Los Angeles and won’t be round-the-clock, adding she’ll be able to “train all the way through it,” should the UFC schedule her another fight in the summer.

“It’ll be minimally inconvenient,” she said. “It’ll have all my focus later on, but right now it’s a peripheral thing I’m trying not to devote so much attention to.”

Following her first two films, Rousey blamed ring rust for Tate taking her to the third round, before she won by armbar at MGM Grand, and says the quick turnaround for an all-Olympian fight at Mandalay Bay during the Winter Olympics should prove compelling.

“She’s a high-level athlete,” Rousey said of McMann, “but I rise to the level of my opponent and I’m in great shape.

“It helps that there’s an Olympic theme to it. The whole country is in that mode right now. When people get Olympic fever, it’s all over the place.”