The next big challenge for this pro wrestler–turned–actor isn’t body slamming a 300-pound guy in tights or killing aliens with a laser gun. The Rock is determined to pulverize all your preconceived notions of him.
Rock Out
Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson is a meathead. He’s a big dumb jock. And if you say that to his face, he’ll give in to his violent tendencies and use the People’s Elbow to crush you.
It’s easy to see why people would stereotype the Rock. He did, after all, get his start as a professional wrestler, and has starred in such action flicks as Doom, Walking Tall, and The Rundown. But if you talk to him for more than five minutes, you realize two things. First, while he is big, and he is a jock (he played professional football in Canada), he’s certainly not dumb. And second, the Rock is actually a big goof.
When we asked if there was anything about him that would surprise people who buy into the idea that he’s a walking macho cliché, he deadpanned, “Aside from the corduroy G strings I wear backwards?”
The Rock, believe it or not, has a sense of humor. But if he had his way, audiences would have noticed that years ago. “When I was wrestling,” he recalls, “I would write all these crazy long monologues that never made it on air. It was a constant battle. Other people in the WWE would always ask me, ‘Why are you always trying to be funny?’ But I thought, You can’t always be yelling.”
The irony is that the Rock’s most famous catchphrase was an off-the-cuff remark. “I was doing an interview with, of all people, Gennifer Flowers,” he remembers, “and she was asking me about some court case that was going on at that time. I said to her, ‘The problem is, if I were the judge and the jury, nine times out of ten it would be a hung jury … if you smell what the Rock is cooking.’ ”
The Rock’s comedic timing in the ring has allowed him to explore another side. In the movie Be Cool, he played a wannabe actor whose audition monologue was the catty exchange between Kirsten Dunst and Gabrielle Union in the cheerleader flick Bring It On. He’s also had two stints hosting Saturday Night Live—where he played Clark Kent so convincingly, it almost led to him being cast as the Man of Steel in Superman Returns. “The question did start to arise after they saw me as Clark Kent on Saturday Night Live,” he says, “but I think it was going to be hard to pull off a half-black, half-Samoan Clark Kent.”
People may not see the Rock as a comedian, but it doesn’t seem to be hurting his career. He has two movies coming out this fall: the uplifting true story of juvenile delinquents reformed through football, Gridiron Gang, and Richard Kelly’s surreal sci-fi thriller/comedy Southland Tales. Also in the pipeline are Daddy’s Little Girl and Johnny Bravo. But one thing that has the Rock really excited is his new video game, Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run. It is the game version of the movie that’s based on the eighties arcade game Spy Hunter. (It sounds a little convoluted, but awesome nonetheless.)
“We were actually still developing the movie and working on the script when Midway [the game’s publisher] came to me about doing the game,” the Rock recalls. “I was into it because I was such a big fan of the original game. My first question, though, was, ‘How is this game going to be different from the other ones?’ They told me that, for the first time in a Spy Hunter game, players would be able to get out of the car. They’d get to be the character who has been driving the car this whole time. It was perfect for me, because what I’ve always loved about Spy Hunter is that this guy literally hunts spies. Who’s the guy who hunts James Bond? I want to be that guy.”
He also, apparently, wanted to hurt people—virtually. “I was interested in doing something different with the combat,” he explains. “I wanted to know how we could creatively maim and bring death to the bad guys with our bare hands. And Midway was like, ‘You can have complete control.’ Which was great, but it also presented a cool challenge: How many ways can I kill somebody with my bare hands? So I sat down with the developers, got my stunt double, and we just came up with some badass moves for my character. I even got to integrate some old-school wrestling moves that I used to do.
“Other people in the WWE would always ask me, ‘Why are you always trying to be funny?’ But I thought, You can’t always be yelling.”
“Though what I was really looking for,” he notes, “was what I call the ‘H.S.’ move. The one where, once you execute it, you’re like, ‘Holy shit!’”
To capture these moves, the Rock had to slip into something less comfortable. “To make sure they look right in the game,” he explains, “I had to do motion-capture work, which meant putting on this special outfit that has hundreds of little lights on it. I looked like a walking Christmas tree. Every movement is recorded: how you move, squat, run, jump, throw a punch, fall … everything you could think of. We did that for hours. My stunt double and I suited up and just went at it. Every movement you see in the video game was created by me in this outfit.
“Let me tell you, it’s a lot of fun, putting on that skintight outfit,” he adds sarcastically.
It might seem like a rather bold statement, especially in a time when studios try so hard to guard the plots of their big movies, but the Rock actually has such faith in Spy Hunter that he agreed to star even before there was a script or a director. “I have faith in the studio,” he says. “We’ve brought in screenwriter Stuart Beattie, who was a writer on the Pirates of the Caribbean screenplays and Collateral.”
This isn’t the Rock’s first movie that’s based on a video game. Last year he starred in Doom, an adaptation of the hellishly popular first-person shooter. “I think what we found with Doom is that a successful video game doesn’t always make for a successful movie,” he admits. “I think there have been some good video-game movies, some not so good, and some getting ready to come out that I anticipate will be great. But it all comes down to the writing.
“That’s not a knock to how Doom was written,” he’s quick to add. “I was happy with the way it turned out. Doom was very straightforward, but that’s the way it should have been. Video games and their storylines are so advanced that if you have a great writer, a great director, and some great actors, then you’ve really got a shot at doing something special.”
“Special” is what he’s aiming for with the Spy Hunter movie. It helps that he’s going to be in control of more than just the film’s cool car because, apparently, the Rock has some control issues. “I think it’s vital for an actor to get involved, especially the lead actor in a movie,” he explains. “With any movie I do, the studio will come to me with a list of directors who they feel can do a great job, and I’ll sit down and meet with every single one of them—sometimes more than once. When it comes time to cast, I’ll meet with all the actors and read with them. It’s vital to see what kind of vibe you have with someone because you might have two people who work well on paper, but when they get in a room together, they just don’t jibe.”
The Rock was just as involved in his other upcoming movies— Gridiron Gang, which costars rapper Xzibit and former CSI: NY star Vanessa Ferlito; and Southland Tales, with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, and Rundown costar Seann William Scott.
Southland Tales was written and directed by Richard Kelly, the filmmaker behind the smart, surreal, and not-action-packed Donnie Darko. “He’s a really interesting writer and director,” the Rock says. “I’m a big fan of Donnie Darko and of how he writes. It’s a really complicated movie. In Southland Tales, I play an actor who becomes a paranoid schizophrenic—there’s a stretch—and I can foresee the future.” But if being in a twisted mind-fuck like Southland Tales doesn’t add another level to the Rock’s image, then perhaps Gridiron Gang will.
“Every once in a while, one of those movies comes along that’s not a $150 million movie,” he says, “and Gridiron Gang is one of those special movies. It’s a true story about hope for kids who lost their hope.
“About 14 years ago, in a prison for kids that’s in the mountains up in Malibu, there was a probation officer who knew the system was failing—that 75 percent of the kids who are in prison end up either back in jail or dead in the streets. So he started a football team. The kids had never played football before. They were Crips, Bloods, didn’t give a shit about anything, didn’t respect authority—certainly didn’t respect themselves. But he promised them, ‘Even though you’ve never played football, even though you all hate each other, if you trust me—it’s August now—come December, no one will ever call you losers again.’ And they went on to have this incredible season. It’s based on an Emmy Award–winning documentary called Gridiron Gang that was narrated by Louis Gossett Jr. I was lucky to have gotten the role.
“What’s funny,” the Rock adds, “is that I asked the guy it’s based on, ‘Did you ever think you were doing something special?’ And he said, ‘No. I never did. Frankly, I still don’t—I just gave a shit about these kids.’ That’s why it’s just one of those movies that moves you.”
It’s obviously moved the Rock. “People who know me know I’m a sensitive guy,” he says. “I put the toilet seat down.”
Although nothing has physically changed about the man, he’s a kinder, gentler Rock than the glossed-up, mat-throwing he-man of yore. But he’s still trying to change public perception— to become Dwayne Johnson. “It’s very important for me to challenge myself,” he says. “It would be easy just to do action movies, but that’s boring to me, and I think it’s boring to the audience. I want to do different things. I wanted to challenge myself by working with Richard Kelly, and I wanted to challenge myself with Gridiron Gang by playing a real guy.
So what would he like to do next? “I’d love to do a comedy,” he says. “I love comedy. And if the material is right, I’ll take it in a second.”
