TH E ROCK

Get A Piece Of “The Rock” DWAYNE JOHNSON

PG 28 • insiteatlanta.com • March 2009 E WAS SOOOOO NICE!” This is the response of a young journalist upon meeting Dwayne Johnson (a.k.a. The Rock) for the first time, as if she somehow expected the former pro wrestler to stand up mid-interview, rip off his form-fitting shirt, raise his trademark eyeb row and bellow his signature line, “Ca n you smell what The Rock is cooking?!” But those days apparently have long since passed. No w, the super-suave Johnson is a burgeoning superstar who, having made the gradual transition from athlete to action hero, seems set on becoming a bona-fide thespian. He initially spread his wings by delving into comedy (in a series of memorable appearances on Sa turday Night Live, in a scenestealing turn as a transvestite in 2005’s Be Co ol, and opposite St eve Carell in last year’s Get Smart). But after strutting his dramatic stuff in Gridiron Gang, Johnson has moved on to family films such as the box office blockbuster The Game Plan and this month’s Race To Wi tch Mountain, portending a career of greater depth than you’d expect from a man once best known for coining phrases such as “jabroni” and “smackdown.” We recently spoke with the 6’3”, mixed-race (half Af rican-American, half Samoan) son of a pro wrestler about where his career is going, and just how far he’s come from where he’s been. There was a time in your life when you weren’t on such a positive path. Can you talk about that? That was a time in my life when I was making the wrong decisions, hanging around with the wrong people, and running the streets doing a lot of things that I should not have been doing. I was very fortunate that I had someone who cared about me and invested time in me. It was my arresting officer, when I was 14 years old, who said, “I want you to stop screwing up and go out and play football for your freshman team.” I didn’t learn overnight. I was a work in progress, and I continued to get in trouble because I thought he was full of it and that I had all the answers. But I didn’t know anything, and I continued to get arrested until I was 17, when my high school football coach in Pennsylvania invested even more time in me. What kind of stuff were you doing? Fighting and theft... It was bad, and I know what sports did for me. I didn’t realize it as a freshman. For me it was just a way to make my arresting officer happy so that, in the event I did get arrested again, maybe he’d let me go. It wasn’t until I got older that I understood the value of not only having someone who cared, but the value of sports and what that can do for you; the value of comm itment and hard work and sacrificing your time after school to go to practice and do all those things that you carry with you for the rest of your life. Was there anyone in particular who helped guide you through the transition from wrestling to acting? There was one particular guy I’ ve talked about in the past. His name is Pat Patterson, and I actually modeled my character in Be Co ol after him. He’s a very proud gay man– very funny guy– and he’s been like a father figure to me. We spent a lot of time together, and creatively he was the guy who made sure I understand the value of simply wanting to entertain and taking your ego out of it. I think it’s best when you approach things in that way– ego is the great inhibitor of success a lot of times– and do what’s best for the audience so you can take them through a myriad of emotions. Between him and this great [WWE] writer named Brian Gwartz who consistently challenged me, we found a lot of humor in this world of heightened, over-the-top conflict, and that was a great place to be. What was the key to successfully crossing over? Making the transition was primarily about surrounding myself with great actors. In my first role in The Scorpion King, we had Michael Cl arke Duncan and Grant Heslov, who’s also a great writer now as well– and a studio and director who supp orted me. I had to be as fully prepared as I could possibly be. No t that I was gonna deliver an Oscar-winning performance, but as long as I was prepared and gave the best performance I could give, I knew I had a shot at being decent. A lot of people from other entertainment mediums– whether it’s athletes like Schwarzenegger or rappers like 50 Cent– come to Hollywood and dive right into leading roles. But you seemed pretty deliberate in picking your roles.

I think it’s important to choose carefully. The thing you don’t wanna do is work from a place of money, and I was fortunate to come into it with a pretty penny, so the money wasn’t motivati ng me as much as the work and the material. A lot of people who wanna crossover into acting come into it saying, “I’ m gonna try the acting thing.” If you go into it with that attitude, you’re not gonna get much out of it. But if I see an athlete or musician who’s been really driven to succeed, I’ m gonna put my money on that person, because you can apply that same mentality to acting. It ’s tough to be a good actor, and it’s really hard to make a good movie. What’s more important to you: Delivering a good perform ance or breaking box office records?

Wh at’s important to me is being true to the character. Of course box office records are great, and you keep your fingers crossed and hope people will come out, watch the movie, spread word-of-mouth and do all the things that a good solid movie that delivers people’s money’s worth is supposed to do. Is it fair to say that athletes who become actors seem to be typecast as action heroes, and historic ally don’t seem to be given much of a chance to act?

Su re. Hollywood’s an interesting machine, and once you realize that you begin to understand the ebbs and flows of it. The Sc orpion King was all action, but I knew even then that I wanted to become a versatile actor. I just wasn’t getting the material that allowed me to do that. Be Co ol was a really defining moment, because after that Hollywood was like, “Wh o knew?!” and everything I was getting was comedy. From dressing in drag to kissing Steve Carell, you seem to be willing to do just about anything to get a laugh.

I love self-deprecating humor. It’s my favorite type of comedy, so if there are ways to inject it into my projects I’ m all for it. There’s a lot of that in Race To Wi tch Mountain as well. I like to strike a balance between that and finding some sort of arrogance in the character, even when it’s an unsuccessful one. That combination of endearing and arrogant can be very funny. You’ve gradually moved into more family friendly fare. What was the appeal of Race To Witch Mount ain?

We ll, I love that it was made with Disney, and I love that I was able to combine some of the grittiness and intensity of the contemporary action movies I’ ve done in the past with other elements I appreciate, such as heart, humor, family and a little bit of fantasy. We set the story in Las Vegas, and I play a cab driver named Jack Bruno. These kids who have magical powers get in my cab, and from there the race is on. We really treated the movie like a Disney ride, so the title is very fitting because there’s a very relentless drive to it. I really loved the idea of this guy who doesn’t have much now and has made a lot of mistakes along the way, but gets the opportunity to make a defining decision that allows him to save the world. And after this you’re playing the Tooth Fairy in the movie of the same name? Laughs) Yeah, yeah... I have a really bad shoulder injury in the movie, and one of the wings is beautiful and the other is a little messed up one that doesn’t quite grow correctly, making me fly into things. We ’re going after heart and humor and a little touch of fantasy, so I’ m excited about it. It’s going to be really funny. To borrow the name of one of your films, are these career moves all part of the game plan?

Wh en I started acting in movies, I didn’t have a background in theatre and my parents weren’t movie executives, so I didn’t have that connection. But I thought I had pretty good instincts, and I loved the entertainment world and performing. That [wrestling] world that I came from benefited me greatly: That four hours on television every week was my theatre, performi ng in front of audiences of 20,000-30,000 people. But growth was always the goal. I really admire actors like Tom Hanks, Wi ll Smith and George Clooney, who’ve had the type of career I aspire to have and are able to go from genre to genre and do a broad variety of movies. I love having the ability to go from action to drama to comedy, and will hopefully find a little bit of success in all of them. BY B. LOVE H WHEN I STARTED ACTING IN MOVIES,

I DIDN’T HAVE A BA CKGROUND IN THEATRE AND MY PARENTS WEREN’T MOVIE EXECUTIVES, SO I DIDN’T HAVE TH AT CONNECTION. BUT I THOUGHT I H AD PRETTY GOOD INSTINCTS, AND I LO VED THE ENTERTAINMENT WORLD AND PERFORMING.