| Few
careers of note begin with an eyebrow and progress
to full-fledged action hero status. As a kid in Hawaii,
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson bounced around getting
into trouble, getting arrested and having no idea what he
wanted to do with his life. The grandson of a famous wrestler,
Johnson found his way into the family business after years
of aimlessness. Once he adopted the badass persona of "The
Rock" and did a guest appearance on Saturday Night
Live, his fate was chosen for him. In his first leading
role as "The Scorpion King" he was reportedly
paid $5.5 million, one of the biggest salaries ever paid
to a first time leading man. Can you smell what The Rock
is cooking? DVDFILE bets you can.
Why did you choose The Rundown for your follow
up to "The Scorpion King"?
I wanted something that was contemporary and also something
that was funny and had good action. I loved the story and
I felt like the story was never sacrificed for the action.
I'm sure you had a variety of offers after
the success of "The Scorpion King." Was there
something in this script that made it stand out?
The character I play has an aversion to guns, which I liked.
He was in a morally questionable business but yet he still
felt like he felt like he was doing the right thing for
him and he wanted to get out of the business that he was
in. I also liked the relationship I had with Rosario Dawson's
character because it wasn't conveniently written for
us to hook up. One of my favorite scenes in the film is
where I decide to go back into the town because of a deal
I made with Rosario's character even after I've
picked up the guy I supposed to bring back - the guy
I'm supposed to run down. I do that to honor a promise
and our characters aren't even having sex in the film.
It's nice.
You spend a lot of time in this film with a monkey
clinging to you while you're hanging upside down.
Did you enjoy working with these primate thespians?
Well, the monkey that was on my face and humping my face
was mechanical but all the other monkeys were real. Oddly
enough during pre-production we had to take a week for monkey
orientation. They flew these monkeys in and we had to work
with the monkeys for a couple of hours a day so the monkeys
would get used to us. I had to hang upside down and let
the monkeys jump on me and jump off me. You kind of have
to stiffen your body so they don't fall right off
you.
They say you accidentally cut Seann William Scott
during the filming. How did that happen.
I felt horrible that I cut him. It was during filming.
The blade was sharp and I had a razor. I cut the little
string while he was tied up in order to free him and it
went right into him. I think he's forgiven me though.
There's a cameo with Arnold Schwarzenegger
near the beginning of the film. He's leaving a nightclub
and you're entering it. He leans over and says "Have
a good time," to you as you're walking past
him. How did the cameo come about?
He came down to the set to have lunch. We were all at the
table eating and the director Peter Berg decided to ask
him to be in the movie and he said he'd do it. It
was a lot of fun working with him.
You and Seann William Scott seem to have a real
chemistry working together. It's interesting because
your characters are complete opposites in the film.
You'd be surprised. There are many great things that
came out of this movie and one of them is that I gained
a friend in Seann. We made a point to get together and do
things and initially I thought the same thing. I thought,
"What can I have in common with this guy?" But
we're alike in many, many ways.
How much of yourself did you put into this character.
His background - getting into trouble when he was
young - is similar to yours.
There's a lot of cool back story to this character
that we didn't show onscreen. From everything that
I had gone through in my past in Hawaii - being arrested
and not knowing where my life would end up when I was 18.
I brought that to the character. This character was a lot
of times not on the straight and narrow and finally realized
that he had to do something with his life.
Do you go to people who've done the action
genre before you - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester
Stallone, Bruce Willis - and ask them for advice?
I've sat down with all three of them talked about
it. I'm closest with Arnold and Bruce Willis. When
I come to them with a question I usually bounce off ideas
I have. I told Bruce that I instinctually believe story
has to come before everything and Bruce said I was right.
They say you had a Samoan holy man bless the set
of "The Rundown" to help the movie go well.
Absolutely. It's customary to do that over there
when something of the magnitude of a movie takes place.
It helps things run more smoothly. I didn't know the
man but it was a Samoan High Chief who blessed the set and
it was very cool.
"The Rundown" got very good reviews
as a kind of action/buddy/chase film. How do you think it
compares to other films like it?
I think this film is a little different from a lot of the
films out there because my character is not super cool.
He's actually in awe of one guy he's sent to
collect money from. My character just isn't really
slick. A reviewer said "The Rundown" reminded
him of "Midnight Run" and "48 Hours"
and he said the reason was that none of the characters take
themselves too seriously. I thought that was great because
it's exactly what we were after.
•••
All images copyright Universal Studios Home Video.
All rights reserved. |
