Dwayne Johnson (A.K.A. "The Rock") Takes One More Step Up the Ladder Toward Superstardom with Gridiron Gang
by B. Love

“He was sooooo nice!”

This is the response of an impressionable young journalist upon meeting Dwayne Johnson (a.k.a. The Rock), as if she somehow expected the former pro wrestler-turned-actor to stand up mid-interview, rip off his form-fitting shirt, raise his trademark eyebrow and bellow his signature line, “Can you smell what the Rock is cooking?!”

But those days, apparently, have long since passed. Now, 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 Saturday Night Live, then in a scene-stealing turn as a transvestite in 2005’s Be Cool), and now he’s strutting his dramatic stuff in Gridiron Gang.

The film is based on the true story of juvenile detention camp parole officer Sean Porter, who began turning hardcore teenage felons into a successful high school football team after he grew weary of watching 75% of his young charges return to prison or die violently on the inner-city streets. As Porter, the 34-year-old Johnson shows a range of emotions rarely seen in action fare like Walking Tall and Doom, portending a career of greater depth than you’d expect from a man once best-known for coining phrases such as “jabroni” and “smackdown.”

Then again, as a former juvenile delinquent who had several arrests on his record before he was old enough to drive, the mixed-race (half African-American, half Samoan) Johnson had no trouble identifying personally with the material, as it was football that wound up getting him off the streets and onto a more productive life path. We recently spoke with the 6’3” son of a pro wrestler about where his film career is going, and how Gridiron Gang reminded him of where he’s been.

As a University of Miami football star and a one-time NFL candidate, what was it like for you to put on a football uniform for this film?
Putting on the pads was great, and it definitely brought back memories of playing football. Those were the lengths Sean Porter would go to; he would try anything in order to get through to these kids. There’s a lot of stuff he did that didn’t make it into the film. He loved football, so he would put on the pads and have players try to run by him and give them forearms to the facemask and things like that. The best part of that sequence of the film for me was when he tells the kid, “You can’t run away. You can’t hide. All you have is yourself, and that’s all you need.” That’s one thing you try to get across to these kids who can’t even see tomorrow. Once you get a kid to believe in himself, nine times out of ten it becomes a positive thing.

You were once one of those kids who wasn’t on such a positive path. Can you talk a little about that?
That was a time in my life when I, like a lot of kids, 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... and fighting... and theft. It was bad, and I know what football 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 commitment 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.

It’s an interesting parallel, because gang life seems to be rooted in having something to prove and trying to fit into this surrogate familial-type community, which is essentially what organized sports do.
Exactly. The gang world is very structured. There’s loyalty there. That’s your team, and you have to prove yourself day in and day out. This is why I’m so grateful that I got this material to begin with, so I could get into Sean’s world and explore it and understand it. Most of my trouble was in Hawaii, and we had gangs back then, but I wasn’t running with Bloods or Crips or anything like that. We were primarily just badass kids doing the wrong things. But Sean understood the value of breaking the power that gangs have over the kids, and that if you could just guide them in the right direction and let them know that they do have a choice, you can make a difference. The documentary (on which Gridiron Gang was based) was shot 15 years ago, and the staggering numbers are the same today: 75% of these kids who get out get shot and die or they end up back in prison. So the one thing Sean tries to get through to them is that their gonna get out and get a second shot, so don’t screw it up. If they need him, he’s there. To this day, he oversees five juvenile detention centers, and he’s dedicated his life to it. It makes me feel good to know that there are people like that out there.

What’s more important to you: Delivering a good performance or breaking box office records?
What’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. 

Athletes who become actors seem to be typecast as action heroes, and historically don’t seem to be given much of a chance to act. But in this movie, you’re not just a cartoon character kicking ass and taking names. Was the emotional nature of the film an attraction for you?
Sure. Hollywood’s an interesting machine, and once you realize that you begin to understand the ebbs and flows of it. The Scorpion 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 Cool was a really defining moment, because after that Hollywood was like, “Who knew?!” and everything I was getting was comedy. I was lucky to get this type of material, but I looked at it more as an opportunity to tell an incredible story, and in the process it challenged me to grow as an actor.

A lot of people from other entertainment mediums, whether it’s athletes like Schwarzenegger or rappers like 50 Cent, seem to come to Hollywood and dive right into leading roles. But from The Mummy films and Saturday Night Live to supporting roles like Be Cool, you’ve seemed pretty deliberate in picking your roles. Is there a master plan at work?
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 motivating me as much as the work and the material. Even a movie like Doom, which didn’t do well, I did because it gave me a chance to play the bad guy and work in the video game genre, which I’d never done before. I think the first mistake that happens with a lot of people who wanna crossover into acting is they 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 focused and driven to succeed, I’m gonna put my money on that person, because you can apply that same mentality to acting. But with a lot of celebrities who crossover, they don’t bring their work ethic because they think acting is really easy. It’s not! It’s tough to be a good actor, and it’s really hard to make a good movie.

What was it like working with Xzibit? You guys seemed to have great chemistry.
I love Xzibit. He brought that reality and authenticity to the role. He’s been very open and honest about his past and his run-ins with the law. What’s great about him is that, in the world of hip-hop, it’s not necessarily cool to always be joking, but he’s got enough confidence and understanding of himself to be able to laugh and smile. He’s like, “I don’t have to act hard. I’ve been down that road and I know what that’s like, so I’m fine being this person.” I appreciated that about him– that he didn’t have the mean mug on his face all the time.

What did Sean Porter think of the film?
He saw it a couple of weeks ago, and I wasn’t there but one of the producers went up to him after the screening and asked him, “What should I tell Dwayne?” Apparently he was crying and had to wipe his tears away, and he said, “Just tell him I said thank you.” For me as an actor, that’s gratifying. I didn’t wanna imitate Sean, but I knew if I could channel his passion, his intensity and the empathy he had for these kids, I could have a shot at delivering a good performance.

What do you have coming up next?
Gameplan, which is a Disney family comedy in which I play an NFL quarterback on a Super Bowl-bound team– a McLaren-driving, Elvis-singing bachelor living that life, like a cross between the entertainment value of Joe Namath and the toughness of Brett Favre. One day I get that knock on the door from a 7-year-old girl calling me “Daddy,” and the hijinks ensue. It’s one of those perfect Disney-esque movie I can take my five-year-old daughter to see.

Now that you’ve tackled comedy and drama and family films, is there any one type of movie you’re still yearning for a chance to do?
Just good material, ya know? I love action, and if a good action movie comes along that allows me to be self-deprecating and kick ass at the same time, I’ll take that. I love comedies. I watched Inside Man last night, and I would have loved to play Clive Owen’s part...