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Who is saying What, Why, When and Where

Headline:

The Rock begins to crack

Synopsis:

He's called the Rock. His real name is Dwayne. He is Hollywood's biggest box-office action hero. So what's he afraid of? Ariel Leve gets to grips with a giant and his fears.

"A guy walks into his bedroom holding a duck. He sees his wife lying on the bed and says... "

The cinema's biggest scrubbed-clean action hero is telling a dirty joke, but because he's telling it with all the enthusiasm of a naughty schoolboy, we're laughing before the punchline. Just looking across the table at him makes me, the waitress, and other diners around us, smile.

Interviewing film stars can be a laborious, arid affair: frail egos and zeppelin-like self-importance easily pricked. But this mountain of a man isn't hiding anything: drugs, his parents' divorce, his marriage, even his toilet humour.

In the smog of Hollywood vanity that surrounds us, he's more than a breath of fresh air - he's a cleansing gale of honesty. The "new Arnie" has gusto. He's big - bigger than the original at 6ft 4in and 17st - and brimming with laughter.

In fact, everything about Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson is big and happy. In this diner in Venice Beach, where local body builders work out under the sun, big and happy seem to be the specials of the day. His smile is the size of my foot. Even his muscles look happy. His toffee-coloured skin glows and, with his hands clasped together, his forearms rest on the table like tree trunks - but it's hearty, freshly scrubbed timber, not wood that's gnarled and steroid-induced. ...

Publish date:

11 September 2005

Author:

Ariel Leve

Source:

Sunday Times Magazine

Media:

Access Interview