Dwayne Johnson
Dwayne Johnson
Dwayne Douglas Johnson, also known by his ring name The Rock, is an American and Canadian actor, producer and semi-retired professional wrestler, signed with WWE. Johnson was a college football player for the University of Miami, winning a national championship on the 1991 Miami Hurricanes football team. He later played for the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League, and was cut two months into the 1995 season. This led him to become a professional wrestler like his grandfather, Peter...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth2 May 1972
CityHayward, CA
CountryUnited States of America
I'm a long way from being evicted [at the age of 14], but I'll never forget it. I'll never forget the feeling. I'll never forget my mom crying and I'll never forget the thought I had: 'Well the only thing I can do is just go build my body,' because the men who were successful that I knew of - Stallone, Arnold, Bruce Willis - they were men of action.
Yeah, arrest that man on the crime of having 8 Chicken McNuggets stuck up his arse.
The Rock is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most electrifying man in sports entertainment today.
In my mind at that time, at 14, the men who were successful were Stallone and Schwarzenegger and guys like that - Harrison Ford - who were these men of action. I was like, "Okay, they're successful, they're not getting evicted, they built their bodies - I'm gonna go build my body." It was like that.
One of the skills I had to learn and become proficient in is kissing a man. I had never kissed a man. Will Smith did it in his movies, so did Jake Gyllenhaal, and I figured it was my time. So it was me and Steve Carell - fantastic.
I want to be a man who is truthful and who won't let pride get in the way of ripping myself open to my partner and saying 'Here I am. This is me.' I feel there's something powerful when a man reaches a point in his life when he can be completely vulnerable.
The men I idolized built their bodies and became somebody - like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger - and I thought, 'That can be me.' So I started working out. The funny thing is I didn't realize back then that I was having a defining moment.
As you step every day and we're going to see challenges, we going to see failures, we should certainly learn from the failures and be gracious with our successes too as well.
But being on location and shooting, whether its in Puerto Rico or Atlanta, it always reminds me of how really cool my job can be. Interacting with the fans is one of the best parts of it.
I always keep moments that were defining for me in my past and challenged me in my past - from getting evicted out of my apartment when I was 14 years old, to being cut from the CFL [Canadian Football League] and only having 7 bucks in my pocket, to bouts with depression - I keep moments like that very close to me because it continues to be great motivators for me. It helps keep me grounded, and it's a good reminder of how things work, and I never want to go back to that.
Know your roll and shut your mouth!
Why being involved in social media has had such a tremendous impact on me, is deeply connecting me with fans in ways that I never had before. I was connected with fans and I always appreciated the relationship I had with fans, but, through social media, it allowed a deeper connection.
Any athlete or any actor who's preparing for a long time to step on a stage or step on a field or step on a movie set, who suffers an injury right before you're getting ready to perform or to execute - it is a massive challenge that's thrown your way that you didn't expect.
I think there are a number of things that you can do to encourage your kids' dreams but I do believe in speaking by experience of having a lot of help along the way, stumbling in the past. We've all stumbled and we certainly all deserve to get up and walk again.