WWE legend Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson participated in a press conference at the Venice Film Festival, where he discussed various topics, including his experiences with being typecast in Hollywood.
The Rock said, “I have, for a long time, wanted this. The three of us have talked for a very long time about, when you’re in Hollywood — as we all know, it had become about box office. And you chase the box office, and the box office can be very loud and it can become very resounding and it can push you into a category and into a corner. This is your lane and this is what you do and this is what Hollywood wants you to do.”
On taking on more challenging roles:
“I looked around a few years ago and I started to think, you know, am I living my dream or am I living other people’s dreams? You come to that recognition and I think you can either fall in line — ‘Well, it’s status quo, things are good, I don’t want to rock the boat’ — or go, I want to live my dreams now and do what I wanna do and tap into the stuff that I want to tap into, and have a place finally to put all this stuff that I’ve experienced in the past that I’ve shied away from. I’ve been scared to go deep and intense and raw until now, until I had this opportunity.”
On playing Mark Kerr:
“Mark’s life has changed our lives and certainly changed my life as well. As we found with the film, it’s not about the wins or the losses … it’s also a film about what happens when winning becomes the enemy. And I think we can all relate to that pressure.”
(H/T to Variety for transcribing the above quotes)
