Doom – Junket Interviews, Pt 3a
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Q: I was looking for, but didn't see, the "eyebrow thing" in Doom.
The Rock: No, I know...
Q: You didn't do it?
The Rock: It wouldn't have fit. Not in Doom, no.
Q: How did you come up with that in the first place?
The Rock: Being stupid.
Q: Really?
The Rock: Being really silly one day. Yeah, it was back in high school and I was like "hey" and that was it. Then it kind of just stuck and it worked great for Be Cool because I thought "What if that's like his thing and that's his interpretation of 'Look I've really got talent'". And you know you see people out here like that all the time who, you know, they're not that talented but they think what they're doing is talented. And its funny too because then that's a bigger question of people are just interested in being famous like you get that a lot 'I just want to be famous'. Not necessarily good at something, just be famous.
Q: Have you even thought of getting them insured? That would be the real
The Rock: Insured? That would be a
[laughter from everyone]
The Rock: There's so much of that. And you guys, you would miss that too. You sit across from some really, I'm sure, neurotic actors and actresses
Q: We've seen our share, yeah.
The Rock: I can imagine. I've seen them too. It's like "What's wrong with you?"
Q: We were just talking before, you know, you're a very big guy. And the producers are saying you look very intimidating, you know, fearless. And I guess you always play fearless characters. I'm just wondering what scares you in real life? You know that's something we'd be interested in, like rats or snakes or something.
The Rock: No, I can deal with rats and snakes and all that. I'm really, uh, I don't know if it's called "bugaphobic". I don't like spiders, so arachnophobia. But you know like big roaches, you know when you see the big fat roaches? That, I don't like that.
Q: But like literally you turn into like a screaming little kid or something? You jump?
The Rock: Being honest with you, not necessarily those because typically roaches run away. But I tell you what's bad is you know how you see sometimes I don't even know like locusts like the grasshoppers that are like that {gesturing}. Do you ever see them? I don't know what they're called. They're HUGE grasshoppers, you know
Q: So I guess you wouldn't be eating those out in the Australian bush or something where that's a delicacy?
The Rock: Not as a delicacy. I don't understand delicacies. Its like just eat chicken or whatever. Don't eat the chocolate covered ants as a delicacy or snake meat.
Q: Are you a bad loser? Like your character in Doom I guess loses. You lose your temper or something when you lose?
The Rock: No. I don't lose my temper. I've been through too much bullshit early on to lose my temper over anything now. Just make movies, its all good
Q: Are you concerned that persisting in the action genre will give you the same short or long career as other action figures that in the end they wind up not being more?
The Rock: No because its important to me to take a wider array of roles from playing gay in Be Cool to playing the antihero in this.
Q: No action in any of them?
The Rock: No action in any of these movies. A paranoid schizophrenic who can foresee the apocalypse happening. there's a comedy that I'll probably do with Frank Oz, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ryan Reynolds, there's no action. So no, not concerned about that. I love the action genre but I still want to be challenged and become really good at what I do. It would be easy for me just to do action. And then you make a ton of money which is great but I'm not driven by that.
Q: Do you think you have to prove yourself among other actors because you come from the wrestling and you come from that field and people look at you like "Oh, what does he think, he's an actor?".
The Rock: Um, no. At first, of course at first when I first broke in with Mummy Returns it was like that. Ah, and it grew into Scorpion King and all that. And that's fine, I knew that. And then it was a hump that I knew, I hoped, with performances that eventually I'd just get over. Um and then it just doesn't become a concern anymore. To answer your question, yeah it's like double the size of the mountain. And I always talk to like Michael Clark Duncan about this, Seann William Scott...those guys are my friends. You know Michael came from digging ditches in
But what's interesting I think is perception-wise for some odd reason people are more apt to go "See he can make it, he can make it" But for me I came from the world of television still 4 hours of live tv in wrestling that is very over the top and very dramatic at times but it still gave me (I had no choice by the way) but it still gave me a base and a foundation of performance. But yet coming into, breaking into the movie business it was like "I don't see that. How does that happen". My point is that its like how one guy's digging ditches and a year later people are like "Oh yeah, I can see him make it".
Q: But do you still get that from actors?
The Rock: No!
Q: Do you feel like they don't want to do a movie with you because...?
The Rock: No. No, not at all. I think actors, you know this is a very small community and word permeates quickly. And not only that but I'm very candid with my desire to be good and respect the craft of acting. When I first got in… I have an immense amount of respect for it. Be Cool helped, working with Travolta and Uma Thurman and everybody like that. And putting on a performance like that, where if there were any questions or concerns I think they were quelled after that. And again its a very small community so all the other actors and studios and producers and directors, everybody knows that. Everybody knows what I did in The Mummy Returns, everybody knows what I did in Scorpion King, everybody knows what I did in Doom. You know, being an antihero badass.
And by the way, I'm sorry if there is any concerns then there's not a damn thing I can do about it other than just do what I do. Because some people by the way you just get that. You know how some people are like 'I just don't like him'. [chuckling]
Q: Can I just ask a couple of quick questions about the wrestling? Now that you've been away from it now for a number of years can you now publicly admit that its all a show?
The Rock: I always have. I always have, always, always. I've never tried to pull the wool over anybody's eyes. No, we ran a television show, it had a producer, it had a director, it had a script, everything. Always, always. I will say this though in defense of, um from the physicality standpoint I never had a stunt double. You can't have stunt doubles, obviously, in wrestling. Tables had to be real, chairs had to be real, nothing was scored. I had to feel many of these, you know folding metal chairs. You can't score it because its this close, the action is this close, cameras are this close.
Q: On the show there's wrestlers who hate one another. In real life, are there any of those animosities. Even if there are, one or two?
The Rock: Of course, there's many.
Q: Really?
The Rock: Of course, yeah. I think its just human nature. You know, everybody in a room or anybody working. Its like when you go to work I'm sure there's journalists who you like and some you don’t. It’s just like that on a movie set too by the way, you know not everybody gets along. You know you want to do business but these personalities come together and you know. Especially in the entertainment business because personalities and egos are so inflated at times and so delicate. All that bullshit you've got to deal with. Excuse me, but you know its that whole thing.
Q: So you've had guys you're working with try to pick fights with you behind the stage?
The Rock: Ahh no, no, no. It never really happened with me, I was an easygoing guy. You know what I mean?
Q: Did you see other guys having problems?
The Rock: Happens all the time.
Q: Really? That's amazing.
The Rock: Well you don't see it because typically guys are professional and they don't let it happen publicly in front of the fans. I've had a couple of problems before in the ring and if there's a problem I'll wait until we get in the back. But in no way was I going to let [it happen] while trying to perform for the fans.
Q: Is there an example? You don't have to name names if you don't want to. Just give me like a scenario of maybe two fighters that you saw that were having like an issue behind the scene.
The Rock: I can tell you I had an issue with a guy who wanted to...he didn't want me to do something...there's a particular move that he wanted to do. I had no problem with that, no sweat. But he wanted to do it at the wrong time. He wanted to do it at the beginning of the match. Not only did he want to do it at the beginning of the match, but it was somebody else's move. You just don't do that. Its like, uh, you know if an actor wanted to talk like Christopher Walken in the scene. Its like, no.
So anyway, it got to a point where there could have been a fight. We went out, performed in the ring. He was being an idiot in the ring. Um, not performing the way he should have been, for the fan's standpoint. There was like 20,000 people, they paid a lot of money. We get in the back, we wait until we get in the back, and now there's a problem. Now we'll settle the problem now. It escalated to that...but there was no fight.
Q: What do you look for in an action script? And what made you choose Doom?
The Rock: In an action script I just look for a good story. Like in any script, you look for a good story. You know, a lot of things, it's like conjecture or interpretation that you can say many movies that aren't considered action movies but there's action in the movies. So, um, just a good story basically. And whoever the director is that's attached to it, talk to them [ask] "how do you see the movie being shot" and stuff like that.
Q: I know the first director left. How did you feel when the new director came on? Did you have any concerns about that?
The Rock: The only concern that I had was that it was a time concern. Because Andrzej came on, much to his credit, with four weeks to shoot. The other director was on, he had some issues that he had to take care of, and he was let go. Which at first I thought "that sucks" , but then everything happens for a reason. Andrzej came on, I talked to him and the first thing I said was "I want to scare the shit out of people with this movie" and he said "No". And I thought "Oh God, here we go, its gonna be pg-13" and that's just not the way to make this particular movie. Then he said (excuse my language) "We're gonna scare the fuck out of people, I promise you." And I said "Oh great! That's all I need to hear."
We were very fortunate to get Andrzej I think because from a cinematography standpoint he's really good. And I thought the set design and the way he lit the movie and shot the movie was very dark, very eerie. It was really good. Good guy. And he was really motivated. Four weeks in, by the way, he was like "Ok here's Doom, here's a 65 million dollar movie."
Q: Were you aware of the video game before the movie?
The Rock: Yeah, I played the video game. I'm a big gamer now, I've always played video games. First time I played it was about 13-14 years ago when it first came out. I was impressed then with the fact that they pioneered and they trailblazed. I'm pretty sure you met Todd the creator of the game, he had the where-with-all. The edge, the vision to say like "F it. We're gonna blow things up the way they should be blown up and we're gonna be violent, we're gonna be graphic with it."
Continue to Part 2 of 2 by clicking here.