| By Fred Topel
In Theaters Friday
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There is a history of action heroes taking on real issues. Sylvester Stallone explored the plight of Vietnam veterans in the Rambo films. Arnold Schwarzenegger went pro choice in Junior. Now The Rock is gay and proud in Be Cool. Even though he comes from the macho world of professional wrestling, Rock is confident that his fans won’t think he’s gone soft.
“I think the audience that I have and my fans, I think they're going to be very supportive because at the end of the day I have always wanted to entertain,” Rock said. “I think they would just appreciate [my] taking on the role.”
Fans are one things. Activists are another. Will the film’s satire of stereotypes incur the wrath of GLAD? “I hope I don't [offend anyone] because it was important to me from the get-go, I didn't want to turn anything really into a mockery or Saturday Night Live skit, but try and play it as straight as I possibly could, no pun intended. It goes back to my ideology, in my interpretation of what being what a gay man is, and the strength of that.”
So far, Rock has sensed no trouble from the gay community. Ultimately, being gay is just one facet of the character. Elliot Wilhelm is also an aspiring actor and singer, working as a bodyguard to pay the bills. “The temperature that I'm reading from the gay community and the gauge from the gay community has all been very, very positive. So hopefully, it will stay that way. But my intent was just to play a guy who wanted to make it and whom I could connect with, and not only that, but he just happened to be gay. And if you didn’t like it, he’d be happy to kick somebody’s [ass].”
The Rock almost kicked some ass on the set of the film, when director F. Gary Gray pulled a prank with MTV’s Ashton Kutcher. “I'll never forgive that Gary Gray for Punk’d and one day I’m going to get him back. I mean that in a loving way. What happened on Punk’d, if you guys didn't see, F. Gary Gray and everyone was involved in blowing up my trailer. It was actually a great punk, but what happened is that it almost escalated into a big brawl. Because it reached the point where there was a cop here and I wound up like shoving the cop and then going after this one guy. The cop was actually one of the actors from MTV, so once I found out I was punked I was actually really relieved.”
The Rock is a full time actor now, his contract ended by World Wrestling Entertainment at the end of 2004. Rock was particularly surprised because he wasn’t even contacted for negotiation, but he looks ahead to more movie projects. “It was never brought up. I was over in Prague filming, and it was just one of those things, kind of like being hit with a ton of bricks. My own team, my managers and everybody, they’re congratulating me [on my wrestling career]. I’m like wow. It moved me, because I had so much love from them. I thought well, all right.”
As an actor, The Rock will continue to go by the name made famous in live matches and with his catch phrase, “Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?” Though most people know he was born Dwayne Johnson, Rock will use the name he co owns with WWE.
“It's almost like a dual ownership, and we had made that agreement a couple of years ago, so I'm able to go out and use the name, The Rock and be billed as The Rock if I wanted to in movies. It's interesting now how things have come and just taken a life of its own in terms of the name. People are like, ‘Oh hey, Dwayne Johnson,’ call me Dwayne Johnson or whatever.”
Looking back on his successful foray into cinema, Rock recalls the hurdles he leapt to get where he is today. “I think the challenges at first, like five or six years ago, was there was a stereotype that the wrestlers before me had, and understandably so. So getting over that. so it took a lot of the executives actually going to the show and watching me perform live, it took hosting Saturday Night Live on a couple of occasions, it took The Scorpion King and movies like that. For me, it was just a matter of time, that's all. I knew that going in. I just wanted opportunities and then surround myself with good people and continue to work with good acting coaches and hopefully get better.”
Rock has two more action movies in the pipeline, the video game adaptations of Doom and Spy Hunter. In between, he will film the drama Gridiron Gang where he will play a football coach in a youth detention center.
“It’s not a movie about football, unlike Friday Night Lights was. These kids just happen to play this game but they’ve never ever played before. It’s incredible. It’s like just plucking somebody out of the jungle and saying, ‘Play this game.’ But it’s a bigger story obviously in just transforming their lives so they respect authority and so they’re not dead when they get out of prison. I’ve lived that reality. I love the game of football. I’ve played football and not only that, but I’ve had coaches in my life who were piss poor coaches who I hated and to this day I can’t stand. But I’ve also had coaches who were nurturing and who saw the bigger game of not only just football, and this is specifically down at the University of Miami and one coach in high school, saw the bigger game, the game of life. Teaching us about sacrifice, about commitment. Even though we’re playing for the national championship every single year, this is not the most important thing in your life. Just little things like that.”
Be Cool with The Rock this Friday. |
