Dwayne Johnson: "He doesn’t suddenly become a great action hero. He’s struggled to stay on the right path for a long time, and he’s frankly not very happy with his life. With a lot of great movies, it’s always about the collisions of worlds that happen, whether it’s great comedies or action comedies, or whatever it is. In this, it’s a phenomenal collision that takes place between this guy, who’s your everyday guy, and he gets involved with these two teenagers who have these supernatural powers. Throughout the course of the story he learns to trust them and wants to help them. What I really enjoyed about it, and Andy and I talked about this really early on in the process, is that even though he struggles to stay on the right path, and he’s done a lot of things that he shouldn’t have done, and gotten in trouble a lot, but he has one great opportunity to do something great and really achieve greatness, at a level that he would never, ever dream of. He gets a chance to save the world. He has that type of responsibility and he accepts it and he embraces it. He doesn’t know if he’s going to succeed or not, but it’s his intent to embrace it and move forward with it."
On the Difficulties of Protecting Alien Kids:
Dwayne Johnson: "It’s a lot of trouble. Immediately, within 10 minutes, as soon as they get in my cab, everything goes to hell in a handbag and the race begins, essentially. With the action, Andy wanted to create action that resonated with people and that we didn’t have to rely on CGI effects for, in terms of creating the CGI villain, or a CGI monster. So, we had a great monster that those guys over at ADI created, which is really badass and real. And a lot of times that, particularly with our movie, it shows. It has that texture of reality. When I get hit, I get punched in the face and the thing punches me and I fly across the room, it hurts because Andy’s got me on wires. Therein lies a great challenge, when we talk about action. How can we compete, if you will, on that level, in terms of our action sequences? There’s nothing like a good, old-fashioned ass-kicking - either giving one or taking one - in movies. It’s great when you have CGI monsters and you can fight them. That’s wonderful. I think there’s also something great and real and appealing about one-on-one combat."
On the Use of CGI in Movies:
Dwayne Johnson: "No, I don’t feel it goes too far. There are great movies out there where CGI has done great work with the villains and the monsters. But there is something appealing about having a real monster, when you’re fighting something that’s real."
Carla Gugino: "Also, I think that with this movie in particular, there’s something great about the authenticity and the fact that it’s a little bit messier. It’s not slick in that way. It’s done really, really well. I watched some of the footage and it looks like they are actually fighting. And there’s something fantastic about that, as opposed to flying through the air, which is great for a different kind of movie."
