Wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson hits the gridiron as a super popular studly quarterback in the Disney comedy The Game Plan. Johnson plays a professional quarterback living the ultimate bachelor life who suddenly discovers he’s got an 8-year-old daughter (played by Madison Pettis) he never knew existed.
Teaming up with his director Andy Fickman to discuss the film, Johnson explained that Fickman was really open to his input on the football scenes. “I was very lucky,” explained Johnson. “I had a chance to play 10 years of football with some great players and we had a great football coordinator to help and to make sure that the football was very real, and looked very real. Also, to Andy’s credit, because he comes from the world of theater, he wanted to show football a tremendous amount of respect.”
The Appeal of Playing Quarterback Joe Kingman: It was a combination of being allowed a lot of freedom in creating the part and the idea that his own daughter would see him starring in a Disney movie that drew Johnson to the role. “From the get go I thought, ‘Wow, what a great character to play, and from scratch.’ It’s great when you can create a character like this, from scratch, and be collaborative with the director and everybody on board. For me, personally, I love comedy and I love self-deprecating comedy. Physical comedy is great. Dark comedy is great, but self-deprecating comedy, for me, always takes the cake, so to speak. It’s great when you just have the ability to laugh at yourself. I think we all should. There are different moments. For me, putting on the ballet outfit to the bubble bath, and you name it, is funny. That appealed to me.
And, selfishly, for me, being a proud daddy - I’ve got a little 6-year-old girl at home who challenges me every day, just like Madison [Pettis] challenged me in the movie - I wanted to make a movie that she could come and see. Of course, the goal is to make a big family comedy, a big broad comedy. But for me personally, selfishly, I had the opportunity to take her to go see a Disney movie [I’m in], and play a character like this. There were a lot of elements that fell in place that made it very, very comfortable for me to make that.”
Johnson’s Ready for His Close-Up: Fickman had no problem coming up with lots of photos of Johnson to fill out the set. “When you’re trying to mock up photos, you have to get the actor on the set to take the photos,” said Fickman. “And we asked his mom to supply us with some. We had endless numbers of Dwayne photos. If you look in the movie, some of them are of Dwayne’s bad decision to grow a weak mustache. (Laughing) It was the worst look ever on him.”
Johnson joked, “All the photos in the movie are from my house. As a matter of fact, I have them all up on my ceiling. When I wake up, I like to look at myself.”
Speaking of those photos, how’d it feel to have a huge wall-size photo to look at every day on the set? Johnson replied, “That was great. Let me tell you something, that’s wonderful for the ego. Every day to come to the set and see a huge picture of yourself that covers the entire wall, it’s absurd, but you’ve got to love it.” To his director: “Now I believe it’s in your room, right?”
“Yes,” answered Fickman. “It’s actually my ceiling, so I can blow darts at it every day.”
Elvis Has Not Left the Building: Johnson’s character’s obsessed with Elvis and the actor’s also a huge fan. “I love Elvis. The moment I sat down with Andy I said, ‘Andy, do you love Elvis?’ He said, ‘Absolutely!’ And we went for it. It was another fun way of adding a layer to the character that might be interesting.
Again, self-deprecating comedy is great. I love the fact that he was singing to her in a very sweet and tender moment, and she says, ‘I think you sound like a wounded moose.’ I love that type of comedy and how the joke falls back on me. For an actor to sing in a movie, and play the guitar, it’s really not funny. You’re like, ‘Oh, he can sing and play guitar.’ But the joke makes it funny, when it falls back on him.”
Johnson’s personal favorite Elvis song is Are You Lonesome Tonight but don’t ask him to sing it for you. “I can’t hold a tune,” confessed Johnson. “It was movie magic, in the studio.”
Fickman had a different take on Johnson’s singing skills. “A lot of times you have an actor who wants to pre-record their song. With pre-recording, you can go in and fix everything. That’s him playing the guitar and that’s him singing, and he was spot on. We didn’t go in and do any mixing. All of the Elvis estate and Graceland, everybody, has seen this performance and everyone’s just been so happy. It blew everybody away.”
Playing a Dad and Being a Dad: Johnson had only to call on his own experiences with his daughter to help him get into character. “You bet. I’m very, very lucky to understand what that blessing is to be a parent. And not only be a parent, but there’s a very, very unique bond between a daddy and his little girl, and I recognize that now. Every day, I recognize it and live it and embrace it.
That bonding process, and understanding that, made it very easy for me. I could easily take scenes from that movie and translate them right into my own real life, and from life into the movie as well. It’s because of those experiences that I’d had that allowed me to easily bond with Madison. And, not only that, but easily appreciate Madison, appreciate her silliness, appreciate her crankiness when she gets tired, appreciate everything like that. Six years ago, before my little girl was born, if Andy had approached me about doing the movie, I still would have loved to have done the movie and I think it would have been just as funny, but I don’t think, however, that the emotion would have been there. I think that type of emotion, especially when it comes to kids you have to have a kid, if you’re going to act it that well, emotionally.”
Page 2: Ballet, Leotards, and Witch Mountain
