Ten years into his acting career, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has finally gotten to the point of being Dwayne Johnson. Period. When that happened is not exactly clear or even that important to the former professional wrestler. His latest film, "Race to Witch Mountain," a fast-paced remake of a 1975 Disney film about aliens posing as cute kids, is one reason he has had little time to look back. We checked in with the 37-year-old actor via telephone.
Excerpts from the interview:
Q: What made you want to sign up for this film?
A: I wanted to work with Andy Fickman again, who had directed "The Game Plan." Disney came to him with the idea about reimagining the Disney classic "Escape to Witch Mountain." He thought about it for a little while, he called me, and when he called me, we sat down and he said, "I have this idea with you in mind," and he pitched me the idea and I loved it. The type of movie we wanted to make was a big adventure that had a lot of fun but also made sure that we still infused the great qualities that make up the Disney brand of family and heart and humor -- and, in this case, a little bit of fantasy.
Q: Were you familiar with the original?
A: Yes. I was a big fan of the original. What I really enjoyed was the fact that the kids were empowered. Those kids were like superheroes, and anytime, as a kid, you watch movies where kids are empowered that way, it's always very intriguing.
Q: How did you balance keeping the spirit of the original with adding something new to the remake?
A: Anytime you reimagine or remake a classic, whether it's a Disney classic or any of the studios, it's a little tricky, and you want to be careful. So we wanted to make sure that we paid homage and respect to the original, yet at the same time tried to add elements that were going to modernize the movie and make it very appealing and entertaining to today's audiences.
Q: What's it like being the lead actor with mainly kids as support?
A: You hear the Hollywood adage of "never work with animals or children," and I've had the wonderfully daunting task of doing it in a couple of my movies. The challenges are twofold. The first part of the challenge is structuring your shooting day and your schedule around their hours, because they can only work for a limited amount of time. You really have to make sure you're running a well-oiled, efficient machine by the time they get on the set because you only have a few hours with them and then they have to go. The other part of the challenge (has to do with) comedy. You rely heavily on your comedic partner in scenes for the volleying back and forth and have to see where the jokes land and make sure that the jokes aren't hammered too hard.
Q: You mean getting the rhythm right?
A: Yeah, the rhythm and the timing of it. So that was a challenge, too, at first. But I've got to say that I was really pleasantly surprised because they're technically gifted actors, and child actors always impress me just in terms of their technicality, what they know, and they're always trying to find the balance of how important it is to be a kid.
Q: Now that you're 10 years into your acting career, at what point do you feel comfortable just being Dwayne Johnson the actor?
A: Ten years ago I defined early the type of actor I wanted to be -- not necessarily publicly. When I first started acting, I had a sense of the type of actor I wanted to be. I wanted to be the type of actor that had a broad range of work underneath my belt. I was always comfortable about being Dwayne Johnson the actor. I was trying to find a balance, however, between Dwayne Johnson the actor and "The Rock" the professional wrestler.
Q: So there was no particular moment when you woke up and said, "I'm an actor, not a wrestler"?
A: No, because, frankly, even when I was younger, I always wanted to be an entertainer. I knew that was going to happen, and I felt very comfortable.
Q: How did you visualize that as a young person?
A: When I was 8, I saw Harrison Ford for the first time in "Indiana Jones" and I loved that. I loved the spectacle of that big movie and that type of character. When I was 8, I wanted to be Harrison Ford, but I also wanted to be Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. I also wanted to be Elvis. I also wanted to be Chuck Norris. Not at any point when I was younger, when I was a kid, did I ever think I wanted to be an actor. I always thought, "Well, I'd love the idea of entertaining." I played football for 10 years, and when I was done playing football in 1995, I started training for professional wrestling.
Q: Let's talk UFOs and aliens. Do you know something we don't know?
A: Well, I was a believer before the movie, and I'm certainly a believer after. Andy Fickman, who was born in Roswell, New Mexico, is a big believer in alien life and a believer in the possibility of UFOs and that culture. He provided us with hours and hours of footage that we were able to study and do research on, and the footage was astonishing. I can honestly tell you that I thought I actually saw an alien.
Q: No kidding?
A: Yeah. About five years ago, and then I realized that I was drunk. Then I sobered up and said, "Oh, that's not an alien."
(E-mail Delfin Vigil at dvigil(at)sfchronicle.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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