Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson recently spoke about playing Roadblock in G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Here are the highlights…
On Playing Roadblock: It’s a lot of fun. The character’s a lot of fun. You start to understand the mythology of the character, how he fits into the “G.I. Joe” world. It’s been a lot of fun. This version of Roadblock, where it’s a bit more “boots to the ground,” is badass.
On Staying True to the Character: We’ve made sure to pay homage to all the important details that made him interesting in the world of “G.I. Joe”. Then we added some more layers of that, too. I love the fact that he loved poetry and he could rhyme like Jay-Z… I love that. Those are all fun, cool layers to him. And then you add the element that he could rip somebody’s f–ing face off. That’s fun.
On How He Got Involved in The project: S–t comes to me! [laughs] No, Paramount and Lorenzo [di Bonaventura] had come to me with the idea about joining the franchise. The pitch they had I thought was great. The first movie was really successful. After sitting down with him and Adam Goodman, who’s the president over at Paramount, seeing their vision and what they wanted to do with this and how they wanted to make this movie was really appealing.
On His Online Relationship With His Fans & Posting Images From The Set: That [first] picture, it was funny. We’re out in the desert. We’re shooting. It’s the first week. The sun was going down and we had wrapped. I told my guy who handles logistics, I said, “Take a picture of this. It’s kinda cool.” I got up on the dune and I saw it and it was f*cking beautiful. Well, there’s G.I. Joe. [laughs]… I really enjoy it, yeah. I enjoy it because I do it and that’s important. Even though I have a great social media manager and a great company who can create these ideas, it’s me, fingers to the keys. I think that’s important. That connection is important. But yeah, I enjoy it. And I’m fairly new to it, too. I started it in February. It took a while to understand, I think, the power of it utilized in the right way, especially when it comes to motivating people and inspiring them and making them laugh, too.
On Getting Back Into Wrestling: There’s nothing like that. I’ve always missed that part about the WWE, which was the interaction with the fans and the physicality. On set, we can put together great action sequences, great fight sequences but, at the end of the day, I can’t take the other actor and plant him through the ground. I can do that in the WWE and there’s nothing like the live crowd interaction that that provides me. To be able to get back on that platform and to be able to do both and to go back and create special matches and special events for the fans, like at Madison Square Garden and like at Sun Life Stadium for Wrestlemania, that’s special.
