Dwayne Johnson, a.k.a. "the Rock," is Walking Tall now as his movie career picks up steam, but the wrestler turned actor is humble about his new role and his Tampa beginnings.
By STEVE PERSALL
Published April 2, 2004
[Times photos: Ken Helle]
[Times photo: Ken Helle]
“I want the audience, and Hollywood, to know that I don’t want to be considered (as) a celebrity who does a couple of movies,” says Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson. “I want to . . . become a decent actor who works with good actors.”
[Photo: MGM]
The Rock, Dwayne Johnson, stars as Sheriff Chris Vaughn in Walking Tall, which is based on the 1973 film of the same name.
[Times photo: Ken Helle]
The Rock on a nationwide tour to promote his starring role in Walking Tall, made Tampa one of his first stops because of his local connection.
The Rock was just a pebble when he moved to Tampa in 1979, a frisky chip off his father's block. Folks knew the elementary schoolboy as Dwayne Johnson then, son of pro wrestler Rocky Johnson, one of the sport's first popular African-American stars.
Rocky's job kept his family moving from Texas to Tennessee to Pennsylvania, where Johnson graduated from high school, earning a University of Miami football scholarship. His parents retired to a small Tampa apartment off Hanley Road. It's where Johnson retreated after being cut from the Canadian Football League and where he decided to follow in his father's boot steps.
The Bally gym on Hillsborough Avenue is where Johnson began sculpting the Rock, a larger-than-life wrestling persona. His first training session was in a cramped MacDill Air Force Base workout room in 1995. By the time he retired, the Rock was a seven-time World Wrestling Entertainment (nee Federation) champion.
Today he's an actor on a nationwide quest to promote his third starring role, in Walking Tall, opening nationwide today. One of his first stops, by design, was Tampa.
"I really wanted to come here, to see some of the old places," said Johnson, 31, his eyes lighting up with memories of wrestling legends such as Dusty Rhodes, Jack Brisco and announcer Gordon Solie. "I can talk old-school wrestling all day."
In moments like that, Johnson's boyish enthusiasm and local connection made me feel bad about disliking Walking Tall. The guy obviously means well, but the movie is particularly distasteful for someone who grew up aware of the original's phenomenal impact on Southern audiences. Buford Pusser was Tennessee's true-life version of Dirty Harry, a lawman bending rules that favored criminals. Like Billy Jack around the same time, Walking Tall was a cathartic experience, made stronger by the fact that Pusser's vigilante with a badge was real.
Johnson's Walking Tall has little in common with Pusser's story other than the Rock swinging a big wooden club. The hero's name, the locale, the crimes and events are completely changed. The new Walking Tall even turns Pusser's marriage - his wife's murder fueled his rage - into a romance with a stripper who survives. Everything is "contemporized," as Johnson put it, to the point of looking like every other action flick at the megaplex.
I told Johnson that when an end note dedicated the film to the memory of Buford Pusser, I laughed out loud.
To his credit, and for the sake of my teeth, the Rock took it well.
"I appreciate you being honest, man," he said. "That's really awesome. I feel you."
How can anyone not like this guy? For the next few minutes we discussed my resentment of the newWalking Tall, with Johnson leaning forward, genuinely interested. He asked how the movie might play in the South, if race (Johnson's mother is Samoan) might be a box-office factor. Johnson comes across so well that even flimsy defenses can be accepted.
"It's dangerous when you do a remake, especially one like this that's such a cult classic, especially in the South," he said. "Because of that, I was very sensitive.
"It was important that we didn't do any of the Hollywood stretching of the truth (including) calling myself Buford Pusser. It was a thought, originally, but I said no way I'm going to disrespect like that. We also thought about how we could contemporize the plot. Like instead of moonshine (being trafficked), it's crystal meth."
Yet that hardly seems like an improvement. Neither does changing the roadside ambush that maimed Pusser and murdered his wife into an extended automatic weapons assault that doesn't leave a scratch. The original film's star, Joe Don Baker, wasn't a good actor but his anguish after that movie's simpler ambush was effective. Why wouldn't Johnson, who admitted he's trying to stretch as an actor, pass up that chance to emote?
"I don't know why that was skipped over, actually," said Johnson after pausing to consider the question. "Maybe it's because since my girlfriend (in the movie) is a stripper, (the screenwriters) figured nobody would (care)."
With all those changes to Pusser's story, why even call the movie Walking Tall? Then viewers could simply consider the hero's wooden club as a coincidence.
"The most honest answer I can give you is that I loved the original," Johnson said. "I loved the title and what it means to walk tall. The first time I saw it I was 8 or 9 years old. What attracted me at that time was that (Pusser) had been a wrestler and he carried this big stick to do justice. That was really iconic for me."
Johnson discovered that MGM owned the rights to Walking Tall, so he approached studio executives with an idea to remake the film. Then he sought the approval of Pusser's surviving daughter, Dwana, who operates her father's museum and a restaurant in Adamsville, Tenn. She's helping to promote the film regardless of its distance from her father's legend.
"She's very emotionally attached to it, as you can understand," Johnson said. "Her dad and her name are her life. Once she met me, I wanted her to know how passionate and genuine I was about this. I wanted her to know this wasn't just an attempt to cash in on something already famous. I wanted her to know how much I'm feeling this.
"After that, she was great. She saw the movie a couple of times and she was very emotional the first time, a lot of crying, seeing her dad portrayed, reliving all those things like being cut up and left for dead. The second time she watched it, I got a phone call from her and she couldn't have been happier.
"She knew well ahead of time. She read the script. I've got to be honest with you: I was never scared. I was sensitive to it. That's why I made sure I could do all I possibly could to make sure I was showing respect."
We agreed to disagree about that. One thing that can't be argued, however, is that Johnson - at least his Rock side - is developing into a movie star. The Scorpion King was loin-cloth casting, but last year'sThe Rundown was a limber action-comedy proving Johnson could do more than pose and punch. For all its faults, Walking Tall is a slight stretch into dramatic territory.
"I want the audience, and Hollywood, to know that I don't want to be considered (as) a celebrity who does a couple of movies. I want to eventually, hopefully, become a decent actor who works with good actors. For me, it's a complete immersion into film, wanting to learn as much as I possibly can. I didn't grow up sweeping Juilliard as a kid or anything like that. I came from wrestlers."
Johnson's next test is a role in Be Cool, a sequel to Get Shorty starring John Travolta as a mobster turned Hollywood player. Johnson plays a bodyguard trying to convince Travolta's character that he can be a movie star. It sounds like typecasting except, Johnson says with a smile: "He happens to be gay."
Now, that's a stretch for the married father of one daughter.
"You can just make a certain type of movie if you want to, like the action genre, and be happy with it," Johnson said. "But there's another level of things that you can continue to grow into."
Perhaps the kind of role Anthony Hopkins might try?
"I'd love to," Johnson said, smiling. "I might suck at it but I would love to try. Walking Tall and The Rundown are, like, taking little steps outside the box. I'm not biting off so much that I can't chew it. Taking on a role like (Walking Tall) was my dramatic test. I'm sure Denzel (Washington) would breeze through this role and win an Academy Award, probably."
