Post by Sno0p on Jun 17, 2006 23:41:40 GMT -5
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson Interview
Spy Hunter, smackdowns, and gimmick controllers.
by Jon Robinson
I remember back in the day, being backstage at a WWE event and I'm playing Knockout Kings against The Rock. One on one with The Great One, and I'm beating The People's Champ into a bloody and bruised polygon. Rock keeps looking at me pressing the buttons and starts yelling "My controller is broken. Why did you give The Rock a gimmick controller?" I'm laughing, thinking he's making excuses for losing, but he's starting to really look mad. I knock him out, he throws down the controller and starts to cut a promo on me. All I remember is it had something to do with monkey piss, the Smackdown Hotel, and piles of steaming camel crap, but the point is, the game was over.
Later on, we're eating at the buffet WWE setup for its stars, and Rock is still complaining about his controller. He tells me he never loses at videogames. How he beat Mark Henry in a game of Madden, and in the process, won Henry's European belt off him in a bet. Sexual Chocolate even had to walk out on Raw as champ without the belt until he could get his game right and beat Rock at Madden to win it back (they don't track this title change on WWE.com, but it's a true story).
Anyway, I go home after the event and plug in my PlayStation. Time for some more Knockout Kings. Only thing is, when I start hitting the buttons, the controller isn't working. I look down, and it's the same controller Rock was using. He really was using a gimmick controller and I had no idea. No wonder I knocked him out so fast.
To this day, I never told him how I beat him (so if you're reading this Rock, I guess I owe you a rematch).
These days, the former football player turned wrestler turned movie star is still playing games, and is ready to star in a new game based off a movie based off a videogame. Follow that?
The Rock is starring in Spy Hunter, the Victor/Victoria of videogame licenses, as the star of both the movie and the action beat-em-up.
We had a chance to talk old times and new games recently over the phone.
Luckily for me, the whole broken controller thing was never brought up.
IGN Sports: I heard you kicked some serious ass at the motion-capture session for the new Spy Hunter game. What did you put those poor stunt guys through?
The Rock: Big-time ass whuppin'. [laughs] I wanted to be creative with the game and I knew the developers over at Midway were going to create a Spy Hunter game that was not only going to compete with the most fun games out there, it's going to kick ass on screen visually. The graphics, the storyline, everything is on point. My responsibility was to bring a mode of action you had never seen before. Of course, I have an array of weapons that I use, and that's cool, but other videogame characters use weapons. I thought, how can I creatively maim and bring death upon someone with my own two hands. [laughs] So I had my stunt double, my cousin who I have with me on all my movies, and we went through a variety of moves to try and create a big H.S. momenta big holy sh!t moment. [laughs] Then what I did, I took a lot of the wrestling moves I used to do from The Rock Bottom to the Jackknife. In the game, though, when I do a Jackkife, instead of bringing my opponent down twisting and turning on his back, I throw him straight down like a Death Valley Driver straight down on his head. It's the greatest. I took a lot of those moves that you would find in Japanese wrestling, but instead of protecting the guy, like I would do in wrestling, I would bring them straight down on their heads and try to break their necks. It's awesome. I had to go out and buy my stunt double a lot of meals after that.
IGN Sports: Did you drop the People's Elbow from the roof of the car?
The Rock: No, none of that because the minute you start dropping The People's Elbow or something like that, I didn't want to take the player out of the game. There's still a way in combat to do a Rock Bottom, only through something. There's a way to do all of these moves that look visually stunning while you're breaking necks.
IGN Sports: How did you like strutting around in the black spandex mo-cap suit?
The Rock: That's my favorite suit. I had to be in the spandex suit for hours. There were a lot of ladies lined up watching, and they all realized why they call me The Rock. There were three dudes standing by too, but I don't know what that deal was. [laughs]
IGN Sports: I know you did a lot of voice-overs for the game as well. What are some of your favorite lines?
The Rock: What's great about the voice-overs is it's an opportunity to inject humor in an otherwise very serious situation. We're talking about spies and espionage and people trying to kill you. You inject humor where you can but not the kind of over-the-top comedy where it's like we're trying to make you laugh, and that's what I think is great. Like there's this one time where a bad guy is pointing his gun at me and I turn to him and say in a very Clint Eastwood sort of tone "Didn't anyone ever tell you it's not polite to point?" Then I break his neck.
IGN Sports: Did you used to play the original Spy Hunter?
The Rock: For sure. Old school, way back in the day I used to play it at the arcade. I kept feeding that damn machine all my money. The cool thing was the Peter Gunn theme. Whenever the car came out with the weapons vanI loved that. I was such a big fan of the original game, that's one of the reasons I signed on to be part of the team.
IGN Sports: Only difference is, now you get to get out of the car.
The Rock: I saw this one sequence where I pick this guy up and toss him over my head into a big fish tankeverything you could possibly imagine. When I sat down with the developers, first thing I wanted to know: "Can we break some necks?" There was nothing we couldn't do and that's a testament to the advancement of videogame technology. I remember when just having my intro in a wrestling game was cutting edge.
IGN Sports: Did you know THQ still has you as a legend in their WWE games?
The Rock: What the f***? A legend? I had no idea. A legend? That's just wrong. I'm too young to be a legend. That's pretty funny. [laughs]
IGN Sports: What's the basic storyline behind Spy Hunter?
The Rock: My character's name is Alec Decker and in his essence, he is the hunter of spies. Bad spies. Turncoat spies if you will. He searches the globe for these people and he's on a mission. Not getting overcomplicated with the storyline, but he has the world's greatest weapon, The Interceptor, a vehicle that can morph into a boat, into a motorcyclethat thing is bad ass. When they showed me the footage of what this thing was going to look like, it was on a cliff and it raced off the cliff as the Interceptor, then right when it was about to hit the water, the theme kicked in, the musical score, and it started to morph into a boat right when it hit the waterboom! Bad ass. As soon as it hit the land again, it morphed into a motorcycle. Awesome.
IGN Sports: Is John Woo still going to direct the film?
The Rock: No, he's not attached anymore. He had to get off and direct another movie. What ended up happening, we hired a different writer, Stuart Beattie, who wrote Pirates of the Caribbean and Collateral, so he's a really great writer. And when he came on, it took so much time to write that John had to go, and I totally understand. So it might work out again where John is able to come back on board when we're finally ready to shoot, if not, there will be another great director who will come on.
IGN Sports: Are all your new movie roles going to be part of videogames? First Doom now Spy Hunter.
The Rock: I know, it just kind of worked out that way. Spy Hunter actually fell into my lap before Doom, but between hiring new writers and it being such a huge project, it just requires time and patience and creative writing, so we didn't want to rush anything. Doom came up and I was excited about that because I had played the game before and I knew I could be a part of a genre that I had never made a movie in, which was the sci-fi horror genre. Other than Spy Hunter, there aren't any other plans for videogame movies.
IGN Sports: What, no Parappa the Rapper movie?
The Rock: [laughs] No.
IGN Sports: What's been your favorite role since you started acting?
The Rock: I had a lot of fun with the character I played in Be Cool. I also had a lot of fun with The Rundown. To date, my favorite role is a movie that isn't even out yet. It's a movie called Gridiron Gang. It will be out in September. It's an amazing true story about hope for kids who lost their hope long ago. I'll leave it at that.
IGN Sports: When you see big events like Wrestlemania, do you ever get the itch to go back to wrestling?
The Rock: Not necessarily. I get excited for those guys because I know what it's like. I get excited for my boys. Between Kurt Angle and John Cena and Rey Mysterio, all those cats. I don't get the itch to go back as much as when I watch the show, I get antsy and frustrated at a lot of things I see. I'm like, damn, I wish they would've said this, or I wish they would've done this, or I wish this dude would've said this in response to that. Other than that, I'm good. They had asked me to be a part of Wrestlemania but I couldn't because of the timing of a movie. Besides, if I go back, it has got to make sense. It has to be someone who it makes sense with.
IGN Sports: Is there anything your character in Spy Hunter gets to do that you wish The Rock could do in real life?
The Rock: I wish I had a car that just had all of those amazing weapons on it. There's nothing worse than LA traffic. If I could go out on the 405, I'd blow all of those sons of sexy manes off the road. [laughs]
Spy Hunter, smackdowns, and gimmick controllers.
by Jon Robinson
I remember back in the day, being backstage at a WWE event and I'm playing Knockout Kings against The Rock. One on one with The Great One, and I'm beating The People's Champ into a bloody and bruised polygon. Rock keeps looking at me pressing the buttons and starts yelling "My controller is broken. Why did you give The Rock a gimmick controller?" I'm laughing, thinking he's making excuses for losing, but he's starting to really look mad. I knock him out, he throws down the controller and starts to cut a promo on me. All I remember is it had something to do with monkey piss, the Smackdown Hotel, and piles of steaming camel crap, but the point is, the game was over.
Later on, we're eating at the buffet WWE setup for its stars, and Rock is still complaining about his controller. He tells me he never loses at videogames. How he beat Mark Henry in a game of Madden, and in the process, won Henry's European belt off him in a bet. Sexual Chocolate even had to walk out on Raw as champ without the belt until he could get his game right and beat Rock at Madden to win it back (they don't track this title change on WWE.com, but it's a true story).
Anyway, I go home after the event and plug in my PlayStation. Time for some more Knockout Kings. Only thing is, when I start hitting the buttons, the controller isn't working. I look down, and it's the same controller Rock was using. He really was using a gimmick controller and I had no idea. No wonder I knocked him out so fast.
To this day, I never told him how I beat him (so if you're reading this Rock, I guess I owe you a rematch).
These days, the former football player turned wrestler turned movie star is still playing games, and is ready to star in a new game based off a movie based off a videogame. Follow that?
The Rock is starring in Spy Hunter, the Victor/Victoria of videogame licenses, as the star of both the movie and the action beat-em-up.
We had a chance to talk old times and new games recently over the phone.
Luckily for me, the whole broken controller thing was never brought up.
IGN Sports: I heard you kicked some serious ass at the motion-capture session for the new Spy Hunter game. What did you put those poor stunt guys through?
The Rock: Big-time ass whuppin'. [laughs] I wanted to be creative with the game and I knew the developers over at Midway were going to create a Spy Hunter game that was not only going to compete with the most fun games out there, it's going to kick ass on screen visually. The graphics, the storyline, everything is on point. My responsibility was to bring a mode of action you had never seen before. Of course, I have an array of weapons that I use, and that's cool, but other videogame characters use weapons. I thought, how can I creatively maim and bring death upon someone with my own two hands. [laughs] So I had my stunt double, my cousin who I have with me on all my movies, and we went through a variety of moves to try and create a big H.S. momenta big holy sh!t moment. [laughs] Then what I did, I took a lot of the wrestling moves I used to do from The Rock Bottom to the Jackknife. In the game, though, when I do a Jackkife, instead of bringing my opponent down twisting and turning on his back, I throw him straight down like a Death Valley Driver straight down on his head. It's the greatest. I took a lot of those moves that you would find in Japanese wrestling, but instead of protecting the guy, like I would do in wrestling, I would bring them straight down on their heads and try to break their necks. It's awesome. I had to go out and buy my stunt double a lot of meals after that.
IGN Sports: Did you drop the People's Elbow from the roof of the car?
The Rock: No, none of that because the minute you start dropping The People's Elbow or something like that, I didn't want to take the player out of the game. There's still a way in combat to do a Rock Bottom, only through something. There's a way to do all of these moves that look visually stunning while you're breaking necks.
IGN Sports: How did you like strutting around in the black spandex mo-cap suit?
The Rock: That's my favorite suit. I had to be in the spandex suit for hours. There were a lot of ladies lined up watching, and they all realized why they call me The Rock. There were three dudes standing by too, but I don't know what that deal was. [laughs]
IGN Sports: I know you did a lot of voice-overs for the game as well. What are some of your favorite lines?
The Rock: What's great about the voice-overs is it's an opportunity to inject humor in an otherwise very serious situation. We're talking about spies and espionage and people trying to kill you. You inject humor where you can but not the kind of over-the-top comedy where it's like we're trying to make you laugh, and that's what I think is great. Like there's this one time where a bad guy is pointing his gun at me and I turn to him and say in a very Clint Eastwood sort of tone "Didn't anyone ever tell you it's not polite to point?" Then I break his neck.
IGN Sports: Did you used to play the original Spy Hunter?
The Rock: For sure. Old school, way back in the day I used to play it at the arcade. I kept feeding that damn machine all my money. The cool thing was the Peter Gunn theme. Whenever the car came out with the weapons vanI loved that. I was such a big fan of the original game, that's one of the reasons I signed on to be part of the team.
IGN Sports: Only difference is, now you get to get out of the car.
The Rock: I saw this one sequence where I pick this guy up and toss him over my head into a big fish tankeverything you could possibly imagine. When I sat down with the developers, first thing I wanted to know: "Can we break some necks?" There was nothing we couldn't do and that's a testament to the advancement of videogame technology. I remember when just having my intro in a wrestling game was cutting edge.
IGN Sports: Did you know THQ still has you as a legend in their WWE games?
The Rock: What the f***? A legend? I had no idea. A legend? That's just wrong. I'm too young to be a legend. That's pretty funny. [laughs]
IGN Sports: What's the basic storyline behind Spy Hunter?
The Rock: My character's name is Alec Decker and in his essence, he is the hunter of spies. Bad spies. Turncoat spies if you will. He searches the globe for these people and he's on a mission. Not getting overcomplicated with the storyline, but he has the world's greatest weapon, The Interceptor, a vehicle that can morph into a boat, into a motorcyclethat thing is bad ass. When they showed me the footage of what this thing was going to look like, it was on a cliff and it raced off the cliff as the Interceptor, then right when it was about to hit the water, the theme kicked in, the musical score, and it started to morph into a boat right when it hit the waterboom! Bad ass. As soon as it hit the land again, it morphed into a motorcycle. Awesome.
IGN Sports: Is John Woo still going to direct the film?
The Rock: No, he's not attached anymore. He had to get off and direct another movie. What ended up happening, we hired a different writer, Stuart Beattie, who wrote Pirates of the Caribbean and Collateral, so he's a really great writer. And when he came on, it took so much time to write that John had to go, and I totally understand. So it might work out again where John is able to come back on board when we're finally ready to shoot, if not, there will be another great director who will come on.
IGN Sports: Are all your new movie roles going to be part of videogames? First Doom now Spy Hunter.
The Rock: I know, it just kind of worked out that way. Spy Hunter actually fell into my lap before Doom, but between hiring new writers and it being such a huge project, it just requires time and patience and creative writing, so we didn't want to rush anything. Doom came up and I was excited about that because I had played the game before and I knew I could be a part of a genre that I had never made a movie in, which was the sci-fi horror genre. Other than Spy Hunter, there aren't any other plans for videogame movies.
IGN Sports: What, no Parappa the Rapper movie?
The Rock: [laughs] No.
IGN Sports: What's been your favorite role since you started acting?
The Rock: I had a lot of fun with the character I played in Be Cool. I also had a lot of fun with The Rundown. To date, my favorite role is a movie that isn't even out yet. It's a movie called Gridiron Gang. It will be out in September. It's an amazing true story about hope for kids who lost their hope long ago. I'll leave it at that.
IGN Sports: When you see big events like Wrestlemania, do you ever get the itch to go back to wrestling?
The Rock: Not necessarily. I get excited for those guys because I know what it's like. I get excited for my boys. Between Kurt Angle and John Cena and Rey Mysterio, all those cats. I don't get the itch to go back as much as when I watch the show, I get antsy and frustrated at a lot of things I see. I'm like, damn, I wish they would've said this, or I wish they would've done this, or I wish this dude would've said this in response to that. Other than that, I'm good. They had asked me to be a part of Wrestlemania but I couldn't because of the timing of a movie. Besides, if I go back, it has got to make sense. It has to be someone who it makes sense with.
IGN Sports: Is there anything your character in Spy Hunter gets to do that you wish The Rock could do in real life?
The Rock: I wish I had a car that just had all of those amazing weapons on it. There's nothing worse than LA traffic. If I could go out on the 405, I'd blow all of those sons of sexy manes off the road. [laughs]