On O'ahu, The Rock matures as an actor

By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

Dwayne Johnson is better known as The Rock to legions of his wrestling fans. Advertiser library photo

Johnson, known better as "The Rock," has been at the remote Waikane location all week shooting scenes for the Universal feature film tentatively titled "Helldorado." He and the rest of the cast and crew have been shooting on O'ahu since late September. They're scheduled to return to Los Angeles at the end of the month.

A break is called as crew members rush to get the pricey camera and lighting equipment safely under plastic. Johnson grabs an umbrella and walks out to the edge of the set where a reporter stands holding a soggy notebook over his head.

"Here," Johnson says. "Use this."

Huh? Johnson — eyebrow-raising idol to millions of wrestling fans and star of this year's $90 million-grossing blockbuster "The Scorpion King" — playing gopher to a journalist?

Not that it surprises anyone.

"I can't imagine anyone being a more gentlemanly, respectful person," says Marc Abraham, who is producing the film with Karen Glasser and Kevin Misher. "Rock treats everyone with a lot of dignity. It sounds corny, but you'd have to look far and wide to find someone who doesn't like him."

The Rock may not have gone Hollywood, but he did lobby hard for Hollywood to come to the "Rock," where he spent parts of his childhood.

"I've always been proud of my upbringing and my heritage," says Johnson, who is half Samoan, half black. "The best compliment I ever got was when everyone here — studio executives, the producers, the director and every member of the cast — said that they had never been treated better filming a movie. They thanked me and, in turn, I thank everyone here in Hawai'i. I'm so thankful, and I'm so proud to be here."

Of course, the love affair with O'ahu started with practical concerns for the film's producers.

"It's just easier shooting here," Misher says. "It's hard to find a jungle in the proximity of a major metropolitan area. That was critical, and we were able to get that here."

Abraham agrees: "I think people think that Honolulu is such a big city, and they think of O'ahu as just Honolulu. But they don't think about the wild and untamed side. This island is very diverse."

Sizable production

In addition to 275 of its own crew members, Universal is using about 200 Hawai'i crew and 100 extras for the O'ahu shoots. And there are Rocks to spare with Johnson, stunt double Tanoai Reed (former University of Hawai'i football player), and stand-in Torry Tukuafu (former UH volleyball player).

The film, expected to be released next summer, features Johnson as Beck, an underworld courier who wants out of the business. For his final job, Beck agrees to retrieve his boss's son, Travis (Seann William Scott), who has traveled to the Amazon Basin in search of a Brazilian artifact. The assignment is complicated by a beautiful Indian rebel (Rosario Dawson) and a ruthless mining boss (Christopher Walken).

Peter Berg ("Very Bad Things") directs. He's appeared as an actor in "Corky Romano," "Cop Land" and the television show "Chicago Hope."

Glasser says Johnson was a natural for the role of Beck.

"The movie is raw action, adventure and romance," she says, "and (Johnson) is a star."

Misher, who produced "The Scorpion King," says Johnson's balance of physicality, humility and humor translates well onscreen.

"He has the dimensions of an action star and the humility of all the great leading men," he says. "He's a real guy, not an out-of-proportion action hero.

"If you look at his performances as a wrestler, it's at a different scale, but there were instincts that were initiated in the arena when he was extemporaneously making a speech in front of 20,000 people. He's worked really hard to bring that down to a scale for the movie business. He also has great comic timing, which is something you can't teach."

Johnson has been working with famous acting coach Howard Fine to refine his on-screen skills. He said "Helldorado" represents a positive step.

"I think the Scorpion King was a good first role," he says. "A role like this extends me a little further with some emotional recalling that has to be enacted. The character has a dark history, and he's very complicated."

With stunts coordinated by Andy Cheng ("Shanghai Noon," "Rush Hour II") "Helldorado" won't be short on action. But the film is also a buddy movie in the tradition of "Midnight Run," and Johnson needed a formidable counterpart to make it work.

As Travis, Scott ("American Pie," "Dude Where's My Car?") plays off Johnson's imposing figure with an acerbic wit.

"There's that constant tension and badgering going back and forth in the movie, and as that happens a sort of bond is formed," Johnson said. "I think it creates it's own momentum and manifests itself even when we're shooting scenes out of sequence."

Scott says: "We both know that this is a big movie for us, and we don't want to walk away with any regrets."

At the Waikane shoot, the actors play out a pivotal scene where Beck realizes that he must put aside his mission for a more important cause.

Opportunity for growth

Set designers had earlier transformed the strip of wide, barren trail into an abandoned Brazilian airstrip. They erected a weathered office shack and shanties, posted road signs, planted tall banana plants and parked a battered Cessna in the middle. They also brought in 150 head of cattle from nearby Waialua.

More than a dozen times during the course of the afternoon, actor Ewan Bremner ("Trainspotting") kicked off the five-minute scene with his all-over-the-register Scottish voice: "Been for a stroll, have you boys?"

The actors continue to talk through the scene with Berg — adding and deleting dialogue, strategizing movement — as the shower passes. With powerful artificial lights extending the waning daylight into dusk, Johnson, Scott and Bremner nail the scene.

The crew breaks down the equipment in the dark and returns in a parade of pickups and ATVs to the shoot's base camp a quarter-mile away.

Back in the cozy, wood-paneled comfort of his trailer, a tired, muddy Johnson says he's happy for the opportunity to grow "personally and professionally."

"I think that the action genre was the most logical genre to transition to" from wrestling, he said. "What's great about Beck is that he's very similar to a Paul Newman type of action character where his physical stature isn't necessarily the strongest point of his character. In the third act, when I'm ready to go to war with Christopher Walken, it's not like I have my shirt off or anything."