Dwayne Johnson is already undergoing another total body transformation for his next role

Alongside its slate of buzzy films and celebrity guests, TIFF also hosts intimate chats with some of the biggest names at the fest. This year, to celebrate the North American premiere of The Smashing Machine, star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson sat down with TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey at the Royal Alexandra Theatre to discuss his career, what wrestling taught him about acting and why he loves Toronto.

Here are 10 things we learned from Johnson’s cozy conversation.

1. He’s currently undergoing another total body transformation for his next role While the wrestler turned actor had to bulk up to play the role of heavyweight champion Mark Kerr for The Smashing Machine, he’s now slimming down for a very different role. Without giving too much away, Johnson said that he and Smashing Machine director Benny Safdie are teaming up again for a film based on the Daniel Pinkwater novel Lizard Music. “The role I will play is a very whimsical and eccentric 70-something-year-old man called the Chicken Man, whose best friend is a chicken,” he said. “I’m excited because I get a chance to transform again.”

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2. He has a soft spot for Toronto Johnson’s father, the late wrestler Rocky Johnson, was born in Amherst, Nova Scotia, and moved to Toronto as a teen. “It’s really cool how life can come full circle,” he said. “My father had a life here, and now years later, I can come back and have this life. I’m really lucky and grateful.”

3. He learned a lot about acting from wrestling If you know anything about Johnson, you know that he was a pro wrestler before becoming an actor. Johnson said that his biggest takeaway from that time is to send people home happy. “That really allowed me to stay connected to the audience and remember that they’re the ones who get you where you want to go,” he said. That’s why he started his career with big-budget crowd pleasers like The Mummy Returns.

Authenticity was another big takeaway from his WWE days. It may sound counterintuitive given how big and goofy those performances can be, but as the Rock, Johnson was often called out for wearing a wide smile while walking to the ring and back after matches. “Fans didn’t like that,” he noted as wrestling nerds in the room chuckled. Fans knew Johnson’s smile wasn’t genuine—especially on occasions when he’d just been trounced. “It wasn’t authentic.”

4. He caught the acting bug after his first-ever take Johnson’s first film role as the Scorpion King in 2001’s The Mummy Returns got him hooked on acting. He was already petrified about ruining the movie, so it didn’t help matters when he was super sick his first day on set. “I’m freezing, and I’m covered in blankets,” he says. “But I take my blankets off, the director yells action, I do the scene, he yells cut and that was it—I fell in love.”

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5. He was (sort of) in the CFL Before Johnson was the Rock, he was an aspiring football player. After graduating from the University of Miami in 1995, he was signed by the Calgary Stampeders—but he was cut from the team before the season began.

6. He named his production company after his lowest moment Johnson’s production company, Seven Bucks, was named in honour of his depressing drive home to Miami after getting axed from the Stampeders. “I had a $5 bill, a dollar and some change—seven bucks—in my pocket,” he said. “I never forgot that moment.” He started his production company with his ex-wife Dany Garcia in 2012, and it went on to produce movies like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Shazam, Black Adam and The Smashing Machine.

7. He thinks Moana is his most impactful movie (so far) Though Johnson has starred in massive hits like the Jumanji movies and the Fast & Furious franchise, his character Maui in Disney’s Moana has a special place in his heart. “There’s not a place in the world where I don’t have families coming up to me and saying, ‘I’m so sick of hearing “You’re Welcome”—my kids play it every day,’” Johnson said, referencing Maui’s big musical number in the film. “It means everything to share my Polynesian culture and have the opportunity to always speak about who I am.”

8. He and Emily Blunt became fast friends while filming The Jungle Cruise Halfway through the conversation, Johnson brought out some surprise guests: his Smashing Machine co-star Emily Blunt and director Benny Safdie. Blunt shared that there was a moment on the set of 2021’s The Jungle Cruise where she and Johnson “shared souls.” “I was really taken by how different he was from what I imagined,” she said. “I realized that the Rock is the performance of a lifetime because you’re actually so gentle and interior and contemplative and kind.”

In the film, Blunt plays Mark Kerr’s girlfriend, Dawn Staples, and the actors’ closeness came in handy when Johnson had to portray the more vulnerable—and toxic—moments in the story of the couple’s relationship. “We could not have done that without this love and trust we have,” he said.

9. He’s ready for his Serious Actor arc When he began his Hollywood career, Johnson mostly played characters that were more brawn than brain. “I was pigeonholed, but I allowed it to happen,” he said. Don’t get him wrong—he loves those roles and is still going to take them, but his days of picking only crowd-pleasing parts are over. “I had a thought recently,” he said. “Am I living my dream, or am I living other people’s dreams? Smashing Machine is for me.”

10. He was humbled by John Hurt early in his career At the end of the afternoon, Bailey asked Johnson to share his favourite memory from one of his early roles. Blunt quickly popped in to tease her co-star and beg him to tell a certain mortifying story about John Hurt from 2014’s Hercules. “We’re having a big script read, and everyone is there, like Rebecca Ferguson and John Hurt and so many people,” Johnson recalled. “I get to a line that’s like: ‘This can’t happen because she is the…uh…uh…’—and I’m reading it and I don’t know the word! And then Oscar-winner John Hurt just goes, ‘Heir, my son—heir.’”

“Thank you, Emily,” Johnson joked as he turned red and the theatre erupted in laughter. “That’s my story, thank you.”