Vin Diesel gave Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson “tough love” when he joined the ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise.
Vin Diesel
The 53-year-old actor was rumoured in 2016 to be feuding with his co-star and he’s now explained that, as a producer on the action series, he had a particular vision for the former wrestler’s character Luke Hobbs and was keen for him to be taken seriously in the role.
He told the new issue of Men’s Health magazine: “It was a tough character to embody, the Hobbs character. My approach at the time was a lot of tough love to assist in getting that performance where it needed to be.
“As a producer to say, ‘OK, we’re going to take Dwayne Johnson, who’s associated with wrestling, and we’re going to force this cinematic world, audience members, to regard his character as someone that they don’t know’ — Hobbs hits you like a ton of bricks.”
And Vin is “proud” of what they created for Hobbs and just wanted The Rock to do justice to the character.
He added: “That took a lot of work. We had to get there and sometimes, at that time, I could give a lot of tough love.
“Not Felliniesque, but I would do anything I’d have to do in order to get performances in anything I’m producing.”
In 2016, the ‘Moana’ star bemoaned the behaviour of unnamed co-stars on ‘The Fate of the Furious’.
He said: “[Some people]conduct themselves as stand up men and true professionals, while others don’t. The ones that don’t are too chicken s*** to do anything about it anyway. Candy a****.
“When you watch this movie next April and it seems like I’m not acting in some of these scenes and my blood is legit boiling — you’re right.”
Two years later, Dwayne admitted he’d grown to understand that he and Vin had a “fundamental difference in philosophies” when it came to making a film, and admitted he was glad they’d found “clarity”.
He said: “Vin and I had a few discussions, including an important face-to-face in my trailer.
“And what I came to realise is that we have a fundamental difference in philosophies on how we approach moviemaking and collaborating.
“It took me some time, but I’m grateful for that clarify. Whether we work together again or not.
“I wish him all the best and I harbour no ill will there, just because of the clarity we have. Actually, you can erase that last part about ‘no ill will.’ We’ll just keep it with the clarity.”
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