No one gets up earlier than Dwayne Johnson. Or goes to bed later. Or is more awake during the hours in between. No one in Hollywood is more buff, more driven, or gets paid better. The man has so much charisma and ambition he can do anything. Comedy, action, pretty little cartoon voices. Some people even say he could be president. GQ‘s Caity Weaver spent a few days with the ex-wrestler, pumping iron and pounding water (gotta stay hydrated!) and figuring out if The Rock is meant for higher office.
When Dwayne Johnson meets you (and I can assure you, he would love to), the first thing he will do is ask you six thousand questions about yourself, and remember the answers forever. If you are a child, good luck getting past Dwayne Johnson without a high five or some simulated roughhousing; if you’re in a wheelchair, prepare for a Beowulf-style epic poem about your deeds and bravery, composed extemporaneously, delivered to Johnson’s Instagram audience of 85 million people; if you’re dead, having shuffled off your mortal coil before you even got the chance to meet Dwayne Johnson, that sucks—rest in peace knowing that Dwayne Johnson genuinely misses you. For Johnson, there are no strangers; there are simply best friends, and best friends he hasn’t met yet. I’ve known the man for only two hours—and have been in his car now for only a few minutes, listening to the Dixie Chicks, headed to what he’s luxuriously described to me as his “private gym”—and already it’s apparent that I am Dwayne Johnson’s greatest friend in the entire world.
One of the first things he’d needed to know about me was if I’d ever been to Australia. I haven’t, I told him, and he beamed and shook his head. “You’d love it,” he declared. A puzzled pause hung in the air while I frantically tried to deduce what about my bearing projects that I would love Australia, and Johnson remembered that he didn’t actually know anything about me (yet), except that I’d never been to Australia. Which made him want to learn everything. Among the many, many things Dwayne Johnson wondered: what high school I went to, if I’d ever been to the Oscars, how I chose my college, if I had “a big party” when I graduated from that college, what my sleep schedule is like, if I believe in ghosts, if I needed a ladder to access a tree house I visited one time, if my dad is black—wait, what?
How did Dwayne Johnson know?
“ ‘Cause you look mixed and you said he listens to jazz,” he says. Johnson is a blisteringly active listener. He has, in the briefest of moments, displayed more earnest curiosity about me than anyone I’ve met in my entire life. (What is my favorite Christmas carol? I wondered after Dwayne Johnson asked me that, with only ten months left till Christmas.)
Read more at GQ.
