'Doom' Interviews: The Rock and Rosamund Pike
By Lindzi Scharf, Hollywood.com Staff
| Sunday, October 16, 2005
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson |
Doom Day
Every so often a film emerges with a name indicative of what’s to come. With a name like Doom, the film would seem destined to flop. Not necessarily with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson attached. Watching Doom is entry into a world based on a hit video game from the ‘90s. If you watch without warning, the film’s graphic images will quickly put you in your place.
On press day, it’s revealed the film was several years in the making--with pre-production halted after the Columbine incident in 1999. Six years later, one thing was certain, the film’s producers weren’t holding back in their approach to the cinematic creation of Doom. As The Rock put it, “No PG-13 style.”
What was the filmmaking process like?
The Rock: "It was an intense shoot. We were away from home in Prague for four months, on a sound stage, and never saw the sun. We would wake up at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning. No sun. You get back at 8 o’clock. Come out of the sound stage. No sun. Every day. You talk about going from being gay in Be Cool and singing country love songs to Doom. Every day we’re being chased. There’s chasing. There’s death. Men getting their heads ripped off. They did a great job on the corridors. It was dark. It was eerie. It was everything Doom should be and we lived it every day."
Under such conditions, how’d you stay sane?
The Rock: "That’s a good question. I’ll tell you exactly what I did. I called my agent and said, 'First of all, I’m miserable.' You’re away from home. Your family’s not there. I found great places to eat. I’m kind of like a cow. If I’m watered and fed, then I can work. You can work me all day. I’m good to go. But I called my agent and said, 'Please. Just get me a satellite. It’s all I need. So I can watch anything other than CNN International.' It was the only thing on and it was driving me crazy. I was ready for my satellite and that was it. It was a tough shoot. Intense. Six day weeks. French hours where there’s no lunch break. The guy keeps walking around with food and you pick at it. I found a good gym. I got up every morning and trained and ate well."
What was the most challenging part of filming?
The Rock: "The most difficult thing was to try and quell my desire to pick the brain of the former S.A.S. commander we had. I have a lot of love and respect for our military. [I’d ask,] 'Just between us, in the Afghan mountains…' [He’d tell say,] 'No, mate…' The training was great too. Whether we liked each other or didn’t, it made sure all of us guys got together every day for training. It was interesting dynamic. From a character perspective, you want to bring the real in to pull and draw from your own life. I think what happens for me, in this movie, you’re being chased by a seven foot demon and--other than my first girlfriend--I can’t think of anybody who reminds me of one. She’ll love that, by the way. For me the most challenging thing was to try and find some layers to Sarge and to try and add a little bit of levity to a story that’s so heavy in death. Back home everybody was in Christmas spirit, then I come to work… And everybody on the floor, those weren’t dummy’s. They were real amputees. A hundred of them. Between make-up and prosthetics it looked like their bodies were yanked off. These were real people every day lying there looking up. You had to watch where you stepped. It’s not like, 'OK. Let’s go to craft services.' They had to stay there. It was waying on you. It wade on me. I’d call home. My wife would be like, 'What’s the matter with you? You’re being an asshole.' Sorry, it’s my day! It’s not another day of work. Don’t feel bad. We were making a movie, that’s it. It’s a good thing."
What attracted you to Doom?
The Rock: "I loved the script. Big fan of the game. When Universal sent me the script, I thought it was pretty ambitious to try and make this into a movie. Frankly because the movies in the past that were adapted from video games have been ok. They’ve made a ton of money box office wise, but you walk away going, 'That was all right.' I remember calling Universal and saying, 'We’ve got a shot if we stayed true to the game and remained unapologetic in our approach. When it’s time to blow demons away, to blow them away.' Kinda sick, right? If it’s time to die, it’s time to die the way you should be dying in doom. No PG-13 style. The first person shooter sequence was written in there and I thought that was ambitious too. I thought they did a good job capturing it. And selfishly, I get to carry the BMG [gun]. I got to be a real bad ass guy."
What was it like having the biggest gun in the film?
The Rock: "To me, even though it’s not eloquently written, when you pick that thing up there are a few things you can say. If you picked it up, you’d say, 'Ah s**t.'"
How many of the stunts were done by you?
The Rock: "I did almost everything. I have a great stunt double who is actually my cousin. He was thrown into the wall. I think it’s important. People are savvy. Money doesn’t grow on trees and when I watch a movie I want to see my guy. So if I can do it, I can do it. I just adopted this saying, 'If I can’t do it, it just simply can’t be done.'"
Do you think people will be surprised you play the “bad ass” in this film?
The Rock: "Even with the change, and I’m a little bias, I firmly believe he’s a commanding officer in the military. He acted like 99.9 per cent of them would do, which is, 'Any means necessary. We see these orders through. Bad things are going to happen and they do happen. We see these orders through. Done.' Man on man, one on one action at the end doesn’t hurt."
Rosamund told us everyone had a favorite creature on-set that they wanted to “shag.” Did you have a favorite?
The Rock: "That I would shag? It’s funny. I think Rosamund and I had different experiences on the set. I don’t remember laughing that much. My favorite creature would have to be the Barren. What’s great is…Stan Winston. They make these monsters. It’s incredible. You watch Alien, like, 'That’s awesome,' but when you’re on the set and you see these monsters come to life, it’s insanely incredible. I’m blown away. This is a cool business to be in… And yelling at Rosamund. You know those scenes when I’m yelling at Rosamund, it was like that the whole movie with her and I."
Did you always know you wanted to be an actor?
The Rock: "I did, but I didn’t know how I was going to get there. I had no ties. I played football for ten years and then I wrestled for another six and a half or seven. Fortunately, with wrestling, there was that medium of television. I thought, 'OK. At least I’m in TV.' Originally, I wanted to do sitcom comedy. That was my original goal. Of course, the big screen is always a goal. Or at least it was for me, but I had no connections. I didn’t grow up across the street from Paramount. Nobody was an executive in my family. It wasn’t like that at all so I didn’t know how it would happen. Then when The Mummy Returns came along, I met with Steven Somers, I was so excited. I’d love to play this. I was like, 'Any dialogue I have to study?' He was like, 'Uhhh… here’s your one line you’re going to have to study.' I was like, 'OK. Cool. I’ll take it.' Since that happened, here we are."
If there’s a second, can we expect to see you in Doom 2?
The Rock: "It’s possible because I’m superhuman. You never know what might happen. It’ll be like the Terminator if I came back, but was infected. We’ll see. I don’t know."
You’re a tough guy… What makes you nauseous?
The Rock: "The first time I played Doom I got nauseous. I read somewhere that that’s what happens. You get nauseous with the chaos of the first person shooter and all of that. I’ve been good and then one time I went to Disney or Universal. Everybody’s like, 'Get on the Spider-Man ride.' I was like, 'OK. I’ll get on the Spider-Man ride.' I’ll tell you something right now, I was that close…Your mouth starts to salivate. And you’re locked into this ride. It’s the worst. After that, no more rides for me.
You’ve done a nice array of films thus far. Do you have a plan for what’s next?
The Rock: "After Doom, I shot Gridion Gang. Every once in a while there’s one of those movies that you don’t know about. It’s not the 150 million dollar War of the Worlds. It’s one of those special movies that moves people and inspires so I did that. Then, we just wrapped Southland Tales. I want to do a wide array of roles that make sense that I can come in and do well with with good directors. Like Richard Kelly, who just did Southland Tales with me, where I play a paranoid schizophrenic. I’ve got Sarah Michelle Gellar as my girlfriend and Mandy Moore as my wife. I hear voices. There’s a lot going on. When I first broke into the business, five years, even with the Mummy Returns and no English dialogue. I had one line. They marketed the hell out of it, like, 'Wow. He’s in the whole movie.' I just want to be good at what I do. I realized then watching everybody act that if I really wanted to be good, then acting is not easy. I had a newfound respect for acting."
You once mentioned your wife swatting your head over a love scene. Will she have any reason to do so again?
The Rock: "You can’t really top having Mandy Moore as a wife and Sarah Michelle Gellar as a girlfriend. And Mandy Moore as the senator’s daughter and Sarah Michelle Gellar as a porn star. You can imagine what my characters’ life is like. Yeah, there’ll be a homicide."
Photo(s) by Adriana M. Barraza- © 2005- Hollywood Media Corp.- All Rights Reserved