Vin Diesel Used A ‘Tough Love’ Approach To Get The Rock Into Hobbs Character

Sometimes it take a lot of work to get into a character. Vin Diesel had his doubts about The Rock coming into the Fast Family at first. It was explained that they were bringing in a pro wrestler and Diesel had his own way of readying Dwayne Johnson for the role.

Fast 9 is set to drop in U.S theaters this Friday. The film has already opened elsewhere in the world, and it didn’t do that fantastic in China after John Cena’s faux pas of calling Taiwan a country. The Rock is not in Fast 9, but that doesn’t rule him out of 10 or 11, the final two films of the series.

While speaking to Men’s Health, Vin Diesel went into how The Rock got acclimated to the Hobbs character. Diesel explained that it took a lot of “tough love” to get him to the point where he could really mesh with the Fast Saga. In the end, “Hobbs hits you like a ton of bricks,” and The Rock pulled off the performance in a big way.

“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, Okay, 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. That’s something that I’m proud of, that aesthetic. 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.”

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The Rock might return to the Fast Saga in the next installment. That will be another matter to address since Dwayne Johnson’s schedule is so incredibly busy. It took a lot of work to get him to this point, but Johnson showed that the Hobbs character had legs on its own as he co-starred in the Hobbs & Shaw spin-off film.

Do you want to see The Rock return for the remainder of the Fast Saga? Sound off in the comments!