When selecting actors for a particular movie, we believe that producers and directors have a whole procedure that ultimately brings them to the best individual for the role. We believe you all know who is currently the highest paid actor. In case you don’t know, it’s Mr. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. This guy topped the list last year with a whopping $89.4 million.
Now you probably think he’s getting all the roles in the best new movies from Hollywood production. Well, he’s certainly been playing a lot of movies these days, but he reminded us that it wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, other actors were given the edge.
A few years ago, ‘The Rock’ was very close to getting the role of Jack Reacher in the movie of the same name. Unfortunately, or perhaps to his luck, Johnson did not get that role, but Jack Reacher was portrayed by Tom Cruise. ‘The Rock’ talked about it recently in a Facebook Q&A with his fans. Here’s what he said:
“In Hollywood, actors are kind of like in a box. There are actors that can vie for a particular role because it allows for them to have a certain look, skin color, size, etc.
“Fortunately, for me, there aren’t a lot of guys at all who look like me. So, all of my roles, from the beginning of my career, I’ve been a lucky son of a b***h that they’ve been created and designed for me-except Jack Reacher.
“Now, this was ten years ago, and I was in a much different place, I recognize that. Tom was the biggest movie star in the world, and I was not.”
Dwayne Johnson then went on about the situation:
“I got the call saying ‘Hey, you didn’t get the role’. Look, I didn’t even know if I had a shot for it, but the people around me at that time made me think that I did. I felt like I did, I felt like ‘Why not me?’”
It seems that this moment in his career marked the beginning of the rise of the currently highest paid actor in the world. Shortly after he didn’t get a role in ‘Jack Reacher’, Johnson got a role in a new sequel to the Fast & Furious franchise. It was a Fast Five movie from 2011. It turns out that the new role has brought him much more than ‘The Rock’ would have gotten with Jack Reacher.
He added:
“I said ‘Don’t worry about the money’, I’m doing alright right now. In success, if I create a character the people are going to like and it hits the zeitgeist of the culture in a cool way, the money is going to be there. They said, ‘Absolutely, it’s a deal’.”
