The imminently likable actual superhuman Dwayne Johnson recently sat down with Rolling Stone to discuss his blockbuster, his journey to superstardom, and the prospects of a President Rock. When the conversation turned political, the professional football player-turned professional wrestler-turned $20+million-a-film A-lister made a few headline-worthy comments, including that he didn’t vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.
Johnson told the Rolling Stone’s Josh Eells that he doesn’t really know Trump, having only “shook his hand” one time 15 or 20 years ago at a wrestling event at Madison Square Garden, but he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t like him because, as one of his characters in Central Intelligence says, “I don’t like bullies.” Eells reports:
Can you imagine the Rock’s reaction if a man on his set mocked a person with a disability, or bragged about assaulting a woman? “You’re gone,” Johnson says angrily. “You’re done. I don’t have friends like that, nor is it anywhere in our business.” That kind of behavior, he says, “is why I didn’t vote for him.”
Johnson says he voted for Obama twice, but he didn’t vote in 2016. “At the time, I just felt like it was either vote for the [candidate] I thought would make a better president than the other, even though I would rather have someone else, or not vote at all. I wrestled back and forth with it. We were on the set of Jumanji in Hawaii, and it really was like calling on the gods. Give me the answer. Ultimately, it was [to not vote].”
Eells underscores that Johnson likely won’t sit out the next one. “The next elections, in 2020, I think I’ll be a little bit more vocal in who I support,” said Johnson.
Asked about the hopeful talk of President Rock, Johnson said he has had some “under-the-radar” meetings with a range of experts, but he’s not anywhere close to considering a political run.
“Republicans, Democrats, independents, mayors, strategists, you name it,” he said of those he’s met with to discuss a potential political career. “Just soaking in and listening. Trying to learn as much as I possibly can. I entertain the thought, and thank you, I’m so flattered by it. But I feel like the best thing I can do now is, give me years. Let me go to work and learn.”
While he noted that “people are very excited, and it’s so flattering that they’re excited,” he suggested that excitement had more to do with being “very unsatisfied with our current president.”
“I think in a lot of people’s minds, what Trump has proved is that anybody can run for president,” he said. “And in a lot of people’s minds, what he’s also proved is that not everybody should run for president. What I’m sensing now is that we have to pivot back to people who have a deep-rooted knowledge of American history and politics and experience in policy and how laws get made. I think that pivot has to happen.”
The “Fast and Furious” star (who makes clear in the interview that he isn’t much of a fan of co-star Vin Diesel) also weighed in on the March For Our Lives and the divisive NFL National Anthem protests, both of which he supports.
Johnson had celebrated the student walkout in an Instagram tweet; his sympathy for the movement, he explained, began with his 15-year-old daughter Simone. “She was absolutely terrified,” he said of his daughter’s response to the Parkland shooting, which occurred about a half-hour away from her school. “A lot of her friends’ friends died. It’s heartbreaking. They’re still going through it.”
Asked what we should do to prevent future shootings, he kept his response pretty vague. “You gotta do something, right?” he said. “I don’t think giving teachers guns is the answer, because then we’re just bringing more guns into school. I don’t know, man. I don’t have the answers. But we’ve gotta keep our kids safe.”
He also slammed the inability for both sides to meet “in the middle,” adding, “It’s frustrating. We’ve gotta see better leadership.”
As for the National Anthem protests, The Rock said he “would either have knelt or raised my fist in solidarity.” The cause, he said, was misunderstood. “I felt like our president’s responses were being dictated by the noise, and not the actual problem,” he said.