Roman Reigns On The Rock Not Knowing He Was Trying Out For "Hobbs & Shaw", Doing More Movie Work
As Josh noted earlier today, Roman Reigns spoke with AOL to promote his new Brisk TV commercial, which goes along with the "Hobbs & Shaw" movie that hits theaters on August 2, featuring Reigns and The Rock. Reigns will star as Mateo, a brother to Rock's Hobbs character.
Regarding the movie, Reigns revealed that The Rock originally didn't know that he was trying out the project. Reigns said he did not reach out to his cousin to let him know he was reading for the role.
"I had heard about the project and figured I'd just read for it, see how it goes," Reigns said. "I don't think Dwayne actually knew I was reading for it or interested in it at the beginning. Once my tape went out and they were happy with it, fairly serious [about me coming on], I think they told D.J. that I was in the hunt. It was pretty neat to go through the regular process and then see what happens once someone like Dwayne gets his fingerprints on something."
Reigns filmed the movie while going through his second battle with leukemia, and revealed that he was relieved to find out he didn't have to put his body through the ringer like he does when he's wrestling for WWE.
"In the ring we don't look at it as stunts, we're just working," Reigns said. "I'm so used to throwing my body around, the idea of doing it when nobody other than just the crew and people in production are watching, my adrenaline doesn't get going for that. Having a stunt double, his name was Niko [Nedyalkov], great guy, I loved every bit of him, it was awesome.
"All I had to do was just look cool and stand there and say my lines, do the acting bit of it, but when it was time for me to get hit or do something crazy, Niko would be there. That was the cool part, especially where I was, resting, healing, being able to take advantage of that process and not beat my body up during the production, it was a nice spin on things for a change."
This will mark Reigns' big screen debut, but he said he's open to following in Rock's footsteps to do more work in Hollywood.
"There's always something that intrigues me in both the process of creating it and the process of bringing it to life," Reigns said. "There's a lot of responsibility of being a lead man, the top guy in WWE, there are a lot of opportunities that come with it. It's something I've been able to handle thus far, so it's just something I need to look at through the scope of my family. Just getting the opportunity to be a part of Hobbs & Shaw, whether there's sequels, 15 more to come, you know how the 'Fast' franchise does it, was cool enough."