The Hits hosts Jono Pryor and Ben Boyce chat to Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson ahead of his new film Black Adam.
Video / The Hits
The two of us were sitting face to face with arguably the world’s biggest star, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
We’d just entered a fancy-looking room at a Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles as The Rock greeted us with a large handshake and his big Hollywood smile. Suddenly he turned his head slightly to get a better look at the two of us.
“Wait a second,” he said, holding his hand up to stop us, “There’s an elephant in the room!” It sounded like a line straight out of The Rock’s latest blockbuster movie Black Adam, but this was real life, and he was right. The Rock had remembered the two of us and yes, there was an elephant in the room.
Unsettlingly though, he hadn’t stipulated whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. If you’ve listened to our radio show on The Hits Breakfast, you’ll know Ben is one of the biggest, and smallest in size, of The Rock’s 340 million Instagram fans. In May 2021, to prove how big a fan he was, Jono tattooed on Ben’s left bottom cheek Dwayne Johnson’s name emblazoned with a love heart. That day would become rock bottom for New Zealand radio and a literal rock bottom for Ben’s bottom.
We had no idea The Rock knew anything about this shameless attention-seeking stunt until a mid-pandemic Zoom interview with Dwayne a few months later. During this, The Rock surprised both of us by not only having seen a photo of Ben’s tattoo, but also proving it by showing us it was an image clogging up his photo stream on his phone. This rocked our world (exceptional “Rock” pun number 2) but we hadn’t thought that the man himself would remember us a year and a half later when we showed up in person across the other side of the world.
After all, it was day four of Dwayne sitting in the same hotel room talking to hundreds of media, from hundreds of countries in a constant stream of 5-minute interview slots about his latest DC Comic Book movie Black Adam, out on October 20. We were lucky enough to get New Zealand’s only interview slot at the Black Adam Media Junket in Los Angeles. This meant we were the first to see an advanced screening of the movie, secretly watching it alone in a movie theatre with a security guard keeping an eye on us. It was one of the most fulfilling three-person movie dates any of us had been on. A day later, minus our security guard, we were on a plane to Los Angeles. After flying 12 hours to Los Angeles, we were jet lagged and now standing amongst a car park full of Rolls Royces and lime green Lamborghinis outside the fanciest hotel Beverly Hills had to offer. It was time to “rock n roll” (official “Rock” pun count at 3).
Decked out in our two for one matching suits, we were more appropriately dressed to park the fancy cars. We nervously walked inside the lobby, where everyone looked as though they had just strolled off a Milan catwalk. What instantly struck us was that this movie Black Adam was a big deal. Security guards with earpieces in black outfits were manning the doors, people with clipboards and walkie-talkies were buzzing around, make-up and hair stylists (they saved time on Jono) and media from all over the world all gathered in a fully catered conference room.
The Hits' Jono Pryor and Ben Boyce in Beverly Hills. Photo / The Hits
After signing in, jamming a stick up our nostrils and passing the most nerve-wracking Covid test of our lives, we were ushered through a large room full of Black Adam merchandise as far as our weary travelled eyes could see. We couldn’t figure out if it was there for display purposes or for two desperate Kiwis to try and fleece as much loot as they could. Everything from child sized Black Adam suits, expensive looking Black Adam figurines, Black Adam active wear, Black Adam posters, Black Adam Funko Pops, Black Adam Energy Drinks.
“Would you like a Black Adam Funko Pop collectible?” a lady asked Ben as he admired one sitting on a counter. “Yes, but how much?” was his very Kiwi reply thinking of the terrible exchange rate. Turns out it was a great price in any currency - free! Like 4-year-olds in a candy shop, we excitedly stuffed the free merch into our backpacks and made our way into the media waiting room. The media waiting room was just like a doctor’s waiting room, but instead of waiting for a prostate examination while reading a 2012 copy of New Idea, you are seated in a meticulous white room with beautiful ceiling-to-floor drapes. The room was laden with round tables, a feast fit for a giant muscled legend like The Rock and a collection of respected proper-looking journalists from around the world featuring a chorus of international languages filling the room.
“Welcome and please help yourself” came an introduction from a busy but friendly organiser. But we were far too anxious to eat before our big interviews. We sat, slurping on the plentiful supply of The Rock’s ZOA “Black Adam’' energy drinks, hoping it wouldn’t make Jono jumpier and more unpredictable. We made friends with a Brazilian reporter whose interviews are seen by over ten million people (don’t worry, we sexed our own stats up by a couple of million) who had come dressed in costume as Black Adam. The jealousy was real, why didn’t we think of this genius costume gimmick? After we watched the handsome Brazilian devour a mountain of buffet meat, we sat silently disappointed in ourselves that this gorgeous Brazilian and his clever icebreaker would result in far better interviews than ours.
We waited patiently for an hour, sucking back on the free ZOAs, then another hour passed. We were getting more nervous the longer things went on. We went over our game plan and questions again and made sure for the hundredth time that our iPad was ready to go. As we were doing New Zealand’s only interview with The Rock, we had planned to make it literally “New Zealand’s interview” and had collected video questions for The Rock on an iPad from a wide range of Kiwis. Far more prominent Kiwis than ourselves sent us videos, like Newshub’s Mike McRoberts, the lads from Six60, All Black legend Dan Carter, New Zealand’s strongest woman and a few other special ones for Dwayne, like the principal from Richmond Road Primary (where The Rock attended briefly as a child), his cousin Krit and the adorable Angelo Brown, who wrote a letter to the Rock last year on behalf of his father’s amazing domestic violence movement and received a heartfelt reply back.
Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson answered questions from famous Kiwis asked by The Hits hosts Jono and Ben. Photo / The Hits
We would play as many of these video questions to The Rock as our allocated time allowed. Having been fortunate enough to do movie junket interviews pre-Covid, we knew it was a race against time to get our questions out, while also giving the movie star enough time to answer, and trying to look calm and not like we were conducting the interview high on substances. We have been doing this job for a long time, some might say too long, but it’s a thrill to still have a job that provides moments that bring you close to peeing your pants. The expense of the flights, the accommodation, the fact it was New Zealand’s only interview, the time pressure, Jono having to learn how to use an iPad … it all sits in a stomach full of nerves and ZOA energy drink.
The clock starts ticking for your allocated slot the minute you walk in the room, it doesn’t really allow for too much pre-interview banter. In fact, sometimes if things are running overtime, which with so many media they often are, your time gets cut down more. Thankfully the New Zealand movie company had negotiated, hustled and had done God knows what to get our interview with Dwayne Johnson upgraded from a 5-minute slot to an 8-minute one. This sort of time is unheard of for a small island nation of 5 million and the longer we waited, the more pressure we felt to deliver. We took another sip of ZOA hoping we wouldn’t screw it all up.
Suddenly while sitting in the media waiting room, we looked up from rehearsing our cue cards for the 17th time to see actor Pierce Brosnan casually walk in. Yes, Bond, James Bond himself, who also stars in Black Adam was walking right towards us. In what felt like something out of a movie, the guy from the movie effortlessly grabbed a delicious looking chocolate-based dessert from the buffet. Then in the most quaint of greetings said “Hello chaps” and to our amazement, sat right down in the seat next to Ben at our table. It was just us and James Bond spooning a parfait. What do we do? Are we allowed to talk to him? Can we make eye contact? Pierce looked at our matching suit jackets with the words “Jono and Ben” printed on the chest.
“So, what’s Jono and Ben?” he asked.
“That’s us! We’re from New Zealand,” we replied.
“I’ve never been there but I’ve always wanted to go,” remarked Pierce.
Ben took a deep breath and addressed the question we were all thinking, “Are we in the right room? Are we allowed to talk to you?”
What followed was a surreal but really delightful chat with Pierce Brosnan as he delicately chowed down his tiny dessert. He was approachable, super friendly and completely charming. He spoke to us about having to feed his chickens at his house on a Hawaiian island and we discussed his gruelling media schedule when he was James Bond travelling to 24 countries over six months. Sitting just mere metres away from this handsome, charismatic British actor, we knew our Mums would give anything to trade places with us. Pierce finished his dessert, told us it was nice to meet us and he looked forward to our interview. The whole time all we wanted to do was take a photo but were far too “Kiwi” to ask the question so settled for keeping the image in nature’s camera, our memories. He left the room with the two of us looking at each other wondering what the heck just happened.
We were still recovering from one surreal experience when a lady with a clipboard and ear piece approached, informing us we were up. It was interview time. We made our way down a hotel corridor where behind the various doors waited the stars of Black Adam. We were to join the rotating queue of media and go from room to room, having 5 minutes with each of the actor pairings before finishing our interviews off with the big one, 8 minutes with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Even in another time zone, a few minutes goes by fast but we had a blast chatting to the stars even if our innocent New Zealand accents meant that some of the actors had to really concentrate on what exactly we were asking. We shared many laughs and fun banter, did an impromptu sing-along with comedian and actor Mo Amer and had our second fun conversation of the day with Pierce Brosnan, this time featuring no chocolate desserts. Finally, we sat outside the door for our allocated interview with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson to talk about Black Adam.
“We’re just setting up two chairs for the two of you,” we were told.
“Do we still have 8 minutes?” we asked.
We were stoked with the reply that we still did. We paced into the room where The Rock sat on his chair surrounded by cameras, crew and assistants. Trying not to let things overwhelm us that we were in the same room as The Rock, we pretended to be more confident that we actually were. We shook hands and introduced ourselves, not expecting The Rock to remember us.
And that’s when he uttered the line, “Wait a second, there’s an elephant in the room,” and he paused, carried on laughing and said, “And I f***ing love it!”
The Rock not only remembered talking to us over Zoom, but remembered Ben’s love heart tattoo dedicated to him on his bottom.
“You know, you’re getting that out at the end of this interview,” he laughed again.
Ben Boyce now has Dwayne Johnson's signature tattooed on his bottom. Photo / The Hits
Turns out the history we had with him was the good kind - he liked us! Finally, we were there, sitting and talking to one of the biggest actors on the planet. We then explained how we had come from New Zealand and had questions from the Kiwis to play him. Our Kiwi questions lead him into talking fondly about what he loved about his Mum and Dad, spending time with his large family growing up in New Zealand, playing rugby and how much he worked out and how little he slept. Before we knew it, an assistant off camera was motioning to us that we only had three minutes to go but The Rock turned to him and said, “I’m having fun, double their time!” and at that moment we could have both easily jumped up and wrapped our arms around his muscled torso.
We ended up with over 10 minutes in the room with The Rock and he is everything you imagine him to be. He was charismatic, genuine, at times he got emotional and heartfelt and other times he laughed and joked with us. He had a wicked sense of humour – there’s a joke he made at the end of the interview that’s probably NSFW and has us comparing Jono’s manhood to his. He had the aura of a movie star but felt grounded and humble. It was like catching up with a mate, a mate who just apparently happens to be worth $800 million, and owns the most famous face on the planet. Somehow for those 10 minutes he made us two low-grade broadcasters from New Zealand feel like we were the most important people in the world.
And as we wrapped up the interview we’d travelled over 10,000 km for, it was time for Ben to show Dwayne Johnson his left bottom cheek with the tattoo. A huge belly laugh erupted from The Rock when he saw it, and then Jono suggested he should sign it. Then our interview concluded with Dwayne The Rock Johnson taking a Sharpie marker pen and signing Ben’s behind with his autograph. Ben got way too caught up in the moment and said he might have to now get the autograph permanently tattooed. The Rock hugged us both and said that Ben didn’t have to do that and said “I’ve had so much fun.” We guarantee it wasn’t as much fun as we had.
The rest is a blur, we probably over-thanked everyone, over-shook everyone’s hands, then ejected ourselves out of the five-star hotel. We spent the next 45 minutes aimlessly wandering the streets of Los Angeles trying to bring our heart rates down. What an experience with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, who to us, is not just a superhero in his movies.
