EXCLUSIVE: Dwayne Johnson Talks New Movie, ‘Red One’

Dwayne Johnson sat down with BB and other members of the press to chat his new Holiday movie, Red One. During the chat, Johnson talked finding the balance between filming an action movie and a Holiday movie, his Holiday traditions, and so much more. Check out what he had to say below.

On how he found the balance between filming an action movie and a holiday movie when bringing Red One to life?

“I feel that it all really starts with the material, of course coming out of Hiram’s [Garcia] brain, and then Chris Morgan cracking it, and Jake [Kasdan] coming in and cracking it and putting it together on the page. So the material itself, I think, lent itself to big action scale, which you typically don’t see in Christmas movies, creating the definitive Santa Claus, all of these actors who, obviously, all incredibly talented came in loving Christmas, but actually everyone being the perfect actor for that particular role.

And then on top of all that, I think you sprinkle in something that Jake inherently does in his films, I’ve had the privilege of working with him now three times, on the first two Jumanji movies and now Red One, is heart, and there’s so much heart in this movie. That’s often an overstatement I think, in storytelling in Hollywood, but it’s true. It’s something like this. I think the idea, and it’s one of my favorite parts of the movie, where JK [Simmons] as Santa Claus reminds me [his character] that it’s our job to see the best in people and look at that child, look beyond if they’re on the naughty list, and look at the kid in everybody.”

On filming the Krampus party scene:

“When we [him and Chris Evans] stepped on set, and we had the privilege of, obviously, being on set for many, many days with Kristofer [Hivju] as Krampus, it is one of the most impressive things we had ever seen. He’s massive, and what we were talking about earlier is he really does such a spectacular job as Krampus, in our story the mythology of the brother of Santa, but also the prosthetics that he was wearing from Joel Harlow, who’s an Academy Award winner, and you really see it. But the challenge is there has to be so much life going on in his eyes because everything else is just these incredible prosthetics, and because he’s such a superior actor, you felt that and you feel that in the movie. So anyway, just hats off to you, man.”

On his Holiday traditions:

” Just getting family together.  Just getting family together would be our number one greatest family tradition. I know it’s simplistic, but a lot of times when I was growing up, my dad was always on the road and he wasn’t always home for Christmas, and in the business that we’re in, sometimes it requires us to work over the holidays. So for me, just to have the entire family together, that’s the most important thing.”

Red One is now in theaters!

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity