If you think you know exactly what to expect from a movie starring Dwayne Johnson, better known all over the world by his wrestling name “The Rock,” then you haven’t seen Snitch, the new crime thriller by Ric Roman Waugh (Felon) which has Johnson playing John Matthews, an everyman father who gets involved in dangerous cartel drug deals in order to get his son out of jail.
That concept may sound outlandish or something we might only see in a Hollywood action movie, but in fact it’s based on a real story that showed what’s so wrong with the federal mandatory minimum laws where people could get thrown into jail for decades unless they’re ready to play ball and lead the Drug Enforcement Agency to bigger fish.
ComingSoon.net attended the New York junket for the movie a couple of weeks back. Unfortunately, it was the same day as the snowstorm dubbed “Nemo”–hey, we didn’t name it–and Johnson’s flight didn’t make it to town so we interviewed him over a complex Skype-based contraption rather than being in the same room together.
In the video interview below, we didn’t have a ton of time, but we basically asked Johnson three questions and he had a lot to say in response. First, we talked about how much we both loved Waugh’s previous film Felon and how when Ric called Johnson for the part, he was blown away by the script he was sent. We asked Dwayne about playing a more toned-down everyman father role and whether he had to go against his usual instincts to play John Matthews. He talked about the preparation he did and how he really had great faith in Ric as a director in order to tackle such a different role. Lastly, he talked about his decision to go back to wrestling in the last few years–Johnson is currently the WWE World Champion for the first time in ten years–despite having four movies coming out in the next four months.
