The Hollywood Byte #18: The Rock Talks Games

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has been a gamer all of his life. He's a die-hard Madden fan, which likely stems from his football days. Johnson played high school football and earned a full ride to the University of Miami, where he played for the Gators as a defensive tackle. A leg injury cut his shot at the NFL, and after a year in the Canadian Football League, Johnson entered the professional wrestling ring as a third generation wrestler.

It was the WWF (now WWE) that offered Johnson the first chance to be in an actual video game. In 1998, Johnson performed motion-capture for a WWF title. He went on to grace the cover of several games in the WWF Smackdown! franchise from THQ. Johnson also worked on The Scorpion King game with Vivendi Universal Games, which was based on his first starring role in Hollywood.

The success of that film, and subsequent action films, have turned Johnson into a bankable star in Hollywood -- marking the first time a pro wrestler has made a successful transition to the big screen. A lot has changed in the gaming realm since Johnson first got involved with games.

"The graphics have improved drastically," said Johnson. "And with the new consoles that come out, always trying to better the last, and always taking on those challenges, the games continue to advance technologically speaking, which is great."

One of the games that caught Johnson's attention at a young age was Spy Hunter, which he played at the arcades.

"The first thing I remember about Spy Hunter was the cool theme song--the 'Peter Gunn' theme, because it was such a catchy, iconic tune," said Johnson. "And then, of course, the Interceptor morphing into the motorcycle and into the boat. I thought that was cool. Plus, you got your money's worth on that machine."

Now Johnson is pulling another first. Having signed on to star in Universal Pictures' big-screen adaptation of Spy Hunter, the actor has stepped into the role of super spy Alex Decker in Midway's Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run. Although Vin Diesel will be pulling similar double-duty with Midway's The Wheelman, Johnson is the first actor to portray both the big-screen and virtual incarnation of the same character across two mediums.

"Before actually making the movie, I was able to do the mo-cap and do the voice acting, and it gave me a small window of opportunity to become this character," said Johnson. "The things that I had thought, speaking with (Spy Hunter movie producers) Chuck Gordon and Adrian Askeriah, we talked about the importance of making Alex similar to Harrison Ford's character in Indiana Jones. Where the stakes are high, there was always a high level of anticipation in every scene with not only what was going to happen, but he never lost his sense of humor."