The Black Adam movie has been years in the making, but for star Dwayne Johnson, it was all worth “really fighting for.”
Playing the titular DC anti-hero, the actor tells Good Morning America the film is “a representation of trying to be resilient….”
Talk of Johnson portraying the character first surfaced 15 years ago, and he eventually confirmed he would be playing the character back in 2014.
He said Adam’s “certainly a departure” from anything he’s done before, but he recalled times in his past where he felt “really constrained” and had people telling him what he could and could not do — like other heroes try with the god-like Adam.
“Many moons ago,” Johnson said he was told he’d have to make changes if he wanted to be like the biggest movie stars at the time: George Clooney, Johnny Depp and Will Smith.
Johnson said he was told he shouldn’t call himself The Rock — his ring name — and that he’d have to go on a diet and not go to the gym in an effort to lose weight because he was “too big.”
He continued, “And I bought into it for a couple of years before I said, ‘This ends right now, and I’m going to be myself and at least if I fail, I’ll fail being me.'”
Johnson said Black Adam means a lot to him, calling it “the movie of my career, the most important movie I’ve ever done — arguably will ever do.”
And while nobody tells Black Adam what to do, the same doesn’t apply to Johnson’s three daughters. He calls being a father to Simone, 21, Jasmine, 6, and Tiana, 4, “my favorite role.”
Black Adam opens in U.S. theaters on Oct. 21.
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