Vin Diesel has shed light on his rumored quarrel with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in an exclusive for Fast & Furious. The two have reportedly been at odds throughout the filming of recent films. This week, Diesel spoke to Men's Health about the F9 movie, where he revealed that the root of the conflict was the creative changes over Johnson's character, Luke Hobbs.
"It was a tough character to embody, the Hobbs character. My approach at the time was 'tough love' to help that performance be where it needed to be," he said. "As a producer, I said, 'Well, we're going to take Dwayne Johnson, who is related to wrestling / boxing, and show the audience a character of hers in a character they don't know,'" Diesel continued.
Johnson reunited with Fast & Furious again in Fast Five in 2011, and has appeared in every film since. Diesel said he is "proud" of how the character worked and says his tension with Johnson arose simply from trying to make it right.
"It took a lot of work. We had to get where we needed to go and at the time I may have been tough, but I did it with love. I would do anything to get the performance where it needed to be."
Reports of a feud between Johnson and Diesel really began in 2016 during the filming of the eighth film, The Fate of the Furious. At the time, Johnson was the one who made things public. He posted on Instagram saying that some people in the square "behave like uplifted men and true professionals, while others do not".
Johnson explained it years later in an interview with Rolling Stone, saying:
"Vin and I had some discussions, including an important face-to-face one on my trailer. And what I realized is that we have a fundamental change in philosophy about how we approach movement and collaboration. It took me a while. "But I'm grateful for that clarity. Whether we work together again or not. I wish him all the best and do not hold grudges."
Johnson Hobbs character is clearly missing in F9, the last part of the franchise.
Source: Pop Culture
