Box-office slugger: Wrestling star The Rock aims for a hit with `Walking Tall'
March 27, 2004
Boston Herald

Talk softly and carry a big stick.

It worked for Teddy Roosevelt. Wrestler-turned-actor The Rock (also known as Dwayne Johnson) hopes it will work for him too in the new flick ``Walking Tall,'' inspired by the similarly named 1973 action movie.

Johnson plays Chris Vaughn in the PG-13 project, opening Friday. Vaughn, a retired U.S. Special Forces vet, returns to his Pacific Northwest hometown only to find it infested with crime and drugs. The well-heeled kingpin behind it all is former high school buddy Jay Hamilton (Dorchester native Neal McDonough, most recently of NBC's ``Boomtown''). Naturally, Vaughn finds he needs to go outside the confines of the legal system to find real justice - call it justifiable vigilantism. And he doesn't just carry a big stick, he uses it to beat the daylights out of most of the baddies. Even after he's elected sheriff, that two-by-four is his second-best friend, after sad-sack sidekick Ray Templeton (Johnny Knoxville).

``Not a lot of people know this, but I actually went to MGM with the idea of doing this movie,'' said Johnson, 31, during a recent Boston visit.

``This was three years ago while I was filming `Scorpion King.' I had always been a big fan of the `Walking Tall' movies and `Billy Jack' and `Cool Hand Luke,' all those movies where if you get into a real fight with real men, what happens?

``So I asked them if they were interested - not in doing a remake, since there had already been three `Walking Tall' movies, but an adaptation with the same name,'' he said. ``That name just resonates.''

A cynic might think Johnson pitched the adaptation angle so his character wouldn't have to be named Buford Pusser, the moniker of the real Tennessee sheriff whose one-man battle against local crime was the basis for the original ``Walking Tall.'' That movie, starring Joe Don Baker, grossed $23 million, a tidy total for the early '70s.

But Johnson said he did an adaptation because of his respect for Pusser, who was supposed to star in 1975's ``Walking Tall, Part II'' but was killed in a suspicious car crash just as filming was about to begin.

``When I was kid, he actually wrestled on a couple of occasions under his own name,'' Johnson said. ``He wasn't a pro wrestler, but he toyed with it, and when you're a kid like me who grew up in the wrestling world, then, wow, he's not only a movie star but a wrestler, too.

``I also loved the fact that he beat guys' (butts) with a stick, but as I got a little older, I learned to appreciate his story, the value of what he stood for.'' If his wrestling career has done nothing else for Johnson as an actor, it taught him the value of preparation and training.

Once he convinced MGM to try ``Walking Tall'' one more time, Johnson researched Pusser as if he were working on his doctorate. He also was involved in everything from casting to soundtrack selections.

``I read as many books as I could about Buford, four of them. I watched all the old movies. Then I did as much research on the Internet as I possibly could,'' he said.

``But nothing prepared me better than getting together with his family, with his daughter who pulled him from the car wreck when he died. She was only 13 then. It's a sad, sad story. But she told me how her dad felt about things like the Southern mob and closing down illegal whiskey stills - he closed 87 in one year.''

Because the new flick is an adaptation, there's no car crash in Chris Vaughn's immediate future and Johnson didn't rule out the possibility of someday reprising the role.

``I love his kind of character, the reluctant hero,'' he said. ``I've always been attracted to those kinds of actors, people like Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson, heroes who were pushed into what they had to do.'' No one had to push Johnson into his next role: He plays a bodyguard in ``Be Cool,'' the sequel to ``Get Shorty.'' The character is a gay bad guy who spends most of the flick trying to convince his boss (John Travolta) he's movie-star material.

Then in summer 2005, Johnson will become the ``Spy Hunter'' in the big-bucks action movie based on the popular video game. These films are all part of Johnson's grand plan to be ``a decent actor and work with really, really good actors and make good movies that deliver the people's money's worth.''

Asked about his acting role model, Johnson laughed. He knew his answer was lofty and ambitious, but he went for it anyway.

``Clint Eastwood comes to mind. He's had those roles where he was the reluctant hero, and he did his fair share of comedy. At times he was vulnerable and flawed, and at times he wasn't afraid to wink a lot at his audiences and let them know, `Although I am what I am, I'm also not afraid to laugh at myself.' ''