This might come as a shock to his legions of fans, but there are a few

things that Dwayne Johnson—box-office superstar, budding Hollywood

mogul, entrepreneur, athlete and all-around beacon of positivity—is less
than amazing at.
Take running. “He can’t run,” says his friend and frequent co-star Kevin
Hart. “It’s not attractive at all. But he doesn’t shy away from it. He’s
fine with going, ‘So? I’ve done a lot. These legs are tired.’ ”

Or directions. “He drives himself, always,” says Dany Garcia, the co-
CEO of Johnson’s many companies and also his ex-wife. As a young
wrestler, “he spent so long running around the country—writing down
addresses, ‘take a left, take a right’—it took him a beat to finally accept
Google Maps. It was our daughter who was finally like, ‘Dad.’ They
share locations, and she’d look at her phone and go, ‘Um, he’s very far
from where he needs to be.’ ”
Nevertheless, on this fall L.A. morning, Johnson, 47, is waiting in a
booth at the Hotel Bel-Air, not just on time but early—wearing a bright
paisley shirt open to his pecs, bald head and billion-dollar smile glinting
in the sun, sipping a fresh cup of French press with the quiet serenity of
a guy watching birds on his back porch. The reason for his laid-back
vibe? “I’m unemployed, man!” Johnson says.

He’s kidding, of course. He might be the most employed man in

Hollywood. But his most recent production wrapped in August, and for
the first time in forever, Johnson has four months without a major
project. “It’s honestly been the best,” he says. “It’s so nice to have this
downtime with the family, just taking a breather.”
Johnson’s concept of downtime is different from that of most mortals.
He’s already produced and starred in one blockbuster this year—
the Fast & Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw, which has grossed more
than $750 million worldwide—and he’s currently gearing up to promote
another, the sequel to 2017’s Jumanji: Welcome to the
Jungle called Jumanji: The Next Level, co-starring Hart and Jack Black
and hitting theaters December 13. But even when he’s not acting,
Johnson is overseeing dozens of other entrepreneurial projects, from the
TV shows he produces to his in-house advertising company to his line of
apparel with Under Armour to his new tequila, Teremana, which drops
early in the new year.
“I don’t know how he does it,” says Hart. “The movies he’s back-to-
backing are so intense, so time-consuming—to do that plus juggle his
TV shows, all his campaigns, his fitness routine, his production
company, the people he’s overseeing....”

“He’s as busy as a person can possibly be,” agrees Jumanji director Jake

Kasdan. “His hours are booked in a very organized and strategic way, so
that he’s maximizing the machine all the time.”
On a typical morning, Johnson wakes by around 5 a.m., when the house
is quiet. “You can hear the birds, have your caffeine,” he says. “It’s
beautiful.” He’ll spend an hour or two answering emails and handling
paperwork, by which time his wife, Lauren Hashian, and their two
daughters—Jasmine, 3, and Tiana Gia, 1—are usually up, and they all
have breakfast. By 8:30 he’s at his private gym, the Iron Paradise, where
he trains until 10, then he showers and goes to work—“wherever work
is.” Ideally he’s home in time to have dinner and help get the girls to
bed.

“But when we start shooting,” Johnson says, “that’s when the hours get
wonky. Everything becomes very surgical. My call time could be 10:57
—it’s that detailed.”

Johnson oversees 15 employees spread across his Seven Bucks empire

(so named for the amount of money he had in his wallet when he got cut
from a Canadian pro football team at age 23, dashing his NFL dreams
and forcing him to figure out a plan B). On film sets, I t’s not unusual
for him to squeeze in meetings with his head of marketing or CFO in
between takes. But Johnson’s secret talent is that he’s a suit who doesn’t
seem like one. He’s been smart about choosing ventures and
partnerships that feel like authentic extensions of his own persona:
Under Armour, VOSS water, the new tequila. “I work out, I hydrate, I
drink tequila,” he says, smiling. “It’s that simple.”

The best illustration of Johnson’s strategy is his approach to social

media, where he boasts the kind of reach a Fortune 500 company would
kill for: 162 million followers on Instagram alone, plus 70 million more
on Facebook and Twitter. “That’s the size of a small country ,” Johnson
says. (He’s being modest; 232 million is the size of a very large
country.) “In terms of business, there’s great value and leverage.” At the
same time, he appears so open and easygoing about what he shares—
whether it’s behind the scenes at a Hollywood pitch meeting or a selfie
snapped in the gym as he sweats through his Project Rock gear—that
fans either don’t realize they’re being sold to, or don’t care.
“He’s involved in all of it,” says Beau Flynn, one of his main producing
partners. “He has an incredible team—Dany Garcia is brilliant—but
Dwayne Johnson runs Dwayne Johnson, Inc. He’ll go to his trailer and
spend hours drafting an Instagram post. He knows it’s going to be seen
by 150 million people at first blush.”

Johnson is so careful with his personal brand that on the rare occasion he
missteps, it’s international news. Consider an incident from last year. In
April 2018, Johnson was a guest at an intimate power-dinner at the home
of Rupert Murdoch (the executive chairman of News Corp, which
publishes The Wall Street Journal) in honor of Mohammed bin Salman
—one stop of a goodwill campaign the Saudi crown prince was then
making around the U.S. during which he met with Oprah Winfrey and
Bill Gates, among many others. This was before Prince Mohammed had
become implicated in the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal
Khashoggi, but he was still a controversial figure, with a poor human
rights record and a much-criticized role in the Yemen war. So when
Johnson posted about the dinner, calling it “a pleasure” and “a fun
night,” the blowback was swift.
Today, Johnson admits that he didn’t fully understand the situation.
“The way it was presented to me was as an opportunity to sit down and
have an open dialogue,” he says, “to better understand that region and
that family.” But the criticism he got was “very sobering. People talked
to me. Some loudly. Some were very frustrated. And that was a great
lesson. With something like that—so polarizing and sensitive—I have a
responsibility, with the influence that I have, to be very smart. And
obviously,” he adds, “I’d have a much different response today.”

Even so, the episode blew over quickly. What it mainly showed was
how much people want to be on his side. “Here’s the thing,” says Tom
Rothman, chairman of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group. “He’s a
genuinely good dude—and the audience can tell. I would wager that no
matter how many people you talk to, you won’t find a person who will
say one ill word about Dwayne Johnson. And you absolutely cannot fake
that in life. That means that’s who you are.”

It’s hard to remember now, but when he started in show business,

Johnson was a villain.
There are two types of pro wrestlers—“faces” and “heels.” Faces are
good guys, the ones the fans cheer for. Heels are bad guys, who cheat
and get booed. The categories aren’t permanent; sometimes, over the
course of weeks or months, a good guy will become a villain, what’s
known as a heel turn. Other times the opposite happens—that’s a face
turn.

When he debuted in the WWE (then the WWF) in the mid-’90s, The

Rock was a world-class heel. Loud. Arrogant. Constantly talking trash.
But one way of looking at his career since then is as one of the longest
and most successful face turns in entertain-ment history.
Johnson descends from wrestling royalty on both sides. His maternal
grandfather, Peter Maivia, was part of a Samoan wrestling dynasty who
performed under the name the High Chief. And his dad is Rocky
Johnson, a Canadian wrestler in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s who was half of
the first black tag-team to win a WWF championship. Back then,
wrestlers were blue-collar itinerants, moving to a new territory every
few months. Young Dwayne lived in five states before kindergarten, a
dozen by junior high, including California, Texas, Florida, Georgia and
Tennessee. “It sucked,” he recalls. “I kicked and screamed every time. I
would just get settled, and then it’s the anxiety of a new school, new
friends. But looking back, I think I learned how to be open to change—
accepting and embracing it, instead of being rigid.”

Life was often hard. There were eviction notices, repossessed cars, a lot
of living paycheck to paycheck. His dad was a tough man who (as
recounted in his recent memoir, Soulman: The Rocky Johnson Story)
had to leave home at age 14, just one year following his own father’s
death, after knocking out his mom’s abusive boyfriend with a shovel.
“So you can imagine what that man’s idea of being a good father is,”
Johnson says. “He showed love through discipline. His love was, ‘Come
here and kiss me on the cheek. I’m going to work.’ ”
In high school in Pennsylvania, Johnson was an elite football player with
scholarship offers from powerhouses like UCLA and Penn State. He
chose the University of Miami but struggled with injuries, shredding his
shoulder and blowing out his back his senior year. Undrafted by the
NFL, he moved to Canada and joined the Calgary Stampeders but was
soon cut—the Seven Bucks origin story. Back home in Florida, he told
his dad he wanted to try wrestling, and they got into a big argument.
Johnson recalls his father, then nearly 50, standing in his $500-a-month
apartment, telling him he wanted something better for his son. “After
lengthy and f—ing terrible fights, my dad finally agreed to train me,”
Johnson says. Within a few years, he was one of the biggest stars in pro
wrestling’s history.

Tom Rothman first met Johnson a decade ago, as an executive on a 2010

family comedy called Tooth Fairy, which starred Johnson in the title
role. It was a turning point in Johnson’s career: He’d quit wrestling
several years earlier to give acting a shot, and though he’d found some
success, he was frustrated with the kinds of roles he was getting.
“Actually, frustration isn’t really the word, because you don’t encounter
him being frustrated—there’s too much positivity,” Rothman says. “But
there was a level of determination and dedication.”
Johnson eventually conquered Hollywood by embracing his crowd-
pleasing roots, starring in huge tentpole franchises that, at their best, are
action-packed and funny in equal measure. He shines most brightly
when playing a hero with a wink—superhumanly ripped and in on the
joke. Take the Jumanji films. In Welcome to the Jungle, Johnson starred
as Dr. Smolder Bravestone, a dashing adventurer/archaeologist who’s
the main character in the titular videogame. The twist is, Bravestone is
being controlled by a kid named Spencer—an awkward, shy teenager
beset by allergies and frightened by squirrels.
“He’s playing a nerdy, neurotic 16-year-old who’s essentially terrified
the whole movie,” says Jake Kasdan, laughing. “Historically, our biggest
action hero in the world hasn’t had the willingness to undermine his
persona. And, you know, that’s the paradox. He looks like the strongest,
baddest man on earth. Yet this incredible warmth and humor just radiate
off him.”

“I would wager that no matter how many people you talk to, you
won’t find a person who will say one ill word about Dwayne
Johnson. You cannot fake that in life.”
—Tom Rothman
The last Jumanji film was a surprise box-office juggernaut, grossing
more than $960 million worldwide. For the new sequel, Johnson earned
a reported $23 million, plus a generous cut of the back end as both a star
and a producer. When asked what makes him worth such a steep
investment, Rothman simply laughs.
“Forgive me, because I’m going to be a little glib,” he says. “But the last
movie did $900 f—ing million. In this job I get plenty of tough
equations: Does that calculus work? This one is a no-brainer. There are
plenty of wrestlers in the world,” he adds. “There’s only one Dwayne
Johnson.”

We’ve been at the restaurant a while when Johnson starts fiddling with
the ring on his finger. It’s solid gold, studded with diamonds and
roughly the size of a half-dollar. “I’m not really a bling guy,” he says.
“But, you know—wedding band.”
In August, Johnson married singer-songwriter Lauren Hashian, his
girlfriend of more than a decade. The couple met back in 2007, when she
was an event planner at a party for a movie he was filming. “Within 30
seconds, I thought, Wow, this girl’s stunning,” he recalls. “At the time, I
was going through my breakup with Dany, and she was just coming off
a big breakup too. Ironically, when you’re not looking for something,
the power of the universe kind of takes over.”

By the time they decided to tie the knot, the couple already had two kids.
Was the fact that Johnson’s first marriage didn’t work out partly why he
waited so long on the second? “That’s a good question,” he says,
seeming to consider it for the first time. “I think so, yeah. My divorce
did a number on me. I wasn’t fearful of getting married again, there was
just some hesitancy. But Lauren was incredibly patient: ‘I love you, you
love me, we have this amazing life together—no presh.’ ”
Johnson and Hashian chose to have the wedding in Kauai, on a dramatic
cliff overlooking the Pacific. They planned it like a special ops raid: top-
secret, strictly need-to-know. “We had a full security detail in case there
were helicopters,” he says. “But there was no press, no paparazzi. No
one knew. I was shocked but so grateful. My life is so loud and noisy;
the fact that it was quiet was a big win.”

True to form, Johnson was so busy that he didn’t get around to actually
popping the question until just three days before. (Luckily, she said yes.)
The ceremony itself was extraordinarily intimate: “Nine adults,” he says.
“Tight, tight circle.” The only attendees from Johnson’s side were his
close friend and producing partner, Hiram Garcia (Dany’s brother), and
his mom—plus Jasmine and Tiana Gia, who were the flower girls. After
some Hawaiian and Samoan songs and prayers for blessings from their
ancestors, the couple exchanged vows at the highly Dwayne Johnson–
ish hour of 8 a.m. As he jokes: “I’ve been up since 4, I’ve got an 8:30
workout—I gotta get this going, get to the part where ‘I do!’ ”

I ask if I can check out his ring. “It’s big,” Johnson warns, dropping it in
my hand. This is an understatement. It’s the heaviest piece of jewelry
I’ve ever held in my life. A person could do curls with it. As such, it’s a
little cumbersome to work out in, so Johnson is having some alternates
made. “One is from a bull’s horn. And the other is from a Tyrannosaurus
rex bone.” He grins. “Pretty cool, right?”

Recently, Johnson and Hashian bought a new property outside of

Atlanta, with a small lake he’s stocking with striped bass and carp. The
goal is to make it their new base and shoot nearby as much as possible.
“In the last three years—and this isn’t hyperbole—we’ve had to move
50 times,” Johnson says. “I’m in a nice position now where we can make
sure that a big part if not all of our production is in Atlanta. So that’s the
goal.”
As Johnson opens these new chapters in his personal life, he’s also
closing a professional one. In October, HBO aired the series finale
of Ballers, the half-hour show about professional football he produced
and starred in for five seasons. “I’m going to miss it,” Johnson says.
“But it’s time. I feel like the show served its purpose for me.”
Lately, the show has become even more famous for one of its biggest
and perhaps unlikeliest fans: Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth
Warren. In her most recent book, the senator wrote about spending
election night 2016 curled up on the couch watching Ballers along with
election returns, and she has spoken about the show in glowing and
hyper-familiar detail: “It’s actually a story about hard work,” she once
said, “about perseverance...about having to reach within yourself and
find something you’re not 100 percent sure is there.”
Johnson and Warren haven’t met, though they’ve traded compliments
online. But Johnson is circumspect when asked whether he’d vote for
her, which may or may not have something to do with the senator’s
proposed wealth tax on fortunes greater than $50 million—i.e., six good
months for Dwayne Johnson. “Yeah,” he says, with a laugh. “I’ll keep
that to myself.”

“I don’t know how he does it. The Movies...his TV Shows, all his
campaigns, his fitness routine, his production company, the people
he’s overseeing....”
—Kevin Hart
When it comes to 2020, Johnson is clear about one thing: “I’m not
voting for Trump.” But in terms of the Democrats, he’s not sure whom
he’ll support. He mentions a couple of names specifically: “I’ve gotten
to know Tulsi Gabbard—we had a really good conversation regarding
Mauna Kea,” he says. “And I’ve become good buddies with Cory
Booker. I think he’s a tremendous, high-quality person who’s hungry to
do well for our country and our people.”

If Booker were to pull off a come-from-behind win, it would make a

great Hollywood story. And as a fellow bald, six-foot-something former
college football player, Johnson might even know someone who could
handle the role.

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “We’ve talked about that.” He grins. “Jack Black
is perfect.”