The Rock Did a Rare Thing for Emily Blunt and John Krasinski
Goodwill is one of the traits that people equate with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He’s happy to gift veterans with new cars, surprise young kids with their own special movie nights, or concede defeat to his buddy Aquaman for his little girl.
Those are examples of his what he’s known for, even among his celebrity friends. And even his small gestures seem big, which is something Emily Blunt and husband John Krasinski learned firsthand.
Emily Blunt and The Rock star in ‘Jungle Cruise’ together
In 2018, Emily Blunt and The Rock filmed Disney’s Jungle Cruise, a movie based on the amusement park attraction. Originally set for a 2019 release, the movie was delayed until 2020. Due to the pandemic, the date was pushed back again to summer 2021.
While promoting the film at D23 in 2019, but actors joked with MTV News about who couldn’t hang during the boat scenes. Blunt poked holes in The Rock’s tough exterior when she deemed him “gaggy” and said Dramamine should sponsor him. And he poked back by calling her gassy. The two got along swimmingly.
The Rock let Blunt into his sacred gym space
Blunt appeared on The Jonathan Ross Show and shared an anecdote about working with The Rock on Jungle Cruise. She said he let her use his mobile gym that he brings with him on film shoots. He brought it along to Hawaii during filming.
“So, he has this gym called the Iron Paradise,” explained Blunt. “And I didn’t realize that no one had ever been allowed in the Iron Paradise. It’s his inner sanctum.”
She casually asked him if she could use his facilities to work out, and he gave her the green light, much to the astonishment of the crew. “I get on set and the producers are like, ‘Never. He has never let anyone in there.’ And it was amazing,” she said.
Blunt said she avoided the gym if The Rock was in there, as she didn’t want to invade his space. But he could tell when she popped in, as she left a tell-tale trail.
“But he said to me afterwards, ‘I always know when you’ve been in my gym. You have your baby weights left around,’” she recalled.
Blunt’s husband John Krasinski was with her on the Jungle Cruise set and tried out The Rock’s gym too. He told Ellen DeGeneres that one of the movie’s producers said “no human being” had ever been inside, and he was curious about the mystery.
Krasinski described it as 40 pieces of equipment resembling alien spaceships.
The Rock arranges for trucks to transport his equipment
The Rock has a reputation for being serious about fitness and his weight-training regimen. When he and Jack Black were on The Late Late Show with James Corden in 2017, he explained how he has 18-wheelers haul his workout machines to film sites and they set it up for him.
He said his routine is his “anchor,” and he gets up daily at four or five in the morning to train before filming. It’s a form of meditation for him. And he was totally ok with Blunt and Krasinski using his gym, as he told MTV that she asked, he said yes, and it was great.
