Dwayne Johnson’s lateness cost producers $50 million; star would urinate in bottles to save time and battled Ryan Reynolds: Report

Actor-wrestler Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is in fresh soup. The Wrap has published an expose on the actor, revealing in great detail his unprofessional behaviour on sets of Red One, an upcoming, majorly-delayed film at Amazon MGM. (Also read: Red Notice movie review: Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot have made Race 4 with ₹1480 crore)

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson reportedly had a fight with Ryan Reynolds on the sets of Red Notice. (File Photo/AP)
Tardy behaviour on sets

The report mentions that Dwayne would arrive 7-8 hours late almost daily to the film’s sets, delaying production and often forcing the crew to ‘shoot around him’. An insider told the publisher, “The only thing Dwayne was consistent at was being chronically late.” His tardiness ballooned the production costs on Red One by ‘at least $50 million’, according to insiders. The production cost currently stands at $250 million.

However, sources at the studio maintain that Dwayne was never late by more than an hour for shoots. They also said that $250 million is the budget that was greenlit by production house.

Not only Red One, the report mentions that Dwayne had a habit of arriving late even for the shoots of his Apple TV show Ballers. “He was regularly three to four hours late to set. Keeping 100+ crew members waiting for no reason,” a production assistant on Ballers told The Wrap. Same was the story from the sets of 2018’s Rampage.

Fights with co-stars
Dwayne’s behaviour also got him in the bad books of his co-stars, Vin Diesel (Fast and Furious franchise) and Ryan Reynolds (Red Notice). His feud with Vin is well documented but the report mentions even Ryan had a fight with him and they refused to speak with each other for years after that. Reportedly, Dwayne arrived five hours late on the sets of their Netflix film one day. Ryan was so ‘infuriated’, they had a ‘huge fight’ and Dwayne stormed off the sets.

The actor peculiar habit of peeing in water bottles was also revealed. While Dwayne has himself talked about peeing in bottles during his workout, the new report mentions that Dwayne would get his PA to dispose the bottles on earlier movies.  “On set, away from his trailer, if he needs to pee, he doesn’t go to the public bathroom,” one insider told The Wrap. “He pees in a Voss water bottle and his team or a PA has to dispose of it.” However, production crew on Red One denied it happened on this film’s sets.

Dwayne Johnson’s next is A24’s The Smashing Machine, a biopic about UFC fighter Mark Kerr, directed by Ben Safdie.