When two alpha males who built their careers in the action genre share a longstanding love affair with sleeveless apparel and shaven heads find themselves working in proximity, there’s bound to be tension. So much tension, in fact, that Dwayne Johnson has officially bailed on Vin Diesel’s Fast & Furious franchise.
For a while, it looked as though the two stars has mended fences and Luke Hobbs would ride back into battle in the concluding tenth and eleventh chapters before ol’ Vinny boy had to go and stoke the flames all over again. After claiming that the fallout was due to his Fellini-esque methodology of pushing the best performance from his hulking co-star, Johnson laughed it off and effectively said he was talking out of his ass.
Now we have the Fast & Furious and Hobbs & Shaw brands existing concurrently, and we’ll soon discover if the world can cope with two high-octane ampersands gunning for the same audience. The Rock is keeping his mouth shut about Diesel in public forums, though, but that didn’t stop him admitting to Sirius XM that he’s happy to read all the jokes people send him.
“The jokes never end. People were asking me about [making Diesel jokes] and they just, they find a way, and you know, what’s interesting is, you know, these Vin diesel jokes, which play great by the way to the audience, which is always a good thing because it’s all about [the audience]. But, people think these jokes come from me and they actually don’t. I mean, you’d be surprised at how many people come to me with ‘I got a great one.’ I’m like ‘okay.’ ‘I got another great Vin Diesel joke.’ ‘I’m sure you do.’ Always funny.”
Maybe one day they’ll kiss and make up, but for the time being it looks like the pair of beefy bulging bros will remain at loggerheads for the foreseeable future, although it isn’t going to hamper their respective action hero credentials in any way.
