No shortage of ado has been made over the intense, regimented diet and workout plan that Dwayne Johnson adheres to look like, well, Dwayne Johnson. But this week, Stephen Merchant, who directed Johnson in the 2019 biographical wrestling comedy-drama Fighting with My Family, peeled back the curtain to reveal the absurd lengths The Rock goes to — and yes, it includes bringing his own meals to restaurants.
While appearing on the SiriusXM radio show Jim Norton & Sam Roberts, Merchant was asked if he ever had the fortune to join Johnson for one of his infamous cheat meals.
“I do remember having a meeting with him just in Texas just before WrestleMania,” Merchant said, laughing. “And we were having a meeting about the movie and uh, his alarm would go off at sort of like, 3:17, and he would go to the fridge and there would be turkey and rice with like, ‘3:17’ written on it and he would microwave it. And it was so regimented.”
“I think someone told me, maybe he told me, maybe, that when he goes for like dinner with friends he’ll have to take his food to the restaurant and have them heat it up because it’s such a structured diet he has to have,” Merchant added.
Baller move, indeed, as co-host Jim Norton pointed out.
“That’s how you know you’re The Rock,” he quipped. “When you walk into a restaurant, like ‘Could you heat up this sh*t I brought?’ Like, ‘Yeah, absolutely.'”
Johnson has previously opened up about his diet plan. On a daily basis, the 50-year-old consumes a minimum of five meals per day, which involves a lot of steaks, eggs, fish, vegetables, and minimally processed carbs such as rice and oatmeal.
Merchant went on to describe the experience of going to WrestleMania with Johnson, comparing the fan worship to something like if Elvis came back. “He picked up a flamethrower, and there was like kind of a wooden sign of The Rock onstage, and he just spent 10 minutes setting fire to that with the flamethrower without saying anything,” he explained. “And the crowd [was] like screaming, the entire time.”
We guess you have to eat a lot for that kind of flamethrower energy!