People talk about how The Rock behaves in ways that are larger-than-life pretty often, and I’m not just talking about his physical size. (Though he has slimmed down recently, much to Emily Blunt’s amusement.) We’re also talking about the magnitude of his actions, which have included sending Simone Biles sweet care packages or the viral moment he gave his stunt double a truck. Apparently, this happened on the set of Jungle Cruise, and his co-star just told a really funny story about not being able to compete.
Jack Whitehall just opened up about what it was like being on set with Dwayne Johnson. In particularly her brought up a story that already went viral about how the Rock bought his stunt double a truck on set, only this time we got it from Whitehall’s perspective, with the actor explaining how he “insane” moment played out to VT.
When we worked together, his wrap gift to his stunt double was a car. He gave him a truck! Literally on set, gathered everyone around and gave Tanoi, who is his stunt double, handed him some keys. And then pointed at his truck and gave him his truck, which was insane. The guy started crying.
Dwayne Johnson had shared the video of him giving Tanoi Reed a truck while on set previously. At the time he was filming Jungle Cruise, and people thought the gift had come as part of his work on that production, which now seems to be accurate. He’d noted in the post that his stunt double had sacrificed a lot over the years, including things like “breaking bones” and “tearing ligaments” all in the name of making the best movie possible. Take a look.
Meanwhile, Jack Whitehall’s been in some big budget movies like Clifford The Big Red Dog and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, but he’s not an a-lister with decades of million dollar roles under his belt and an alleged net worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Needless to say, he couldn’t exactly compete with Dwayne Johnson on set, and his funny story about what happened next really resonates with me.
I stood next to my stunt double. I’d bought him a candle. He cried as well when I gave it to him, but for different reasons.
I can just imagine Whitehall springing for the fancy candle (though probably not of the Goop variety) and thinking he’d absolutely smashed it, only to find out his a-lister co-star had not only knocked it out of the park, he’d done so at about 400X the rate. At least the funny young actor can laugh about it later.