Actor and former wrestling superstar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has taken to Instagram to share a personal story about his connection to Vancouver – and how it helped him overcome adversity.
Johnson is in town filming the action blockbuster Skyscraper.
The video, which was posted Tuesday night, opens with Johnson standing on a balcony overlooking English Bay, and panning the camera to show the unmistakably smokey view.
“I’ve got to show you guys this view, it is spectacular, of one of my favourite cities in the world, Vancouver, Canada,” Johnson said.
But there’s one experience that will always connect him to the city:
“One thing a lot of people don’t know, that I want to share with you guys, is when I was 22 years old, I came to this city for the first time, I was playing in the Canadian Football League, playing my first pro football game,” Johnson said.
“I was playing for the Calgary Stampeders, we were playing the BC Lions, I was so excited. Two days later I got cut, dreams shattered, sent home with seven bucks in my pocket.”
It was, at the time, a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to his life’s dream of playing in the NFL the Fast and Furious star told fans. But years later, from a position of success he looked back and saw the situation differently.
“[I] realized that playing in the NFL was the best thing that never happened, because it got me here.”
Johnson finishes by telling his audience the lesson he learned is that the one thing we think we want, may turn out to be the wrong path.
“So just have faith, and just keep that in mind and keep plugging away.”
Johnson will be co-starring in Skyscraper with Neve Campbell and Pablo Schreiber, and is expected to be in town filming until November.
IMDB describes the film, which is slated for a 2018 release, as a “hostage-action-thriller set in China.