A young hero who saved his brother’s life with skills he learned from an action movie will be meeting his idol in Vancouver.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson posted a video to Instagram on Friday to deliver the news to Jacob O’Connor, the 10-year-old boy who credits the Fast and Furious star with showing him how to revive his brother.
Back in July, Jacob’s two-year-old brother Dylan fell face down into a pool at their grandmother’s home in Detroit.
The 10-year-old had recently watched San Andreas, in which Johnson plays a rescue helicopter pilot, and at one point rescues his daughter from a near drowning.
Jacob said he remembered Johnson doing chest compressions in the scene; he mimicked them on his brother, an act credited with saving the toddler’s life.
Johnson was apparently impressed by the heroics, and touched that Jacob “learned how to do this by watching this big, brown bald tattooed guy in his favourite movie,” he said in the video.
Now, Jacob is getting to meet his idol in person.
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“Jacob, I’m so proud of you, so much so I have got to meet you. I have got to shake the hand of a real-life hero,” said Johnson.
“We’re going to fly you guys up here to Vancouver to the set of Skyscraper on my movie set, and I’m going to give you a big hug. I want to meet your little brother, I want to meet your mom.”
WATCH: Full coverage of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
And as if a free trip to Vancouver to meet his hero and visit the set of a Hollywood blockbuster wasn’t enough, Johnson went on to sweeten the deal.
“Here’s the best part. When you come to my movie sets, it’s like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, dude,” Johnson said.
“You can eat all the sweets you want, and it’s all free! Yes! It’s free! Well, somebody’s paying for it, but you and Uncle DJ… we don’t pay.”
It’s just the latest social media splash Johnson has made while filming in Vancouver.
On Friday, he posted an Instagram video teasing fans who had waited until 1:15 a.m. to see him, by pretending to drive away and jokingly refusing to sign autographs.
And earlier in August, he posted a video to Instagram lauding Vancouver as “one of my favourite cities,” while sharing an inspirational story about how getting cut from the CFL after a game in the city put him on the road to stardom.
Johnson is in Vancouver filming Skyscraper with Neve Campbell and Pablo Schreiber, which is expected to wrap in November.
IMDB describes the film, which is slated for a 2018 release, as a “hostage-action-thriller set in China.”
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