Dwayne Johnson addressed the recurring appearance of Vin Diesel jokes in his films, acknowledging that while they “play great” with audiences, he has nothing to do with them.
“The jokes never end. People were asking me about that and they just find a way,” Johnson said on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show. “It’s interesting, these Vin Diesel jokes — which play great, by the way, to the audience, which is always a good thing, because it’s really all about them — but people think these jokes come from me and they actually don’t.”
Johnson explained that there’s no lack of people pitching him Diesel-based punchlines. “You’d be surprised with how many people come to me with, ‘I’ve got a great one! I’ve got another great Vin Diesel joke!’ I’m sure you do,” he continued. “It’s always funny.”
According to Entertainment Weekly, his latest joke appears in the upcoming Netflix action-comedy film Red Notice, starring Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, where he quips about Diesel auditioning for a role in the musical Cats.
In a Vanity Fair profile last month, Johnson said he and Diesel spoke recently about their checkered relationship, and came to some sort of understanding that they are on “two separate ends of the spectrum.”
“Well, there was a meeting,” Johnson said, laughing. “I wouldn’t call it a peaceful meeting. I would call it a meeting of clarity. He and I had a good chat in my trailer, and it was out of that chat that it really became just crystal clear that we are two separate ends of the spectrum. And agreed to leave it there.”
Johnson believes their differences exist in how they “approach the business of moviemaking in two very different ways.” The Jumanji star says he sees everyone, from the studio to cast and crew, as “equal partners,” and doesn’t think he and Diesel share that same philosophy.
The feud between Johnson and Diesel goes way back.
Ahead of the release of Fast 8, Johnson vented on Instagram about the unprofessional behavior of someone on the set, calling that person a “candy ass.” It was later reported he was talking about Diesel. “Some conduct themselves as stand up men and true professionals, while others don’t,” he wrote. “The ones that don’t are too chicken shit to do anything about it anyway. Candy asses.”
Diesel initially downplayed Johnson’s remarks, saying they were “blown out of proportion.” In June, Vin told Men’s Health that he used “a lot of tough love” towards Johnson in order to get the character of Hobbs to where he felt like it needed to be.
“My approach at the time was a lot of tough love to assist in getting that performance where it needed to be,” he explained. “As a producer to say, Okay, we’re going to take Dwayne Johnson, who’s associated with wrestling, and we’re going to force this cinematic world, audience members, to regard his character as someone that they don’t know–Hobbs hits you like a ton of bricks.”
Johnson previously laughed off Diesel’s “tough love” remark, but when the comment was revisited in the Vanity Fair interview, he said, “One part of me feels like there’s no way I would dignify any of that bullshit with an answer,” adding, “I’ve been around the block a lot of times. Unlike him, I did not come from the world of theater. And, you know, I came up differently and was raised differently.”
