Just because he’s constantly traveling to new places as one of the most successful movie stars on the planet, doesn’t mean Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson doesn’t find time to work out. His favorite cure for jet lag is pumping iron, and he brings his own, fully-equipped gym with him when he’s filming on-location. Johnson relocated his Iron Paradise to Hawaii last year while filming Disney’s Jungle Cruise, and being one of the nicest guys in Hollywood, he invited his co-star, British comedian Jack Whitehall, to train with him. Whitehall recalled his time in the Iron Paradise during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show on Friday.
“I did a film with The Rock, yes,” Whitehall said. “He’s the best man I’ve ever met… He’s amazing, he’s the kindest guy. He has this gym that he travels with, which I got to go into, which I felt very honored to be invited into the ‘Iron Paradise.'”
“One day on set he was like, ‘do you work out?’ And I was like, ‘yep, yep.’ Old ‘Quadzilla’ here! And then he invited me round to the gym, and I went around, and these machines are enormous. He had taken all of the weights off all of the machines, so it was just the bars. Even then I was like, ‘I don’t think I can manage those.’ So I went in the corner and got onto an exercise bike, and popped in an audiobook. And he’s in the other corner with like a chain around his neck, and he’s crunching all of this iron and listening to rap music. And I’m over there, like, on a Call the Midwife [bike], pootling along!”
The Rock shared the interview clip on Twitter, adding some extra commentary which makes the story even better: “Funny stuff,” he said. “True story though. My Jungle Cruise co-star @jackwhitehall’s intro to my infamous Iron Paradise. (Jack excluded the part where he pee’d on himself a lil’ during his first rep).”
Whitehall shouldn’t be embarrassed, though: losing control like that can happen to even the most seasoned of athletes when they push themselves too hard. Just last week, strongman Eddie Hall, a previous winner of the World’s Strongest Man title, soiled himself and blacked out while attempting to leg press 2,200 pounds.
