Dwayne Johnson Explains Why He’s Running for President in Young Rock

Dwayne Johnson appeared on Wednesday night’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to help promote next week’s premiere of his new series Young Rock. The show recaps the former WWE Champion’s life from three different points in his childhood — when he was 10 living in Hawaii, when he was 15 living in Nashville and having run-ins with the law and when he was 18 and heading off to the University of Miami to play college football. But Johnson himself stars in the fourth time period, set in 2032 while he’s running for President of the United States. Fallon asked how that idea — which Johnson has stated his interest in before — was sewn into the show.

“It was our show creator, Nahnatchka Khan, who is just such a brilliant woman,” Johnson explained. “First of all, we wanted to figure out three points of my life that were defining times. When I was 10 years old living here in Hawaii, when I was 15 years old after multiple arrests and doing a lot of things I shouldn’t be doing. And then when I was 18 years old, when I started to get my life a little bit back on track going to the University of Miami. Then she had said, ‘Well, ultimately the audience is going to want to see you. What’s a creative way that we can infuse you into the show?’”

Khan eventually pitched him running for president a decade into the future. Johnson was initially hesitant.

“I said, ‘I don’t know, it feels a little political.’ And she goes, ‘Well there might be a few people who want to see you run for president, so think about it,’” he said. “So I went home, I talked to Lauren (Hashian, Johnson’s wife), as you and I do we go home and talk to our wives. Lauren said, ‘I think you should do it, I think it’s great.’”

Young Rock premiers on Feb. 16 on NBC. The official synopsis for the show reads, “‘Young Rock’ focuses on different chapters of Dwayne Johnson‘s life. From growing up in a strong and resilient family to being surrounded by the wild characters of his professional wrestling family, to playing football at the University of Miami, the show will explore the crazy rollercoaster that has shaped Dwayne into the man he is today and the larger-than-life characters he’s met along the way.”