The Rock’s Beef With Vin Diesel

0:02Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me Marina Hyde and me Richard Osman. Hello Marina. Hello Richard how are you? I'm very well. Today is the official day you're not allowed to say Happy New Year to anyone even if you haven't seen them before. This is the last, it's like the 12th night for Happy New Year. Osman has called it and that is what's happening. Listen it's not me calling it, that's just, it's in Debrets. It's something in the air, in the waters. Yeah exactly. No more Happy New Years. Can I give you an exclusive that our lovely friends at More in Common have sent us, the polling organisation.

0:35Yes. Because we're Absolutely loving Traitors. No spoilers, don't worry anybody, but anyone who's watching, it's, again, every series is different. It's like sport, the Traitors. Every series is different, but there's always stuff going on. But more in common, polled Traitors viewers, and they asked them their voting intentions, but they split it into people who would rather be a traitor and people who would rather be faithful. Okay? so traitors viewers if you just if the general election were tomorrow and it was the only people allowed to vote were people who would want to be a faithful if they were on the traitors we have a Labour landslide we have a 13 point victory for the Labour Party if however the general election was only people who would rather be a traitor we have a Tory landslide what does that tell us?

1:27what does that tell us? it tells us that people who wish to vote Labour don't understand that the strongest position in the game is being a traitor. And I'm very sorry, but that is moronic. I'm not, you know, I'm not doing a bit of politics here, but I have to say that's arresting. But I mean, it's quite often with those more uncommon things, you know, you get the occasional slight difference in things. That is a huge swing between people who'd rather be faithful on traitors and people who'd rather be a traitor. An absolutely huge, statistically significant thing. But yeah, I would always rather be a traitor.

2:02always, always, always rather be a traitor. we'd actually rather be. We would rather be a faithful who's late in the game recruited as a traitor, which is the strongest position. The thing I'd like most of all... They didn't poll on that. They did not poll. Come on, More In Common. The thing I'd like to be more on than anything is someone just watching the traitors. That's my favourite thing. But isn't that amazing? So faithfuls, huge Labour lead. Traitors, huge Tory lead. So thank you to More In Common. I think they're going to be tweeting that out today as well. Thank you for... The naivety is astounding.

2:30I'm talking about the traitors now what are we going to talk about today the first thing we're going to talk about is a brilliant new um celebrity beef between the rock and vin diesel well it's not new richard in fact we're going to the rest is history the hell out of this thing yeah in fact this is a 17 parter i'll look at the rest of history when they go we are going to talk about cambodia it's a 19 part and you go come on guys and then by number 18 you i want like nine more of these Well, I've got a tight 21 episodes on Vin Diesel vs. The Rock, but we're going to do it all in one sort of chunk.

3:07We were going to talk about the new Megan show, but it's been delayed. So rest assured, Megan will be coming in the next couple of weeks, her new lifestyle show. We're going to talk about the Robbie Williams movie, Better Man, which just opened in America. We shall tell you how it went. Spoiler alert, not brilliantly. And we're also going to be talking about the terrible fires in Los Angeles and really what it means for the aspect of the town that is and has always been the sort of centre of movie making in the popular imagination, if not in actual fact any longer. And what it means, I suppose, for film, for TV and for LA as a sort of a cultural idea, really.

3:44Yeah. Is it the end of Hollywood? Talking of the end of Hollywood, though, we'll start with The Rock versus Vin Diesel. As you say, this is a feud that goes back to around 2016. It goes back to 2016. They both appeared in Fast Five, the fifth film in the Fast and Furious franchise. Wow, that's a lot of Fs in one sense or so. That's a lot of Fs. So we're talking about it now because last Sunday, not the one we've just had, but the one before was the Golden Globes, which passed off relatively without incident. But Vin Diesel was on stage to present an award. Sadly, he wasn't going to be winning one.

4:16And when he came out to give it... Whenever you get a message that's from the BAFTAs or something, it says, attention, Richard Osmond. You think, hello, someone's been nominated. And they go, I wonder if you'd like to present the Best Factual Daytime Lifestyle Show award. And you go, ah, no. Okay, that, but with Vin Diesel. Yes. So he was presenting... I mean, I have a lot of Vin Diesel-like qualities. Yeah, yeah. Well, you both have very high-rating franchises. Yeah. Yours Literary, his... The Car thing. Yeah, The Car thing. I'm joking. because I've watched all the car thing. Anyway, he goes on stage, and he's about to present the award, and he sort of greets the audience as you do, and then he goes, hi, Dwayne, and they cut to The Rock in the audience, kind of slightly surprised by this moment, smiling, you know, awkward half grin.

5:03Yeah. And you're thinking, did The Rock just get served again? And what I have to do, really, as you're right, Richard, is I have to take you back to the year 2016. Yeah, deep dive, okay. Listen, Brexit is all the rage. It's a year of seismic shocks. Yeah, isn't it just? Trump and The Rock thinks that Vin Diesel is wet. Okay, right? Now, liberals didn't see any of those coming, right? Any of those things. Okay, let's get inside the action. It all started with an Instagram post by The Rock. He was filming Fast Five. Can I just say who's in that movie? Of course you can. Because we need to know who's in it, apart from the ladies.

5:41Everyone knows who's in Fast Five. Vin Diesel, The Rock, Jason Statham, Ludacris, Scott Eastwood. So it's beefcakes, but there's also the other type of beef, right? Yes. Now, normally The Rock would just do like workout tweets, like, you know, however many reps a minute, better never stops, loads of hashtags. Yes, likewise. And he salutes his female co-stars. Yeah, he says, he calls an unnamed member of the cast a candy ass. Yeah, he says some conduct themselves as stand-up men and true professionals, while others don't. The ones that don't are too chicken shit to do anything about it anyway. candy asses.

6:18Yeah. When you watch this movie next April and it seems like I'm not acting in some of these scenes, yes, I can imagine, and my blood is legit boiling, you're right. Well, that was the cat amongst the candy asses. So who is his beef with? Is it with Scott Eastwood? Is it with Ludacris? Is it with Jason Statham? Or... Or is it? Because, you see, the others are all complaining that they are all suspects. Remember, this is a movie essentially about people who drive cars between skyscrapers, right? It's the best kind of movie. But if that movie is Apocalypse Now, then this tweet is its Hearts of Darkness, right?

6:53That's the documentary that Adam Coppola made about the making of. So who is the candy ass? Somehow you've got to go to work. You've somehow got to pretend you're driving a car into a Chinook or something. Or a Chinook into a car. Or a Chinook into a car. And you've got this hanging over your head slash candy ass. Yes. Right? And maybe your head looks a bit like a candy ass. Because it emerges that the candy ass in question is none other than Mr. Vin Diesel, real name Mark Sinclair. Mark Sinclair, Mark Candy Ass Sinclair. I often wonder about the choice of diesel. Because, you know, I speak American and he doesn't go with gasoline, which we call petrol.

7:36He goes with diesel. Vin Octane is a good name. He goes with diesel. and I sometimes think that it's because actually although it may seem sort of expensive and quite unsexy in some ways yeah if you have to go over a long distance with it and Christ knows if you've got to do 11 movies with it it begins to make sense as a value proposition diesel over long distances I don't think I see what you mean but if I was Vin Diesel and then all the stuff came out about all the emissions tests cheating by Volkswagen and others about diesel cars and suddenly diesel is uh is less of a great brand for him yeah you know diesel lost a lot of its luster well he's he's yet to comment on it vin rouge i would call myself after that so there was a huge drama with this business with the rock right but they somehow managed to wrap the movie and the rock says you know with any family there's going to be conflict another post family is going to have differences opinion blah blah like any family we get better from it He said, I was raised on healthy conflict.

8:40That's what The Rock said. And I relish it. Yeah. They all say that Fast and Furious is about family. They talk about that all the time. That's the only thing that they can think it's about. It's about car crashes. It's literally about driving a Lycan Hypersport between one skyscraper in Abu Dhabi and another. By the way, I love the Fast and Furious franchise. So do I. What's it all? Absolutely. So all of this is said with love for the franchise. Yeah. Yeah, and I love that we're both now talking like them, like with love, like brothers. This comes from a place of resolve. Yeah, so two of my brothers, Dwayne and Vin, they're having an argument.

9:17Anyway, so it becomes apparent that the candy ass is Vin. It becomes public that it's Vin. There's all sorts of stuff in the lead up to that movie coming out. All this family stuff. Well, they can really get into it once they're off set. And also, you know, The Rock says it's actually been very good for tracking. so he's been very good for box office The Rock is one of those people who talks to people he has that slight bit of knowledge so he'll talk about movies in that way so he'll say you know the irony is that when they did that the tracking went through the roof he talks about the fans and says I love you so much all I care about is you but he also has to constantly bore them with his reps per minute and nonsense about the tracking of a movie and verticals which he did you remember Red One was this movie at Christmas Yeah, the Christmas one.

10:04Yeah, well, we'll come to that one in a minute. Oh, really? That complete Shat the Bed in theatres. Right back then, when this movie's come out, he is saying, because everyone's asking about the tweet or the Instagram post or whatever it was, Vin says, I protect the franchise. I protect everyone, including Dwayne. Oh! I protected Dwayne more than he'll ever know. And it doesn't matter. He doesn't have to know. Well, you're saying it in The Rolling Stone or something. But anyway, but he appreciates it. He knows it. Dwayne has only got one Vin in his life. Dwayne Johnson has one big brother in this film world.

10:32and that's me. But didn't he say, you said, I protected Dwayne more than he'll ever know. He doesn't have to know, but he knows. That's covered everything. At which point, I think, I'm going to give an interview to Rolling Stone in which he says, we have a fundamental difference in philosophies of how we approach movie making and collaborating. All right, Amadova. Vin Diesel then thinks, I'm not having that. So he goes back and he says, look, it was a really tough character to embody the Hobbes character. a sort of law enforcement agent turned one of the gang. My approach at the time was a lot of tough love to assist in getting that performance where it needed to be.

11:10Oh, are you talking about giving the rock acting lessons? Yeah. 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 this character as someone they don't know. Okay. He hits you like a ton of bricks. That's something I'm proud of. You're proud of the rock's performance. Interesting. I could give a lot of tough love, not Fellini-esque. oh you spoil me then oh you're not Fellini as you say sorry Vin can we just because I've been listening back to the transcript of the interview I did just one other question there's a point at where it sounds like you're saying that you're not Federico Fellini I assume you're saying that you are Federico Fellini what he says is I would do anything I'd have to do in order to get performances in anything I'm producing that is it for The Rock another interview in which he says essentially by the way his performance is having his like kind of elbow out of the window while he's driving.

12:03Again, I love the franchise. Which I love it. I love the franchise. Okay, so by the way, these interviews, these dueling interviews have taken us all the way to sort of past Fast 8 at this point. And then he says, The Rock says, I wish them well on Fast 9 and I wish them the best of luck on Fast 10 and Fast 11 and the rest of the Fast and Furious movies they do that will be without me. And they said, what do you think about the tough love comments that Vin Diesel made about your acting? And he said, I laughed and laughed hard. So at this stage, he has said, listen, I loved being in that movie.

12:36There is absolutely no way, there is no way I'm ever going to do another Fast and Furious movie. For those catching up, Marina, did he do another Fast and Furious movie? Well, what Vin Diesel does, first of all, he gets John Cena, one of The Rock's rivals, into some of the previous Fast movies. Clever. He then says to The Rock, will he be joining in again? And he says in 2021, The Rock says, I will not be returning to that franchise. Never. I'm looking at the end credit scene in Fast 10 in 2023. And this confirms that Luke Hobbs, a.k.a. The Rock, will be back for Fast 11. And you know what The Rock says?

13:20Because this is how he talks. We'll lead with brotherhood and resolve and always take care of the franchise, characters and fans that we love i've built my career on an audience first mentality and that will always serve as my north star everything he talks about has to be like this uh we've been brothers for years and you know despite our differences when you lead with the idea of resolve but you think about the future you think about fans that are much bigger than ourselves wow when you face the future with resolve yeah and you think about fans who are much bigger than ourselves there's not many fans who are much bigger than the rock no well you know my thoughts that he's certainly not six foot five.

13:58Yes, well, we talked about that. What is he, like five, seven? No, I think he's probably six foot. We've spoken about this previously, but it's all to us going into it again, and we will make sure that the clip is in the show notes, where the Rock and Vin Diesel are facing up to each other, or so it seems like they're going tit to tit, really, in their ridiculous vest. Yes, yeah, peck to peck. Peg to peck. I don't know the names of their muscles. It's not for me. And it looks as though there's... And then when you actually look, and because of the relative difference in height, they have to actually be...

14:30The way the camera angles work, they're not even opposite each other. They're sort of next to each other, but facing different ways. Oh, like a perspective thing. Yeah, it's a freaky game of perspective and it's very funny and we'll put it in the show notes. So who's taller? The Rock is taller. Is he? Yeah. See, Vin Dietl is older. Yeah. The Rock is taller. It's like me and my brother. It's exactly the same. And he actually... I'd watch that franchise. I think of my brother very much like... He's like a brother to me. Yeah. He really, really is. So, OK, so The Rock is taller, but Vin Diesel feels like he's in charge of this franchise.

15:02But Vin Diesel probably feels like The Rock is more famous than him. Vin Diesel, let me tell you, will be so thrilled that Red One opened in cinemas and didn't do anything. OK, this is the Christmas movie just before this Christmas we've last had that didn't do well. OK, so Amazon then rush it onto streaming only for The Rock to tweet, our little Christmas movie by the way it cost$250 million without marketing so we're nearing about half a billion dollars here our little Christmas movie Red One shattered a viewing record on Amazon Prime Video with 50 million views this past weekend Red One has a very long shelf life with multiple verticals kudos to our Amazon partners for their strategic win that's just getting started he's such a man of the people he's such an algorithm frotter isn't he just the way he talks an algorithm frotter is this a thing?

15:50It is now. I think I might be an algorithm frotter. Oh no, me and the rock. Well, you know, don't be an algorithm frotter, but he is one. And, you know, Merry Christmas verticals. Yeah. We're walking along in a verticals wonderland. Yeah, we used to call them chimneys. Yeah. I mean, I suppose what you wanted to be, you wanted to be Schwarzenegger. And there was a point, don't forget, there has been serious points where people have talked about the rock as a future president. And, you know, there may well be again. I mean, there were times when he was talking about running in 2020, 2024, that he wanted to be Schwarzenegger.

16:25He wanted to be the action star who becomes the sort of political figure. Obviously, Schwarzenegger became governor of California. But the trouble is, I think he's significantly more limited than Schwarzenegger. So it's very hard to know who is sort of totally on top in this thing, because it does remain Vin Diesel's franchise. But they're so good at getting people thinking about that. I mean, I want all celebrities, to be very, very clear, I love the franchise and I want all celebrities to behave like this, if possible, at all times. Beefs non-stop. Non-stop beef. I want Alistair Campbell to do a quote saying, one of my co-stars is a candy ass, and we have to work out who that might be.

17:03I mean, you know I would faint for it. I want the behind the scenes on it 100%. Okay, so after the Golden Globes, when everybody's talking about, oh my God, it's going to be so awkward, because they haven't gone on set for Fast 11 yet. They suddenly won't have a script. As far as I know, when they get on set, they never have a script for this thing. is whatever Vin wants. So there will be Candy House fireworks from that set. Candy House fireworks? Let me assure you. Charlie XCX's new album. He posted a picture of The Rock after saying, all love, always. Vin Diesel did. Yeah, a picture of him in The Rock from Fast Five saying, all love, always.

17:37So that is the history of their feud. And in a darkening world, can we just give thanks for stars that behave in this preposterous fashion with incredibly low stakes that you could never possibly take seriously and can just enjoy. Yes, it has zero real world impact, does it? Yeah, no. Because the other issue, of course, is Vin Diesel is not a bad actor. If you watch something like Boiler Room, which is his first big movie, he's really good in it before he was a big action star. And, you know, perhaps The Rock maybe has a more limited scope of acting skills. Yeah, because you know what, Vin Diesel...

18:13I might have spoken about this on the podcast before, but I'm sorry if I'm invested in this project almost as much as Vin Diesel is. What Vin Diesel really wants to do and what he's wanted to do ever since he exploded onto our screens in XXX as a sort of, you know... Yeah, Zonda Cage. Yeah, Zonda Cage. Who's like Zonda Armstrong meets Nicholas Cage. An extreme sports version of James Bond. Yeah, which by the way is a really good idea. I'm surprised it didn't do better. Yeah, anyway. What he's always wanted is someone to say, look, you've driven enough cars into helicopters now. What I want to do, Vin, is give you basically$500 million so you can make your Hannibal epic.

18:51And I'm not talking about serial killer. I am talking Vin Diesel wants to take a bunch of elephants across the Alps in a sort of ancient Rome kind of epic. And he has wanted to do that. And you can find ever since he first, as I say, he first appeared on our screens as Zander Cage. He has given interviews, given updates on where we are. we nearly got the money, we haven't got the money, I still want to do it. One of the elephants has died. He just feels if he just once more goes round the block in a really fast car, then someone is going to shut down a ski resort for him and get a load of pachyderms and let him make the movie he was born to make.

19:36I'm surprised someone hasn't. That never kind of makes sense. Would you give half... Would I? if you had half a billion how many billions would you have to have to give half of one to Vin Diesel I mean I actually wouldn't have to have that many to just watch the spectacle even Elon Musk you'd go into his office and go listen it would really rile the libs if you did this even he'd be going I don't know it's a lot of money please let him have some elephants and one of the lesser ski resorts so he can take these elephants across the Alps let's crowd fund it from the rest of the entertainment listeners Let's get Vin Diesel up an Alp.

20:13Hashtag get Vin Diesel up an Alp. I want this to happen so much. I genuinely think I could be more invested in it than him. This is what I'm going to do. I'll say to Vin Diesel, I have the money for you. I have the whole thing. I've gone to Gary Lineker. I've got the money. But Dwayne the Rock Johnson has to be in it as well. I'm not playing an elephant. There you go. Let's do that. Let's get Vin Diesel on the phone. Oh, God, I really want this so much. Okay. Fast and Furious is the opposite of elephants who are sort of, and essentially that's what he wants to do slow and thoughtful but again, big units big units, big muscle units just call it Vin if you're listening, he does listen doesn't he because he sent a question in didn't he about blockbusters, if you're listening call it big units okay, because suddenly everyone's going to fund that Vin Diesel in big units that's got big units four Or Big Units 5, where essentially he gets other animals and takes them up other mountains.

21:13Yeah, but watch this space. Vin Diesel's mum. Do you know what Vin Diesel's mum does for a living? No. She's an astrologer. Is she? Yeah. You like? I really like it. She's called Elaine Diesel. She's not, I don't know what her name is, but she's an astrologer. Elaine St. Clair, presumably. Yeah, well, I don't think she's even called Elaine. Oh, right, okay. Yeah, that's just my go-to name. That's my go-to if I'm making her name up. shall we go for a little advert Tron Ares has arrived I would like you to meet Ares the ultimate AI soldier he is biblically strong and supremely intelligent you think you're in control of this you're not on October 10th what are you?

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22:15Welcome back, everybody. Now, we are going to talk about the fires in Hollywood, what it means for the entertainment industry. Obviously, at the heart of all of this is people have lost their homes and their livelihoods and what have you. We will focus on what it means for Hollywood, but we're not in any way downplaying how difficult it's been for everybody out there and continues to be so. Absolutely. Lots of people were thinking about leaving LA anyway before this happened. And I've talked to so many people over the past week, people connected with the industry, people in the industry in LA who've said that it's sort of extraordinary because they really felt the town was on the brink anyway.

22:53One of the things I found quite interesting was when they said how many shows have been shut down because of the fires. And really, there are so few. It's almost none. So much production no longer happens in L.A. It doesn't happen at all in L.A. It happens basically because L.A. hasn't kept pace with tax credits and things like that. And so production, there are a whole other sense that, you know, Netflix has got this amazing kind of like spaceship like facility down in Albuquerque in New Mexico. Yeah, New Mexico gets a lot. Atlanta gets a lot. The U.K. gets an awful lot. Essentially, in any way you can get tax incentives.

23:28And as you say, LA has been slower on tax incentives than other places. I guess because traditionally it was the heart and home of movies. So why would you offer those tax incentives? Because of course people are going to film in LA. But it's been getting less and less. I think 25 % of all film and TV production was actually done in LA in 2013. And that's come down from, you know, 35%, 45%. So it's getting smaller and smaller, the industry in LA anyway. The pandemic put people out of work. strikes again put people out of work i mean it's really difficult again many of the people i've spoken to this week have said they hear they hear so many terrible stories of people just thinking i'm going to leave la but because of the nature of the business in so many ways it's what it's it's a real sort of american dream business in lots of ways that you can tell yourself that you're involved in making magic and therefore it's much harder to leave that job and do something completely different than it might be in in other ways and so people i'm talking about crew what we'd call below the line people it's like that wonderful joke in the franchise your show yeah which isn't coming back by the way oh no no not not enough people watched it i mean that's the business that's the business yeah it's council where there's the guy who works in a circus and his job is following the elephants and shoveling their dung all day and his friend says i found your job in an office he goes well i'm not going to do that give up show business i'm afraid yeah Yeah, that is really it.

24:53And, you know, I was talking to one showrunner and he said he was hearing of many suicides. People have been out of work. Crew have been out of work for a long time. The strikes made it really difficult. There's a production slowdown. There's a huge production contraction because, as we know, in the streaming wars, there was a kind of race for scale. And so people spent money they didn't have to build scale and to kind of win. And therefore there were huge numbers of shows being made. and it's going to come down to about half the amount of scripted shows. So there isn't the work. There are very different estimates of how many people in LA work in the film and TV industry, but it's a minimum of sort of 200 ,000 people.

25:33It's a lot of people. Lots of them are living in communities that have been, not the sort of great big mansions, which obviously have also burnt down, but in communities that have been like Alter Dina and places like that where have been completely devastated by far and people have lost their homes. So a lot of people were on the brink with staying in L.A. before all this happened. There's so much long term unemployment. One thing I wanted to talk about a bit because it's such a fascinating book. And as soon as I sort of saw the news starting to happen, I thought of this book. It's by a guy called Mike Davis.

26:03It's called Ecology of Fear and it was published in 1998, which is when I read it. And it's absolutely extraordinarily prescient as a book. Now, Mike Davis was a kind of urban theorist. He was a radical. He was an anti-capitalist in lots of ways. He was a sort of globalization visionary. The book talks about all sorts of climate stuff, but he also has this incredibly eclectic mind and he was particularly fascinated. You know, he loved culture and he was sort of fascinated by the way that LA is both a utopia and a dystopia for kind of advanced capitalism. It's this kind of dream factory, but it's also a kind of place of nightmares in lots of ways.