Young Rock
Season 1 M-Net (*101) 19:00 Comedy
Biographical comedy series Young Rock (2021-now) explores the formative years of ex-WWE wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson at ages 10, 15 and 18-20. “I’m just a narrator and the real stars are the cast,” says the 48-year-old Dwayne, who reveals that because he was bigger than the kids his same age, the team had to cast actors older than versions of Dwayne that they’re playing. Like
Uli Latukefu (Byamba in period drama Marco Polo, 2014-2016), who is 37 and portraying 18-year-old Dwayne. “It’s adds to the comedy, but it’s accurate for how my life was,” adds The Rock.
Australian-born Uli has a Tongan 1 passport (Tonga is a Polynesian kingdom consisting of an island chain) and while he lives in Sydney, “Home is the islands. Our people are from there. Dwayne and I have a bond,” says Uli.
Uli and The Rock haven’t met yet 2 due to schedule clashes, but they videocall weekly. “He gave me a personalised workout to get into shape for his college version. I eat and live in the gym now. I’m a food vacuum,” adds Uli. 3 He and The Rock are both 1.96m tall, but they had very different varsity careers. While Dwayne was into gym and football, Uli was in the choir and entered reality show Australian Idol (2003-2009) when he was 21. He didn’t get through to auditions.
4 The actor didn’t have to worry about travelling during COVID-19 for the show – it’s filmed on location in Queensland, Australia.
There is one slight downside to his 5 role – the onscreen workouts. “In episode 1, I did 36 benchpress reps – 10 times. That’s 360! It hurt,” says Uli.