Vin Diesel Gave Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson “Tough Love” When He Joined The “F&F” Franchise

There have been reports of a rocky relationship between Vin Diesel and Dwayne ‘The Rock” Johnson…and now Vin is explaining all of that.

Diesel talks about Johnson in a new interview with Men’s Health about those headlines in 2016 of an on-set feud. In 2016, Johnson called a few of his male Fast & Furious co-stars  “candy a**es” and “unprofessional” on Instagram, so fans connected the dots to Diesel. A source told ET at the time that the two definitely clashed on set during filming.

Both have since downplayed feud reports, and Diesel now says that giving Johnson “tough love” was his intention for the good of the films.

“It was a tough character to embody, the Hobbs character,” Diesel says of Johnson’s character in the franchise. “My approach at the time was a lot of tough love to assist in getting that performance where it needed to be. 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. That’s something that I’m proud of, that aesthetic.”

“That took a lot of work,”  “We had to get there and sometimes, at that time, I could give a lot of tough love. Not Felliniesque, but I would do anything I’d have to do in order to get performances in anything I’m producing.”