Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has once again given Vancouver an aw-shucks moment.
The Hollywood star, who is in Vancouver to film the action-thriller Skyscraper, invited 10-year-old Jacob O’Connor for a visit on the set.
Jacob had found his two-year-old brother face down in their grandmother’s swimming pool. He rescued his brother using “the St. Andreas move” — a scene he remembered from Johnson’s movie, St. Andreas.
An Instagram video of the two of them in Vancouver has been viewed 1.2 million times.
Jacob appears nonplussed by all the fake blood on Johnson’s shirt as he gets a tour of the set.
“Jacob was super nervous and shy the whole time we hung out, so it was fun getting him to laugh and talk,” Johnson wrote on Instagram.
But what really struck Johnson in the heart was the photo on the back of Jacob’s shirt. It showed Johnson with his two puppies, Brutus and Hobbs, after Johnson had rescued them from the family’s swimming pool. Brutus later died.
“It wasn't the picture of Brutus that made me tear up,” Johnson says. “It was the fact that this 10yr old kid, had a heart big enough to put our puppies on his shirt after he saved his little 2yr old brother's life.”
In early August, it was Vancouverites’ turn to be thrilled when Johnson recounted his first trip to Vancouver and how it changed his life.
Sharing the story of how he was fired from the Calgary Stampeders three days after his first professional football game in Vancouver, Johnson says, "You've got to get up and have faith that the one thing you wanted to happen often times is the best thing that never happened.”
