DWAYNE JOHNSON - THE ROCK LIVES HIS AMERICAN FOOTBALL DREAMS

Former wrestler DWAYNE 'THE ROCK' JOHNSON is living his life-long fantasy by playing an American football player in THE GAME PLAN. THE MUMMY RETURNS star won a football scholarship to Florida's University Of Miami as a young man, but never took his sport skills to a professional level. To research his role in the upcoming movie, which starts filming in Massachusetts next month (SEP06), Johnson has been hanging out with New England Patriots Quarterback TOM BRADY. Johnson enthuses, "I'm playing a NFL quarterback and I never made it to the NFL - I wasn't that good. "I get to go to the Super Bowl! I'm becoming MVP! And I'm Tom Brady." Johnson was forced to start work on the movie later than he hoped after injuring his Achilles tendon while practising his football. He says, "As soon as it happened I knew what it was. I remember putting my hands on my hips and thinking two things: 'OK, now I gotta get home and get this reattached, and number two, that's a lot of jobs in Boston that just got put on hold.' I was p**sed. "I love football. For me, between GRIDIRON GANG, where I get to play a probation officer and a (football) coach and in The Game Plan, I'm living out my dream."