Dwayne Johnson made switching careers look like a breeze.
The current third season of NBC's Young Rock will explore young Dwayne's (Uli Latukefu) transition from the wrestling ring to the big screen, something he says he owes in part to Saturday Night Live in this exclusive interview with E! News.
At the height of his WWE fame, the now five-time SNL host made his debut on the sketch comedy series in March 2000, after which he said, "Hollywood came knocking."
"I think Hollywood had their eye on me," he added, "according to some who now take credit for my transition into Hollywood."
Dwayne said answering the call from SNL creator and producer Lorne Michaels about hosting was "one of the easiest yeses that I've ever said in my life." But he did have one request for the comedy legend.
"I said, 'I would love if we could take a crack at not doing any skits where I'm a wrestler,'" the 50-year-old shared. "'I would like to play as many characters as possible that aren't wrestlers because I am a wrestler, and I play a wrestler every week.'"
Luckily, Lorne gave the okay, and the star went on to have "a great week of creative and storytelling and creating these skits and putting these skits together," he said, "and I think it worked out really well."
Having gone on to star in comedy movies such as Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Baywatch and Central Intelligence over the years, Dwayne certainly learned a thing or two from SNL cast members like Will Ferrell, Cheri Oteri and Chris Kattan, whom he called "a killer's row on comedic actors."
"I had an amazing time," Dwayne concluded. "And it was after that that we got a few big calls from some Hollywood studios saying, 'Is The Rock interested in breaking into Hollywood and making movies?' And that started the first step of many."
Check out the interview above and catch a new episode of Young Rock tonight at 8:30 p.m. on NBC.
(E! and NBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)