By Zack Sharf

According To The variety Dwayne Johnson was headlining one family movie after another following the launch of his acting career with 2002’s “The Scorpion King.” He was successful, but he yearned for more. A lot more. Johnson told his agents that he wanted to be bigger than Will Smith. When they expressed skepticism, he got rid of them.

As reported in Johnson’s new GQ cover story: “He surveyed the landscape, noted who was at the top of it. And he went to his agents and said, despite whatever recent setbacks he’d experienced, he had an idea, or simply an ambition: He wanted to have the career of George Clooney or Will Smith. But bigger, perhaps, or better. When his agents seemed skeptical of this plan, he found new agents.”

“That was the idea back then,” Johnson now told GQ looking back at his plan, admitting that he did think “I could be bigger” than Clooney and Smith. “And I mean that respectfully. But also maybe do things differently, because there’s no blueprint, I feel like, for a guy like me, who looks like me. But I feel now looking back on the career…. Bigger than Will, bigger than George? I think the declaration is just: different.” Johnson is now one of the biggest actors and producers in the world. His total box office earnings are well above the $4.5 billion mark, which means he was quite successful in his mission to be as famous as Clooney and Smith. How did he do it? Part of his talent, he told GQ, was not only picking the right projects that appealed to his fans but also choosing the right time to release them. “So the date is Christmas, X year,” Johnson said. “Year and a half, two years before that: ‘There’s our date.’ Now here comes the film. Now we work backwards from there. And I found myself doing that for years, actually. And it worked and it served me back then because it helped build my career.”

“I had this conceit and I idealized what my career should be,” he added. “[The conceit was]: Audience first. Let’s take care of the audience first. So I get a piece of material, I’d look at it and think, ‘Okay, does this have four-quadrant capability and opportunity? Are audiences going to like seeing me in this role?’”

Johnson’s mindset let him to a big and broad Hollywood career with huge hits like “Moana,” the “Fast & Furious” franchise, “Jumanji” and more. His latest movie, the Christmas action comedy “Red One,” debuts in theaters Nov. 15 from Amazon MGM Studios.