Former WWE Star Matt Hardy Recalls The Moment He Thought The Rock Was A 'Cool Dude'

While he is now one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, there was once a time when Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was a young, up-and-coming professional wrestler. Speaking on a recent episode of "The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy," former WWE star Matt Hardy shared his and his brother Jeff's early impressions of Johnson while working together in WWE.

"We were there as extras, and we were around pretty often," Hardy said. "[Johnson] was always so nice. ... I remember we were driving around and we weren't sure where the building was, and we pulled up to a stoplight and he was there. He was like, 'Hey! What's going on Hardys? How you doing?'"

Hardy revealed that Johnson offered to lead them to the arena, as he had performed there before and knew where he was going. Additionally, Johnson had already offered to show a few other performers how to get to the arena, and they were already following in the car behind him.

"That [was] one of our first interactions with him, and we were like, 'Man, what a cool dude,'" Hardy continued. "He was like, 'Oh, just follow me. I'll take you there.' And he made sure we got through the gate. So that left a huge impression on us right from the jump."

After beginning his professional wrestling career in 1996, Johnson took only a few years to climb to the top of the industry. He began taking roles in Hollywood starting in 2001, with his performance as The Scorpion King in "The Mummy Returns." A few years later Johnson became a full-time actor, making relatively few appearances in WWE since. The Rock did appear on the September 15 edition of "WWE SmackDown," and has also teased the possibility of facing Roman Reigns next year at WWE WrestleMania 40.