Saraya Recalls The Rock Telling Her He Wanted To Make A Movie On Her Life

AEW star Saraya has recalled the incredible moment when The Rock told her we wanted to make a movie about her life and career.

Fighting With My Family was the hit movie that came out in 2019, produced by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s Seven Bucks Productions, it starred Florence Pugh in the role of Saraya Knight – who WWE fans came to know as Paige. The movie tracked the English star’s adventure from being part of a British wrestling family to becoming a major star in the world of WWE.

Speaking on the Insight podcast with Chris Van Vliet, Saraya explained how she found out directly from Dwayne Johnson that he wanted to make a movie about her life on the same night she found out she was going to make her WWE main roster debut and win the Divas Championship:

“I was 21 when Dwayne first told me that he was making this movie and I’m like, a 21-year-old is being told they’re about to have a movie made about that life. Like by The Rock, that is the wildest like I’ve had a really wild life, a good life, with some ups and downs, you know, but like, I have to be grateful for what I have, like his I’ve had some really cool opportunities. And I mean, just having the movie I should like, a person should be dead when they get a movie, right? That’s usually how it works. But not me, I was alive and kicking.”

“So it was the day before. And I’ve told this story a lot, but people need to hear it if they haven’t heard it, it’s just surreal. So like, obviously, you know, you’re in NXT, or FCW, or whatever it was. But when you go up onto the main roster for big pay-per-views, you get to experience everything, right? So I was up there at WrestleMania and I was sitting in catering and then I get a text from my friend being like, ‘hey, it’s DJ I would love to see you at some point.’ And I’m like, who the f*ck is DJ and why is he texting my phone? I was like, who is this person?”

“And so Dean Malenko was like it’s Dwayne Johnson. And I was like, oh, oh my gosh, Dwayne Johnson is texting my phone this is crazy. Like, freaking this legend is texting my phone. So I was like, okay, so I was like, Yeah, I’m available at any point you know, whenever you need me – just try to be cool, you know. And so he sent someone to come grab me. I go to his locker room, I walk in, and then he was just like, hey, I’m DJ. And I’m like, yeah, I know, this is crazy. Hello, I’m Saraya.”

“He was like I know, I watched your movie, or I watched your documentary that your family had. He was like, I couldn’t sleep one night while filming Fast and Furious, which thank God for insomnia, because it helped me here. But yeah, he watched it and he just fell in love with my family. And he was just like, I want to make a movie on your life. And I was like, oh my gosh, what the f*ck? Are you serious? And then he was like, yeah, and then I was just in the writer’s room, and tomorrow, you’re gonna debut and you’re gonna win the Divas Championship.”

Saraya then explained how it was a few years before the movie actually entered production and it was almost scrapped altogether because of the very public mistakes she was making at the time:

“[…] The movie doesn’t get made until a few years later, you know, everyone is in production and then nearly got, like, stopped completely because of the mistakes I was making so publicly, you know, and so like, I need to get my sh*t together because I was like, if this movie doesn’t get made because of my actions, I’m going to ruin the rest of my life. So I eventually did though, and it did come out and I did get my sh*t together, and the movie was a hit.”

Saraya will return to the ring for the first time in almost five years at AEW Full Gear when she goes one-on-one with Dr. Britt Baker DMD on the 19th of November.

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