Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was told he had to “slim down,” and basically change his entire self in order to be successful in Hollywood.

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This post includes topics of body image, body dysmorphia, and disordered eating. 

He told Men's Health, "You have all sorts of aged people around the world only talking about what you look like...I don’t think it’s really a conversation that people have in regards to men." He added, “It doesn’t keep me up at night, but it’s definitely frustrating. You’ll go to a shoot and you’ll be getting changed or something, and someone’s like, ‘Oooaaah, would you look?’ Can you imagine if I said to a woman, ‘Daaaaamn, look at your waist!’? Like, see you later. I would never do that, but I think people see it on their screens, so they think it’s okay.”

He added, "One of two things is gonna happen. You're either gonna continue to go down that road, that path, and you're gonna be miserable. And eventually, your career is probably gonna fizzle out. You're not gonna have any sense of longevity or quality to it. Or the other thing that's gonna happen, you're gonna say 'Fuck this shit. I'm gonna be me and we're gonna see what happens.'"

"I’ve sacrificed a lot of muscle. But I’m okay with it, because I just feel more comfortable,” he added.

"I think it was about control. I didn't feel like I had control over anything else in my life, but food was something I could control, so I did," he wrote. "I had lost so much weight I had become ill. The workload and the pace of life on the road put together with the pressures and strains of everything going on within the band had badly affected my eating habits."

However, he explained cutting out all training and healthy eating wasn't sustainable for him either. "At one point, that was a dream of mine — what it would be like to not have to be in shape all the time," he said. "What if I just say, 'Fuck it' and let myself go? So I tried it, and I was successful. And for all the reasons I thought it would be incredible, I was just miserable. My body would not feel healthy; I just didn’t feel alive. I felt bogged down and slow."

One of the most notable moments where Zac mentions his body image journey is during his docuseries Down To Earth With Zac Efron where he begins to tear up as he's eating pasta in Italy. "I'm so happy that I'm eating carbs again," he said. "I went, like, years without eating carbs. When I shot Baywatch, I didn't have a single carb for, like, six months. I almost lost my mind." 

He added, "There’s a lot of pressure out there on young people, both men and women, regarding body image. If you’re going to promote the process by which you achieved said body goal, I think you have to be fully transparent about how you got there."

"That wasn’t my natural body. I had to work very hard for it and very, very hard just to maintain it," he explained adding that he would be "forced" to go to the gym "multiple times a day, six days a week."

"I'm not saying it's anywhere near as bad as what women go through but I, as an actor approaching each job, am insecure – especially when I have to take my top off in it – and so nervous," he added. "I get really worked up to the point where I spend hours and hours in the gym and not eating for weeks to achieve what I think they're going for."

In an essay for Today, he continued, "For me, it has required some loud self-narrating to challenge my own ideas of body image and to remind myself of those things at times. ... I hope that discussions of body issues and self-criticism will become more of a conversation among men."

He said, "I have days where I really feel sexy and on top of the world, and I have days where I don’t. But more than everything, I can be at peace with who I am as a whole — my charisma, my humor, my soul. ... What started to click for me is that I wasn’t chosen [for the role] because of my looks or my martial arts ability or anything other than my ability to inhabit a character."

"It’s very easy to get obsessed with that number on the scale. ... It’s a tough thing. It's deceiving. You become obsessed with it. I certainly have, and for me, it’s not great to weigh myself every day," he told Vulture. 

He told Wired, "I feel like I was working hard consistently and all that stuff, but work got in the way."

He continued, "I’m human and I have feelings. Yes, I am older but I think it’s pretty cool...I have wrinkles and sunspots and grey hair but that’s okay."

He also told Cosmopolitan, "Because I have my insecurities with my physique, because of my history, I’d put a lot of pressure on myself before I had to do these scenes. So I would get anxiety around it. This last season [of Jane the Virgin], I really didn’t get to work out that much. ... I don't think I personally looked as good as I did in previous seasons, but I think emotionally and mentally, I was a lot happier."

He also said he finds it embarrassing to talk about how much a person is exercising, and claimed he "got in so much trouble" for saying he wasn't working out prior to starring in The Batman. 

The National Eating Disorders Association helpline is 1-800-931-2237; for 24/7 crisis support, text “NEDA” to 741741.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness is 1-888-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.