Dwayne Johnson sounds genuinely bummed Kevin Hart is too busy to play Odd Couple with him

Johnson says he's been trying for at least two years to get a Broadway revival of The Odd Couple with Hart off the ground.

By William Hughes  |  July 11, 2026 | 5:04pm
Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, Photo: Stuart C. Wilson
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Dwayne Johnson sounds genuinely bummed Kevin Hart is too busy to play Odd Couple with him

The fame differential between Dwayne Johnson and his long-time buddy, stand-up comic Kevin Hart, is an interesting one to consider. When the two first started working together—via their 2016 comedy vehicle Central Intelligence—Johnson was at what was, in hindsight, a peak of his Hollywood career, his action star bona fides propped up with a Fast And Furious tenure as-yet unmarred by the scandals of CandyAssGate, and without a failed superhero film launch and an extended slump down in the Netflix movie mines dragging down his star. Hart, meanwhile, was already a massively successful stand-up, but he’s arguably only gotten bigger since; he hasn’t popped up in that many movies lately, but it doesn’t seem to have hurt his recognition factor, with Netflix’s recent Roast Of him drawing massive viewership (and controversy).

All of which we got to thinking about today, after reading comments Johnson recently made, expressing what sounded like genuine sorrow that his little buddy is too busy to hang out on Broadway with him. Johnson, promoting his live-action Moana, told People this week that he, Hart, and producer Jeffrey Seller have been working for “the past two and a half to three years” to launch a show that would serve as Johnson’s debut on the Great White Way: A revival of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple with Johnson and Hart in the lead roles. “We should’ve been great. Kevin is my best friend. I love him to death, and the truth is is he’s so booked for the next three to five years,” Johnson laments. “That’s his schedule, that’s a reality. I totally get it. And I love it and I respect him for that. We do Jumanji, which we’ll promote that at the end of the year, but I’m not letting that dream go.”

Tragically, Johnson did not state which roles he and Hart had each talked about doing. The natural assumption is that Johnson would gravitate to the scrappier Oscar, while Hart would dial up his neuroses to embody Felix—but that doesn’t feel like it’d have to be set in stone. Hell, they could swap parts each night, making this Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart’s True West—a sentence we’re pretty sure has never graced the English language before. 

 
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