Dwayne Johnson Gave A Very Inspiring Speech At The MTV Movie Awards

When Dwayne Johnson isn’t fighting building-sized monsters or Fast & Furious-ing, he’s tugging on all our heartstrings.

While accepting the MTV Generation Award Monday night at the MTV Movie & TV Awards, Johnson accepted his golden popcorn trophy with grace and humility, wowing the crowd with his heartfelt and inspiring speech about how he got to be, well, The Rock.

“When I first got to Hollywood — Hollywood, they didn’t know what the hell to do with me. I was this half-black, half-Samoan, 6-foot-4, 275-pound pro wrestler,” he told the packed crowd. “You know, I was told at that time, ‘You’ve got to be a certain way. You’ve got to drop some weight… You’ve got to stop working out.’ Stop doing the things that I love. ‘You’ve got to stop calling yourself The Rock’… And for years, I actually bought into it.”

Naturally, the Jumanji star quickly felt miserable doing that and listening to everyone but his gut. So, Johnson pushed back. He decided that he wasn’t going to conform to Hollywood, “Hollywood was going to conform to me […] and here I am with all of you getting the Generation Award… It’s important that you are your most authentic self. I’m a walking example of that.”

Johnson concluded his five-minute-plus speech with one helluva final line — a quote he first heard when he was 15 years old. One that has stuck with him (quite effectively) to this day: “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.” Watch the whole speech below.