Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has revealed that he was once considered for the role of Willy Wonka in Tim Burton’s remake of the classic movie.

• Read more: The Willy Wonka reunion – what the cast of the cult kids film are doing now

The actor took to Instagram yesterday (July 27) to share a clip from the 1971 film Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, which starred Gene Wilder as the owner of a magic chocolate factory.

“This morning I introduced our babies to one of my all time fav films – Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” he captioned the post. “They loved it and now fully expect me to deliver a room full of chocolate and candy.”

The Rock then went on to explain that he was considered for the lead role in the 2005 Tim Burton remake, which saw Johnny Depp take on the role of Wonka, but it was at a time when he didn’t have “any real acting experience to even pull it off.”

“Some cool history – back in the early 2000’s, iconic director, Tim Burton had considered me to play Willy Wonka is his remake, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” he said. “I remember thinking ‘HOLY SHIT, IM IN’”

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This morning I introduced our babies to one of my all time fav films – Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. They loved it and now fully expect me to deliver a room full of chocolate and candy. That’ll be my next project ? Some cool history – back in the early 2000’s, iconic director, Tim Burton had considered me to play Willy Wonka is his remake, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I remember thinking “HOLY SHIT, IM IN” ? ???‍♂️ But that was many years ago when I was just starting out in Hollywood with no foundation of global box office strength or any real acting experience to even pull it off. The role, of course went to Johnny Depp, who at that time was the biggest star in the world. The rest was history. And down the road I went. The fact that Tim even considered me (albeit I’m sure he considered for all of 7 seconds:) sure meant a helluva lot to me as I was just breaking in to the business with no idea what the future had in store. I’ll always raise a glass ? to the dreams that don’t come true, because sometimes they’re the best thing that never happened. #BigBrownBaldTattooedWonka ???

A post shared by therock (@therock) on Jul 26, 2020 at 4:01pm PDT

He continued: “But that was many years ago when I was just starting out in Hollywood with no foundation of global box office strength or any real acting experience to even pull it off. The role, of course went to Johnny Depp, who at that time was the biggest star in the world. The rest was history. And down the road I went.

“The fact that Tim even considered me (albeit I’m sure he considered for all of 7 seconds:) sure meant a helluva lot to me as I was just breaking in to the business with no idea what the future had in store.”

The Rock concluded his post by saying that he’ll “always raise a glass to the dreams that don’t come true, because sometimes they’re the best thing that never happened.” He followed it by hash tagging the post “#BigBrownBaldTattooedWonka.”

Meanwhile, The Rock’s autobiographical sitcom Young Rock has been confirmed to air in the US this autumn via NBC.

The project was announced earlier this year, retelling the actor and former WWE wrestler’s formative years.

Johnson will serve as an executive producer on the 11-episode series, and will star in the show.