The credits say “Rodman Randolph” on the upcoming Warner Bros. film “Black Adam,” but Fauquier County folks know him as Rodman Munson, a 2014 Liberty High School graduate. Randolph joined a star-studded cast and worked on choreographed fights and stunts for the movie, which released in theaters last week.
Randolph said he was a stand-in for principal actors, helped with action scenes and worked as a background actor. “You’ll see me riding a moped and a bunch of different things throughout the movie,” he said.
The movie stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and the film follows his character, Black Adam, who is both a hero and an anti-hero in the DC Comics universe.
Johnson is one of Randolph’s biggest inspirations, and he said that working on his set was surreal — his favorite experience in the film industry yet. Randolph, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, said, “When I found out that “Black Adam” was filming in Atlanta, I decided that I wanted to be a part of the film, no matter what.”
“Even though I don’t have a lot of screen time, and this isn’t my biggest role that I’ve done, and I worked behind the camera for the most part, it’s actually the most fun I’ve had on set,” he said. “Definitely the highest budgeted set that I’ve worked on considering it’s a Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson movie. … So, to be on that set and to experience what those big roles are like was definitely a game changer for me.”
Randolph worked for two months under the scorching Atlanta sun in 2021. In May 2022, he spent a month completing reshoots.
Randolph was a stand-in for the actor Aldis Hodge, who plays Hawkman in the movie; he would stand in place as Hodge’s movie character to test for lighting and run lines with the other stand-ins. “[As] somebody [who] I look up to as a strong African American actor, it was really surreal to even just watch him perform every single day.”
He said he cannot give away too much information about the movie before it is released. That’s one of the biggest challenges he faced throughout filming the movie. The other major challenge was being under the harsh Atlanta sun for hours on end. “I got the meanest farmer’s tan I’ve ever had because I had this tank top I wore religiously throughout the movie because we shoot the same scene for three or four days in the same outfit,” Randolph said.
Randolph has been working in the film industry since 2017. He has worked on the TV series “Doom Patrol” and “Legacies.” He said his first big role was playing Chico DeBarge in the 2019 movie “The Bobby DeBarge Story.”
He said he worked all night to get his audition tape ready for that film. He didn’t hear anything for months until the casting director asked to hear him sing. He sent a video of himself singing a John Legend song, and soon after, he found himself sitting at a table reading with the cast and crew of the film.
He remembered, “When I sat down — and I still have the little title card — I sit down and I look in front of me, and it says Chico DeBarge on one side and then the other side it says Rodman Randolph, and I just got those goosebumps.”
Randolph said he always knew he wanted to be an actor. He remembered when he was 5 or 6 years old and being influenced by “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody” on the Disney Channel. He and his sister, Jordan Munson, who is 11 months older than him, called themselves the Wonder Twins. “We always had these plans being the Wonder Twins and being on TV.”
Randolph’s mom, Joanne Munson, said that their family thought Randolph’s older sister would be the one to go into the movie industry, and “then he just took off. … He was getting callbacks to Atlanta so frequently, he decided just to go, and he’s been there ever since.”
Munson and her husband, Michael Munson, were both involved in Liberty High School athletics, she as the cheerleading coach and he as a football coach. They began DJing to raise money for events, and it eventually turned into an entertainment company called KEEP DJ Service.
Randolph grew up playing football with Fauquier Youth Football and played high school ball for Liberty. “Those coaches and those peers and friends that I grew up around will forever be my greatest memories,” he said.
Randolph is the youngest of four children; his dad said he always was the clown and jokester of the family. “Rodman is a fun-loving, outgoing young man. He is just full of life and love, and he loves what he’s doing, and he loves people and entertaining.”
Both of his parents said they are excited to see him on this journey and to see him happy. “We’re ecstatic for him, and we support him 100%,” Joanne Munson said.
Randolph said he did not have connections to Hollywood or to people in the film industry, so he had to find his own way in. “I put in a lot of work and gave up a lot of my 20s just to pursue this industry and was put into the work force right after high school to pursue my dreams. It’s just been a grind and a hustle ever since.”
He said that he loves Fauquier County and the people he grew up with, but he wants people who may feel stuck in a profession or place to “follow your heart. Follow your passion and don’t be afraid to set sail. Don’t be afraid to go outside of your comfort zone.”
Randolph also directs and produces commercial projects and events, and he is in the process of launching his own production company, RnR Productions. He said he pursued the entertainment industry because he wanted “to make people enjoy film and television the way that I do.”
He said he hopes to work on more action movies in the future and would love to work with “The Rock” again one day. “Eventually, when I’m on set with [Johnson] officially, and I have a speaking role and we’re in the scene together, then I’ll be able to tell him that we met on ‘Black Adam’ way back in the day.”
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