Dwayne Johnson at the premiere of San Andrea. Photo: Reuters

Rock mania hit London on Thursday, when wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson, better known as The Rock, stepped out for the world premiere of his new film, San Andreas.

The 43-year-old star took to the red carpet in London’s Leicester Square with co-stars Kylie Minogue, Alexandra Daddario and Carla Gugino and director Brad Peyton.

Before the screening of the disaster drama, the Fast and Furious actor posed for selfies with more than 100 fans, who were allocated numbers in an attempt to set a new world record for the greatest number of selfies within three minutes. Johnson had to get more than 75 in-focus shots, taken by his own hand.

“I gotta tell you, I consider myself the selfie king and I’m going to break this record in London,” he said before the challenge.

Once the three minutes were up, an official from Guinness World Records analysed the pictures and returned at the end of the premiere to announce that Johnson had set a new best by taking 105 eligible selfies and presented him with a certificate.

The film stars Johnson as a Californian search and rescue helicopter pilot who has to rescue his estranged wife (played by Gugino) and daughter (Daddario) when an earthquake strikes in San Francisco.

There were a lot of elements that reflected my life

He considers this his most personal role to date, saying: “I couldn’t have made this movie 10 years ago. This is the movie I had to live a life that I lived in order to step into these shoes.”

Johnson, who has a 13-year-old daughter with ex-wife Dany Garcia, went on: “Within the first few minutes of this film you realise he’s going through a divorce and he’s struggling to have a relationship with his daughter, so there were a lot of elements that reflected my life.”

He added: “Also I wanted to do something I’d never done before. This gave me that opportunity because I’d never worked in the disaster genre and I realise how hard it is.”