STACK #126 Apr 2016

EXTRAS

FEATURE

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DWAYNE JOHNSON The People’s Action Hero.

The ‘00s “The goal for me is always to have the opportunity to work in different genres.” The Rock had already appeared as one of the talking heads in the critically acclaimed pro wrestling documentary Beyond the Mat (1999), but the first time we saw him flex his acting muscle was in The Mummy Returns (2001), as supporting villain The Scorpion King. Although it was pretty much a glorified cameo – with his face unconvincingly grafted onto a CGI arachnid for most of his scenes – the character proved popular enough to spawn a spin-off feature a year later. The Scorpion King (2002) gave The Rock his first leading role, and a whopping paycheque of $5.5 million – the highest salary paid to a fledgling leading man at the time, which was duly noted by Guinness World Records. Relying on his physicality to carry the Conan-like role, he left his WWE persona in the ring, however the King was seen to raise “The People’s Eyebrow” at one point during the film. “The Rock has the authority to play the role and the fortitude to keep a straight face. I expect him to become a durable action star,” wrote critic Roger Ebert. And Ebert was correct. Following the success of The Scorpion King (which continued as a direct to video franchise without his involvement), The Rock was on a roll. His next appearance was in Peter Berg’s Amazon adventure The Rundown (2003) – or Welcome to the Jungle as it was known Down Under – playing a bounty hunter sent to retrieve Seann William Scott from Brazil. “The Rock has a flair for action and comedy; he’s a real movie star,” noted Peter Travers in Rolling Stone . The following year he found himself filling Joe Don Baker’s shoes in a loose remake of the 1973 film WalkingTall , as a US Special Forces soldier who returns to clean up his home town after corrupt casino operators move in. Be Cool (2005) – a sequel to the 1995 crime comedy Get Shorty and based on Elmore Leonard’s novel – cast him against type as a gay Samoan bodyguard; while video game adaptation Doom (2005) put him back in combat gear to lead a bunch of marines against monsters infesting a Martian base. Predictably, being a video game movie, Doom was terrible and The

“My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.” A number of professional wrestlers have body-slammed their way into the movies – Rowdy Roddy Piper, John Cena, Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin – but none have been as successful in making the transition from ring to screen as The Rock, aka Dwayne Johnson. “The only film I’ve enjoyed starring a wrestler was Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler ,” says Johnson, whose charismatic personality cemented his position as “The People’s Champion” of the WWE. “I never thought one day I’d want to become a movie star. I never thought that, but I did think one day I would make the transition into acting in film through our (WWE) television show,” Johnson told Region 4 magazine’s Aaron Goldberg in a 2002 interview. Prior to his movie debut in 2001, as The Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns , The Rock had done some TV work, including episodes of That ‘70s Show and Star Trek Voyager , not to mention four hours a week of WWE programming. “I was just waiting for the right role, and I had the opportunity with The Mummy Returns .” He may be known as Dwayne Johnson these days but to wrestling fans, he will always Rock.

Rock scored a Razzie nomination for Worst Actor, but he did go on record as saying the film had short-changed fans of the game. As part of the ensemble cast of Richard ( Donnie Darko ) Kelly’s self-indulgent genre hodgepodge SouthlandTales (2006), he dropped his wrestling moniker and was credited for the first time onscreen as Dwayne Johnson. But ‘The Rock’ wasn’t history just yet. For his first dramatic role in inspirational sports film Gridiron Gang (2006) – a sort of riff on The Longest Yard, in which he plays a counsellor at a juvenile prison who assembles a football team – he was credited as Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Action superstars invariably find themselves working with children at some point in their careers (Arnie in Kindergarten Cop , Vin Diesel in The Pacifier ) and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s first Disney film was The Game Plan (2007), playing an NFL quarterback who discovers he has an eight-year-old daughter. His affable screen personality was the perfect fit for a kids’ film, and it wouldn’t be his last. But it would be the last time ‘The Rock’ was inserted into his screen name. For his next film, the actor formerly known as The Rock appeared alongside Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway in the big screen version of ‘60s TV spy series Get Smart (2008), as the duplicitous Agent 23. Then it was back to Disney for the studio’s “new chapter” in their Witch Mountain series from the ‘70s: Race toWitch Mountain (2009). Johnson was cast as a Vegas cab driver who chaperones a pair of alien children back to their spacecraft. Johnson stuck with the kids and sci-fi theme for his first animated gig, voicing an astronaut who crash lands on another world and is considered an alien invader in Planet 51 (2009). The ‘10s “Playing big, heroic characters with heart is always a lot of fun. I enjoy making movies like that...” Johnson continued to drift away from the action star status that had launched his film career with a further foray into family fare in Tooth Fairy (2010). Playing a hockey player who’s magically transformed into a real-life tooth fairy (complete with pink tutu) may not have helped

The Rock –WWE Superstar

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