Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born May 2, 1972) is an American football player-turned-professional wrestler-turned-actor, also known by his ring name The Rock.
He wrestled with WWE from 1996 to 2004, after which he retired (he has wrestled sporadically since then, however). For more on his wrestling career, see his dedicated page.
Johnson began acting in the 2000s with a role as the Scorpion King in The Mummy franchise. When he started, he often played the "strong but silent"-type often given to wrestlers turning to Hollywood, but he eventually made a name for himself as an action star.
He has an industry nickname of "Franchise Viagra", as The Fast and the Furious, Journey and Jumanji franchises all saw improved box office tallies with the films Johnson entered in, and G.I. Joe: Retaliation, a sequel to G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, was built squarely around him despite him not being in the first film. He even netted his own Fast & Furious spinoff alongside Jason Statham, Hobbs & Shaw. On the voice acting side, he voiced Maui in Moana and is set to reprise the role in its live-action remake.
Though he's appeared in a wide range of film genres, Johnson's honed physicality from football and wrestling means he plays tough guys with ease. He's also rather ethnically ambiguous (he is of Black and Samoan descent), which allowed him to switch gimmicks in his wrestling career and now allows him to play characters of varying backgrounds.
Filmography:
- The Mummy Trilogy as Mathayus of Akkad / The Scorpion King
- Doom as Sarge
- The Rundown as Beck
- Walking Tall (2004) as Chris Vaughn
- Southland Tales as Boxer Santoros / Jericho Cane
- Gridiron Gang as Sean Porter
- Reno 911!: Miami: The Movie as Agent Rick Smith (
for 5 minutes) - Get Smart as Agent 23
- The Game Plan as Joe Kingman
- Race to Witch Mountain as Jack Bruno
- Planet 51 as Captain Charles T. Baker
- The Tooth Fairy as Derek
- The Other Guys as Christopher Danson
- Faster as James "Jimmy" Cullen
- The Fast and the Furious as Agent Luke Hobbs
- Be Cool as Elliot Wilhelm
- G.I. Joe: Retaliation as Marvin F. Hinton / Roadblock
- Snitch as John Matthews
- Pain & Gain as Paul Doyle
- Hercules (as the titular demigod)
- Ballers (as the lead character, Spencer Strasmore, a former football player turned financial agent for athletes; needless to say, this draws heavily on his football career, and is basically Entourage in Miami! with football players instead of actors)
- Baywatch (2017).
- The demigod Maui in Disney's Moana and its forthcoming live-action remake.
- A guest appearance in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Tsunkatse." This was actually his first dramatic acting gig, though even that was originally envisioned as a Dualvertisement for WWE and Voyager on UPN.
- A cameo on That '70s Show playing his real-life father, Rocky Johnson, who was also a wrestler. The characters went to see Rocky at a wrestling event.
- As of the season 42 finale, he's a member of Saturday Night Live's "5-Time Host Club".
- A guest appearance on a joke of Family Guy where he depicts Peter and Lois having sex by banging their action figures together until one falls off screen.
- The main star in a fake trailer that was played at the end of the former Disaster! attraction at Universal Studios Florida.
- A minor role as Cliffjumper in Transformers: Prime
- San Andreas: Headline role of Chief Ray Gaines, a Rescue Helicopter pilot. A movie about "The Big One" in California.
- Central Intelligence as Bob Stone
- Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle as Smolder Bravestone
- Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)
- Rampage (2018) as Davis Okoye
- Skyscraper as Will Sawyer
- Fighting with My Family As Himself
- DC Extended Universe
- SHAZAM! (2019) (Executive producer only)
- Black Adam (2022) as Teth-Adam / Black Adam
- Young Rock (2021-present) As Himself
- Jungle Cruise (2021) as Frank Wolff
- Red Notice (2021) as John Hartley
- DC League of Super-Pets (2022) as Krypto (voice role)
Tropes in his filmography:
- Action-Hero Babysitter:
- In The Game Plan he is a rugged footballer with a young ballerina daughter.
- In The Tooth Fairy he's a tough guy conscripted to become a tooth fairy who makes children happy.
- Actor Allusion: Films and series often play with his past, both as a wrestler and as an actor:
- The Mummy Returns has a very curious scene of two scantily clad women fighting for the audience's entertainment. Considering who his co-workers were at the time...
- In The Rundown, Dwayne plays Beck, an aspiring chefnote , and performs a Rock Bottom on a mook during a Bar Brawl.
- He played a pit fighter in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, where he used the Rock Bottom.
- In the The Fast and the Furious movies, he gets to bust out a few wrestling moves: pulls off a Doomsday Device tag maneuver in 6, and hits the Rock Bottom in Furious 7.
- His character's daughter alludes to Johnson's foray into the Action-Hero Babysitter genre (The Tooth Fairy, The Game Plan etc).
- In Fate, the last few syllables of his character's haka for the Red Dragons may sound familiar for anyone who's seen Moana. His character also gets called "Hercules".
- In Be Cool, there's this quote about his character, a gay bodyguard who dreams of getting his big break as an actor:Linda Moon: He can raise just one eyebrow at a time... and that's all he thinks it takes to be an actor.
- From Pain & Gain, this quote from his character alludes to a previous role of Johnson in Be Cool where his character is mocked for selecting an aluminium bat instead of a wood one:"I used to use an aluminum [bat], but then I upgraded to wood."
- In Moana, his character does the People's Eyebrow and pec-pops the same way Rocky would. And in one of the songs, he lampshades his tendency to talk in third person. The design of his character was heavily based on his late grandfather "High Chief" Peter Maivia.
- In his appearance on That '70s Show, while portraying his father, Johnson makes a reference to himself, where he hopes "his son" will one day become "the most electrifying man in sports entertainment". Red Foreman simply responds with "Yeah, good luck with that."
- Cliffjumper's vehicle mode in Transformers: Prime has bull's horns on the front of the hood, referring a previous nickname of Rocky: "the Brahma Bull".
- Central Intelligence:
- He gets a remark that his character looks, "Like Hercules".
- His character wears a black leather fanny pack, an allusion to an infamous picture of The Rock taken in the early 90's with a perm and a fanny pack.
- His character mentions he doesn't let people see him naked, even during sex. He keeps it Pitch Black like Vin Diesel. The Rock has worked with Diesel in the "Fast and Furious" franchise and is often compared to him in general with them both being big, muscled, bald, biracial Action Genre Hero Guy types who are close in age.
- Awesome, Dear Boy: Part of the reason why Dwayne Johnson agreed to voice Maui in Moana was the thrill of seeing his Polynesian ancestry so beautifully depicted in a major motion picture, and he admitted to crying Tears of Joy over it many, many times during production.
- Bald Head of Toughness: By the 2010s he became bald, and it certainly helped convey how his characters are difficult to put down.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Kevin Hart, frequently starring in films together and maintaining a Vitriolic Best Buds relationship on social media.
- It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars: Invoked by Johnson himself. In a 2018 Rolling Stones interview
, he remarked that he has no interest in being a dramatic actor and doesn't believe his fans would be interested to see him in such works, with him preferring to do feel good action films and comedies. He'll even turn down film roles that are too serious or lacks a happy ending. - Large Ham: Carried over from his wresling career. A few highlights are Be Cool, where he's a prospective actor, and the Jumanji films, where his character is noted for "smoldering intensity" and spends quite some time in one of them doing a Danny DeVito impression!
- Money, Dear Boy: One of the main reasons he took up acting, even while his wrestling career was at a stellar level of popularity. In interviews, he's said that he enjoys wrestling more than acting, but acting pays a great deal better, has a more flexible work schedule, and is far less physically punishing.
- Playing Against Type: Sometimes goes against his macho public image in roles, like his role as Elliott in Be Cool. In his review of the film, one of Roger Ebert's criticisms was that The Rock was not believable as gay. The Rock himself acknowledged he had not convinced himself when asked.
- Playing with Character Type: Johnson drops a few bars in TechN9ne's "Face-Off". While the song's theme is pretty much within his tough man image, the fact that he's actually rapping definitely counts.
- Promoted Fanboy:
- He pushed G.I. Joe: Retaliation extensively on his Facebook and Twitter accounts for a reason.
- He's a huge Captain Marvel fan, and has been the first, last, and only choice to play Cap's nemesis Black Adam for years.
- He's a gamer and called himself this regarding both his lead roles in game adaptations, as he liked Doom and had Rampage as one of his favorite arcades growing up.
- Plays Great Ethnics: Johnson is Black and Samoan. He's played characters of one or both of these backgrounds, but also an Ancient Greek warrior in Hercules (2014), an Ancient Egyptian king in Black Adam (2022), and a (granted, adopted) Spanish conquistador in Jungle Cruise.
- Typecasting: In the 2010s, Johnson took to playing plays quippy, heavily-muscled adventurer-types. His penchant for starring in lots of jungle adventures became something of a meme, including The Rundown (known internationally as Welcome to the Jungle), Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Jumanji: The Next Level and Jungle Cruise. Invoked in Rampage, where he's initially introduced in what appears to be a jungle setting but is revealed to be a wildlife sanctuary; ironically, it's often included in related memes for this reason, particularly as his outfit in the scene is similar to his Jumanji look.
- What Could Have Been:
- One trapped in Development Hell is the live action Spy Hunter movie, with Johnson in the lead role. However, he did manage to put in a performance in the What Would Have Been a Tie-In game Nowhere to Run.
- Johnson pursued the role of Mr. Hinx in the James Bond movie Spectre, hoping to follow in the footsteps of Peter Mavia, who played a baddie in You Only Live Twice. However, MGM and EON thought he seemed too expensive, and cast Dave Bautista (aka Batista) instead. Johnson took this news in stride.
- He was considered to voice the Boulder in Avatar: The Last Airbender but was unavailable, so Mick Foley ultimately voiced the character instead.
- Working with the Ex/Amicably Divorced: He divorced his first wife back in 2007, but since then Dany Garcia has been his manager, an integral part of most of his business ventures, and even the executive producer on several of his films.
