Originally a wrestling star who won 17 world championships, Dwayne Johnson loved acting and became a screen star.
Before becoming an illustrious action actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger used to be a “Male King of the Universe” in terms of bodybuilding. After conquering the pinnacle of Hollywood, the “terminator” followed the political path when he became the Governor of California. Although he is several generations away from the Austrian legend, actor Dwayne Johnson (also known as The Rock) is also following the path of success of his senior. Not only possessing the same muscular appearance and often assigned to action roles, The Rock is also similar to Arnold in the starting point of not being an actor and very multi-talented.
Muscle star The Rock (Dwayne Johnson).
From student player to professional stage
Dwayne Douglas Johnson was born on May 2, 1972 in California, USA. Interestingly, the Johnson family has a tradition of wrestling as his father, two uncles, several cousins and grandfather were all professional boxers. Dwayne’s grandmother also joined the wrestling industry as a promoter of this sport, making the Johnson family famous in the American martial arts village.
Inheriting the tall gene from the family, The Rock when grown up has a huge body – up to 1m93 tall and weighs 120 kg. It was thanks to that ideal physique that he became an excellent defender in football, receiving a full scholarship to the University of Miami just to play football. From 1991 to 1995, Dwayne Johnson played hundreds of matches.
The whole Dwayne Johnson family has a tradition of wrestling.
1995 marked a turning point with the name The Rock when instead of choosing the NFL football tournament, he decided to pursue WWE – World Wrestling Federation. The first person he announced this intention was his father, former boxer Rocky Johnson – the first African-American wrestling champion in history.
At first, Mr. Rocky refused to let his son follow in his career but later changed his mind and accepted training for him with the warning that he would not be lenient. In addition to his father, Dwayne Johnson also received training from experts such as Tom Prichard, Achim Albrecht and Mark Henry without knowing that he would be a part of world entertainment history later.
WWE Championships and First Roles
In the early days of the ring, The Rock took his father’s name to compete and then switched to trying the nickname “Rocky Maivia” when he signed with WWE in 1996. The name above is a combination of the nicknames of his father and grandfather. old brother and made the young Dwayne unpopular with the audience due to his lack of personality.
By 1997, Dwayne Johnson began to stop using the stage name above, calling himself “The Rock”. Not only showing that his fighting ability is getting better and better, The Rock also boldly… insulted the audience and reporters in interviews, showing his stubbornness. This makes him loved by the audience twice as much, because in a performance sport like an American wrestler, the more aggressive and defiant the boxer is, the more popular he will be.
Champion The Rock on the ring.
At the company World Wrestling Entertainment (World Wrestling Entertainment – often referred to as WWE), The Rock is the first boxer of the third generation of wrestlers and also the most famous. He won up to 17 WWE championships, including 10 world heavyweight wrestling championships and always made the audience “crazy” every time he appeared. The muscular body, the fierce and masculine face, the challenging commercials … make The Rock known as: The People’s Champion – something that so many people Other wrestlers aspire to.
Perhaps fans will forever remember The Rock in the classic feuds with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin or Triple H in the ring if he didn’t suddenly show an interest in cinema. Unlike competitive sports, American professional wrestling does not place any emphasis on winning or losing because it is all predestined through the script. The martial arts and finishing blows in the stands that the audience saw were all rehearsed by the boxers for weeks in a row. It is because he has to act like the seventh art, so the wrestler The Rock is very confident in “crossing” the field.
The Scorpion King – Dwayne Johnson’s debut role.
After several appearances on the hit TV show Saturday Night Live , Dwayne Johnson landed his first role in The Mummy Returns (2001), where he portrayed the villainous Scorpio King. Although only appeared briefly with a body erected by CGI technology, the excitement from The Rock fans made Hollywood producers see the potential of a popular actor from Dwayne.
Because of that, he had his own movie the following year, The Scorpion King , with a world record salary for an actor to play a lead role for the first time – $ 5.5 million. It was the commercial success and the fact that the name was spread to many other fields that made Dwayne excited and announced his retirement from the WWE ring in 2009.
A multi-talented entertainer
At first, The Rock fans did not appreciate his acting ability, because they were too familiar with the image of a clumsy giant who often appeared with short pants and a belligerent look. .
Indeed, in the early days, Dwayne Johnson still only accepted muscular roles in action movies and film marketing campaigns still had to “rely on” the name The Rock. However, after beginnings like The Rundown, Walking Tall , Dwayne has proven that she can also act very “sweetly” and charming.
The Rock can act in many genres, from action to family comedy.
Not being framed by a type of “muscular shoulder” character, he tried all kinds of roles, such as the gay guy in Be Cool (2005), voiced the cartoon Family Guy (2010) or performed good characters from family movies like The Game Plan (2007) or The Tooth Fairy (2010).
It is clear that compared to other wrestlers who have also tried their hand at cinema and suffered failures like John Cena, Dwayne Johnson is a much more successful case. He has a blockbuster movie Fast Five and promises to explode in the summer of 2013 with two highly anticipated action movies, GI Joe: Retaliation and Fast and Furious 6 . The following year, he also played the mythical hero Hercules in the work of the same name.
The Rock in “GI Joe: Retaliation”.
Despite being busy, Dwayne still let The Rock re-appear in the WWE ring since 2011 with the words of challenging John Cena and regaining the championship title last year. Already one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, an attractive movie star, but Dwayne Johnson’s ambition may not stop here. He once had the autobiography The Rock Says… which was a best-seller in 2000 and also showed off his voice in the movie Journey 2 (2012). Who knows, maybe one day, people will see this Canadian actor pursuing a political career like Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Source: vnexpress.net
