Athletes Acting: The Rock
You'd be amazed at how many athletes have attempted to have second careers as actors. Athletes Acting is a weekly feature where we attempt to figure out why.
Dwayne Johnson, known to wrestling fans as The Rock, may be the most successful athlete-actor crossover since Jim Brown. Does he have an unfair advantage over his competition, being that wrestling is 50 per cent acting to start with? Maybe, but that didn't stop Hulk Hogan from appearing in some stinkers, or from delivering some terrible performances.
Since he first appeared in the The Mummy Returns back in 2001 — yes, that movie is already 10 years old — he's gone from being a silent killing machine to being an actor who's not afraid to take some risks. Before anyone accuses me of hyperbole, let me be clear, no one is comparing Johnson to Sir Laurence Olivier. What I am saying is that it would have been easy for Johnson to keep doing action movies and only action movies. Instead, he's doing comedies (Be Cool, Get Smart and, less impressively, The Tooth Fairy) and feel-good dramas (Gridiron Gang) as well.
