The four stars who inspired Dwayne Johnson’s career: “What fucking drugs are you on?”
If you grew up in the 1990s and liked professional wrestling, then Dwayne Johnson was one of your fucking gods.
As his in-ring alter ego, ‘The Rock’, Johnson was one of the biggest goddamn stars of the WWF (now WWE) during a major boom period for the company. His rivalry with ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin is still regarded as one of the greatest in wrestling history, and there are fans of all ages who would place his face on their personal Mount Rushmores.
Nowadays, Johnson is known more for his work on the silver screen than in the squared circle. A major player in Hollywood, the eyebrow-raising icon has lent his muscular frame to some truly monumental blockbusters. He’s made billions at the box office, been paid millions more in fees, and left a gigantic footprint on modern cinema, but he wasn’t always destined for success.
Early in his life, long before he’d found his first home in the world of wrestling, Johnson looked to two men whose careers he ended up following very closely when he got older. “During my last year in high school, I won a full scholarship to the University of Miami, and we won a national championship,” he told Square Mile. “Thanks to bodybuilding, I was able to gain self-respect and set definite goals in my life. I tried to model myself after Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, and I knew that one day I would get into acting.”
With both Arnie and Sly as his role models, Johnson decided to fully pursue his acting dream. Following a brief role as a horrible CGI monster in The Mummy Returns, he starred in its prequel, The Scorpion King, mercifully playing an actual person this time. He then took a number of parts of varying importance in a range of movies. Unfortunately for ‘The Brahma Bull’, most of them were financially unviable, critically panned, or both. Be Cool, Southland Tales, The Game Plan, Tooth Fairy, the list of flops goes on and on.
During this period, he once again looked to those at the very pinnacle of the business for inspiration. According to an interview Johnson conducted with Vanity Fair, two stars who stood out to him the most were Will Smith and George Clooney. “Those are the guys who are on top,” he said. “I don’t know how, but I feel like if we can all go shoulder to shoulder on this, I feel like there’s a pathway to that kind of success, only different and maybe better or bigger… If I had thought bubbles of everybody in that room at that time… it was probably ‘What fucking drugs are you on?’”
Of course, as we all know, things did eventually pick up for Johnson. His career really began to turn around when he embraced the world of silly action movies, starting with Fast 5. Since then, he’s starred in more stupid movies where things blow up for no reason than you’ve had hot dinners. Interestingly, while his popularity was in the vein of Smith or Clooney, his career path more closely mirrored the two stars he had idolised as a young man.
As he enters the next stage of his career, Johnson may end up more like his more recent heroes, especially if predictions of an Oscar victory come true. However, he wouldn’t have gotten where he was today without the influence of the action heroes of the past. It really does take all sorts.
