WITH his Paul Bunyan physique and Central Casting good looks, Dwayne Johnson, known until recently as the Rock, always turns heads. But as he bulldozed his way down the red carpet at last month’s Grammy Awards, Mr. Johnson — a football player turned professional wrestler turned movie star — got noticed for a less polite reason.
What on earth was the Rock doing at the Grammys?
His prime-time appearance, during which he cracked jokes before introducing Justin Timberlake, wasn’t just one part of a slapdash marketing effort for the forthcoming “Race to Witch Mountain.” It was the latest manifestation of a carefully calibrated strategy to transform Mr. Johnson, 36, from meathead action star into family-friendly leading man and a member of Hollywood’s top tier.
Along with nixing his geological wrestling nickname, Mr. Johnson has moved beyond the he-man roles (“The Scorpion King”) that gave him his cinematic start, branching into comedies (“Get Smart”), family movies (“The Game Plan”) and art-house fare (“Southland Tales”). And he is working hard to sell himself to a wider audience, focusing in particular on children. In the past 10 months he has logged time at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, guest starred on “Hannah Montana” and served as the grand marshal of Hong Kong Disneyland’s Main Street Parade. In 2008 he even popped up at the Academy Awards. (Succeed at the Oscars — as Mr. Johnson did, flawlessly executing his presentation of the visual effects trophy — and you may well leave Mom-Approved.)
The 6-foot-4 Mr. Johnson, part Samoan and part African-American, sees families as his entree into the most rarefied club in the movie business: leading men who can anchor big-budget, broad-audience blockbusters. Will Smith, Tom Hanks and ...Dwayne Johnson?

“You never know,” he said, sawing into a chicken breast last month at McCormick & Schmick’s in Burbank.
But Hollywood is littered with tough guys who tried to be Ahh-nold, who is still considered the industry champ at oscillating among audiences. Vin Diesel’s career sputtered when he expanded too far beyond his action-hero roots; now he’s working on a comeback by returning to the “Fast and Furious” franchise. Even Sylvester Stallone, the 1997 indie drama “Cop Land” aside, failed to make the leap, flopping badly with “Oscar” in 1991. (“Sylvester Stallone is to comedy what Mickey Rourke is to soap — no relation,” Rita Kempley wrote at the time in The Washington Post.)
A changing Hollywood makes Mr. Johnson’s quest even more difficult. Movie executives increasingly build pictures around prepackaged concepts — superheroes, remakes, talking animals — and less around stars. Big stars not only can be costly, but they also have a pesky habit of demanding creative input.
And Mr. Johnson doesn’t have much in common with the ascending lead actors in Hollywood, who are either intense and brooding (Christian Bale) or pudgy and dorky (Seth Rogen). Senior executives at two studios said Mr. Johnson lacks an edge on screen — surprising, given his physical stature — and that may have torpedoed efforts like “Walking Tall,” a 2004 remake in which he played an ex-soldier determined to rid his hometown of crime. Yet that hasn’t stopped Walt Disney Pictures and 20th Century Fox from entrusting him with two of their most high-profile entries in 2009. “Race to Witch Mountain,” which Disney plans to open in more than 3,000 theaters on Friday, is a loose reboot of the 1970s-era Disney franchise about two alien children who become stranded on Earth. The budget is an estimated $50 million. And Fox cast him in the $45 million “Tooth Fairy,” in which his hard-nosed hockey player character receives his karmic comeuppance, complete with tutu, wings and magic wand; it will be the studio’s entry in the Thanksgiving marketplace. (Yes, there is spandex involved.)
“He’s larger than life and has endless charisma but comes across as a regular guy on screen,” said Oren Aviv, president of Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production. “That makes him a very unique talent.”
In person the soft-spoken Mr. Johnson exudes calm. He looks you straight in the eye and has the confidence to be self-deprecating. He’s polished, peppering his responses with media-training totems like “that’s a really good question.” He calls you “buddy.”
While Mr. Johnson was eating lunch, a bashful guy in his 20s shuffled up to him and stammered. “Um, I’m sorry to interrupt you while you have a knife in your hand,” the man said, “but I know you’re the Rock, and I would love your autograph. For my nephew.” A little hand holding a tattered cocktail napkin and a pen appeared in front of Mr. Johnson’s face.
Part of you expects this enormous man to slam down his knife, spit out some gristle and come spinning at the poor guy like teeth on a chainsaw. Instead Mr. Johnson gently patted him on the arm and said he was happy to comply. “Have a good day, and try to stay out of the rain,” Mr. Johnson said as the admirer floated away, beaming.
“Audiences, particularly kids, seem to love discovering that a guy this big and this good looking is actually very sweet and very funny,” said Andy Fickman, who directed Mr. Johnson in “Race to Witch Mountain” and “The Game Plan.” “Subverting that stereotype is very smart for him.”
Mr. Johnson, who is divorced and has a 7-year-old daughter, wasn’t always the nice guy. Growing up in Hawaii in a family of professional wrestlers, he was arrested multiple times for misdemeanor fighting and theft. He said his turnaround came at 17, when his mother bailed him out of jail. “My parents were dealing with evictions and repossessions and electricity getting shut off,” he said, “and I just realized that I had to get it together.”
Improving his attitude was one thing, but escaping poverty was another. After earning a criminology degree from the University of Miami in 1994, he became a defensive tackle for the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League, living in a run-down apartment with no furniture. He remembers borrowing a friend’s truck and going to “the local sex motel” to pick up a mattress that the owner was throwing away. “A lot of Lysol is how I got through that one,” he said, feigning a shiver.
The football career quickly fizzled — he was cut in his first season, his brute strength not enough to overcome the lack of technique — so he pursued professional wrestling. After a difficult start Mr. Johnson became one of World Wrestling Entertainment’s biggest (and perhaps oiliest) stars.
But as W.W.E. television ratings started to peak in 2000, he decided to move on or risk becoming a worn-out slab of meat, like Mr. Rourke’s character in “The Wrestler.” “That film rang really true,” Mr. Johnson said. “It’s sad, but that’s exactly what happens to a lot of those guys.”
At a party atop the Staples Center in the late 1990s Mr. Johnson, freshly showered from a wrestling performance, made contacts with agents that would lead him to his first movie role, a bit part in “The Mummy Returns.”
Hits (“The Scorpion King”) and misses (“Doom”) followed, but in 2007 came “The Game Plan,” a low-profile Disney film about an arrogant quarterback who turns into Mr. Mom. Opening a surprise No. 1 and ultimately selling $90.6 million in tickets in North America, the movie “proved Dwayne can carry a movie,” Mr. Aviv said. (Universal Pictures had discovered that his presence didn’t automatically result in success; casting him against a comedic foil — Seann William Scott — in “The Rundown” proved a box-office disappointment in 2003.)
Mr. Johnson said he hopes that “Race to Witch Mountain,” a project Mr. Aviv said was written entirely around him, will bridge his family and action fan bases. His character is a world-weary Las Vegas cab driver who reluctantly agrees to help the two towheads find their spaceship, which has been hidden in a top-secret mountain facility by the United States government.
The role called for hard-core car chases, a close brush with a freight train and lots of hand-to-hand combat with machine-gun-packing bad guys — with Mr. Johnson doing many of his own stunts because it is so difficult to find stuntmen of his size.
“Because of my wrestling background, nothing a director can throw at me on a set can faze me,” Mr. Johnson said. He added, “I learned a long time ago how to be coachable.”
Goofing up a bit on screen has also been a key part of Mr. Johnson’s career strategy. He took a bit part in the 2005 John Travolta movie “Be Cool,” playing a flamboyantly gay bodyguard. (In one scene he stares into a mirror, slaps his hind quarters and declares himself “scorchin’.”) In last year’s “Get Smart” remake he played the suave megaspy Agent 23, a role that required him to kiss Steve Carell on the mouth.
All along, his acting has improved. His early roles were more notable for grunting than speaking, but training with an acting coach (Larry Moss, who’s worked with Leonardo DiCaprio and Hilary Swank) has paid off. “Southland Tales,” a dark comedy set in an apocalyptic America from the director Richard Kelly (“Donnie Darko”), got booed at the Cannes Film Festival, but Mr. Johnson gained critical attention for his role as an amnesiac actor. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote that he played his linchpin role in the film “with lilting delicacy.”
United Talent Agency, which counts Mr. Johnson as one of its most important clients, declined to comment about his career arc. Mr. Johnson himself played down his career calculations, brushing such talk aside as if it weren’t polite. “I’m trying to be very smart and focused with my decisions,” he said, “but it isn’t like I sat down and thought, ‘O.K., now I want to go and take over the family market.’ ”
Even if Mr. Johnson can’t make the leap into the top echelon of Hollywood stars, his life is pretty good. He gets paid millions for each movie. He has a farm in Virginia. Will Smith is a friend. He has a Louis Vuitton wallet with a American Express titanium card tucked inside. (“Want to hold it?” he asked an envious reporter. The answer was yes.)
Doesn’t he at least get some teasing from his pro-wrestling pals and macho fans for some of his roles? He is, after all, about to play a tooth fairy.
“There are definitely people who disagree with certain creative decisions you make,” he said. “Pleasing everyone is pretty hard.”
Da The New York Times, 6 marzo 2009

È il memorabile nuovo eroe d’azione di Corsa a Witch Mountain, nel ruolo di un tassista di Las Vegas la cui vita viene sconvolta dall’incontro con due adolescenti alieni. Il ritorno all’azione pura è stato accolto con entusiasmo da questo giovane protagonista tanto versatile, i cui recenti ruoli nei film campioni di incassi Game of Plan (ì&) e Get Smart (ì&) mostrano il suo tempismo comico nonché la sua abilità di riuscire a catturare il pubblico di ogni parte del mondo.
Figlio e nipote di due wrestler professionisti, Johnson fin da piccolo ha assistito alle loro performance live, familiarizzando con l’idea di esibirsi in pubblico. Le loro esibizioni sono state una vera e propria scuola per Johnson, diversa da quella che tutti frequentano. Dopo essersi trasferito in Pennsylvania, quando era ancora un teenager, Johnson ha incanalato il suo naturale talento sportivo nel football, attirando l’attenzione della University of Miami. Dopo aver ottenuto una borsa di studio, Johnson è entrato nel Powerhouse Football Program e ha vinto il suo primo campionato con la squadra nel 1991. Dopo aver giocato nuovamente nel Campionato Nazionale, nel 1992, Johnson ha concluso la sua illustre carriera nel football, impegnandosi in un terzo Campionato Nazionale nel 1995, contro la University of Nebraska nell’Orange Bowl.

Dopo il diploma, Johnson, che da sempre nutriva una grande passione per il mondo dello spettacolo, ha scelto di diventare attore. Seguendo le orme di suo nonno e di suo padre, Dwayne ha utilizzato le sue esperienze di vita per sviluppare il personaggio-icona di The Rock. Johnson si è esibito davanti a oltre 10 milioni di fan ogni settimana in TV e davanti a un pubblico nazionale e internazionale composto da 70,000 persone. Johnson ha registrato sempre il tutto esaurito, esibendosi in teatri importanti fra cui The Houston Astrodome, il Madison Square Garden e il Toronto Sky Dome. Così come il personaggio di The Rock Dwayne ha ottenuto un successo senza precedenti con la sua autobiografia dal titolo The Rock Says, che è diventata un bestseller del ì&; l’attore si è inoltre aggiudicato il disco di platino per il suo CD di World Wrestling Entertainment, realizzato insieme ad altri artisti, fra cui il vincitore del Grammy® Award Wyclef Jean.
Assecondando un desiderio che lo spinge continuamente di allargare i suoi orizzonti di uomo di spettacolo, Johnson è passato dalla televisione al cinema, interpretando l’uomo/dio egiziano, Il Re Scorpione, nel blockbuster del 2001 The mummy returns (ì&), approdando al suo primo ruolo protagonista in The Scorpion King (ì&) , nel 2002. Il successo di quel film gli ha meritato ruoli protagonisti in The Rundown (ì&), nella parte di un cacciatore di taglie che finisce in America del sud, Walking Tall (ì&), nella parte di un eroe della Guerra del Golfo che torna a casa e protegge il suo territorio dagli spacciatori di droga e Gridiron Gang (ì&), nel ruolo di una sensibile guardia carceraria che ispira positivamente alcuni giovani detenuti. Vanta inoltre una performance memorabile nel film corale Be Cool, nel ruolo dell’eccentrica bodyguard gay di Samoa.
Impegnato in azioni filantropiche, Johnson è stato spesso riconosciuto per il suo impegno a favore dei bambini. Johnson di recente ha ricevuto il Congressional Horizon Award 2008 per i suoi sforzi. Nel 2006 Dwayne ha fondato la Rock Foundation per informare e motivare i bambini attraverso l’educazione sanitaria e il fitness. La fondazione è al servizio di migliaia di bambini di tutto il mondo.
L’attore tornerà alla grande commedia familiare e vestirà i panni di un arrogante giocatore di hockey professionista che viene costretto da Fairyland ad indossare un tutù, una bacchetta magica e le ali fatate e diventare La fatina dei dentini.
E’ anche la voce dell’astronauta Captain Charles Baker dell’imminente avventura animata Planet 51.