Talking About... Dwayne Johnson

Hello All! It is Thursday again! The highlight of my week! I wanted to feature a man who has done wonders with his career and made himself a superstar. And I believe it all started with one simple question...

"Can you smellllllll what the Rock is cooking?!"





Born:   Dwayne Douglas Johnson
DOB:   May 2, 1972
In:        Hayward, California
Height: 6' 5" (1.96 m)  Um, hello!!!!







His nicknames are:

The People's Champion
The Brahma Bull
The Great One
The Rock






Dwayne was offered a full scholarship to the University of Miami, for football. His college football career was very successful even though his GPA was not that great.

"It's pretty hard to get a point seven. You have to do close to nothing."

         -Johnson on his 0.7 GPA in college












In 1995 Johnson suffered a back injury which ended his hopes for a career in the NFL. He signed a deal with a Canadian league but found that after a year of that he wanted to pursue other options.

Johnson comes from a family of wrestlers. His grandfather, his father and many cousins all have made a career out of wrestling. Because of that, Johnson struggled to make his own name in wrestling and picked a few names that would keep him apart from his fathers success. In 1996 Johnson joined the WWE as Rocky Maivia. Once the persona of "The Rock" came out, Johnson was a huge superstar in the wrestling world. He could do no wrong. He has created many catch phrases for the WWE and Friday night Smack down was even named after a phrase that Johnson would say.

In 2001, Johnson made the cross over to movies in The Mummy Returns as Maythayus, he later revisited his role in 2002 in the Mummy prequel, The Scorpion King.



After the Scorpion King, Johnson kept his wrestenling career while still making movies. Some of those movies include:

The Rundown



Walking Tall











Now that brings us around to why I featured this lovely man... In 2005 Johnson played Elliot Wilhelm in the movie Be Cool, based on the book by Elmore Leonard. ( See I had a plan! )

 [trying on clothes]
Elliot Wilhelm: Whoo! Scorchin'!
[smacks his butt and looks at the manager]
Elliot Wilhelm: Like that?

In 2006, Johnson stared in the movie, The Gridiron Gang. Although this is not a book to movie adaption it IS based on a true story and it is a wonderful movie. Johnson portrays Sean Porter, a man who runs a "camp" for misguided youths. ( juvenile detention ) Sean takes the kids frustration and directs it to football.



Johnson came out with his second book to movie adaptation in 2009, with Race to Witch mountain. The movie is a "re-imagining" of the 1975 film, Escape to Witch Mountain which was based off the book with the same title written by Alexander Key. But really isn't that just being too wordy? It is a remake. DONE!

In 2012, Johnson came out with the movie Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. Now we can go about this a few ways. It is technically the sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth, a movie in 2008 based on the book by Jules Verne. Or, you can say it is based off the book The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, either way, they both are great books so...lets call it even?



At the end of this year Johnson's newest movie G.I. Joe: Retaliation, is expected to be a big hit. Those of us in the comic book world are excited to see Johnson as Roadblock.

Dwayne Johnson has done what many people in his position have tried and failed to do. He has come from the world of wrestling and made something of himself. He is now a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. He has made the crossover successfully. He may not be the best actor out there, but I believe that his success deserves to be recognized. And I also believe that he is very underrated. Some of his movies are wonderful and he is a really good actor in them. Hey, he makes several million dollars a movie! That is great!

Well, you know what is coming next!

Happy Thursday!

Lisa :)