From Hulk Hogan to Andre the Giant to Roddy Piper, professional wrestlers have been acting in movies for decades, but we’ve been seeing a lot more of them in blockbuster films lately. Heard of a guy named The Rock? He’s been acting these days, so we looked into why more wrestlers are starting to become household names.
Hulk Hogan: “That’s exactly…”
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson: “It doesn’t matter what you think!”
From laying the Smackdown on the mic and in the ring…
Crowd: “One. Two. Three.”
…to starring in dozens of big movies…
Dwayne Johnson (as Hobbs in “Hobbs & Shaw”): “I’m trying to save the world, which — for the record — will be my fourth time.”
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is a worldwide box office megastar.
Dwayne Johnson (as Raymond Gaines in “San Andreas”): “Oh, my God.”
But now he’s not the only pro wrestler who’s made a successful transition to mainstream Hollywood.
John Cena: “Dwayne Johnson’s success single-handedly has broken down the largest barrier that any sports entertainer wanting to entertain beyond the realm of WWE has had to overcome.”
John Cena is all over the place these days. In movies…
John Cena (as Steven in “Trainwreck”): “I look like Mark Wahlberg ate Mark Wahlberg!”
…and occasionally still in the WWE, where he was the top superstar for years.
Commentator: “Batista’s not getting out this! ‘You can’t see me!'”
And ironically, one of his wrestling rivals is now the person he credits with warming Hollywood to the idea of wrestlers acting.
John Cena: “I’m certainly grateful to Dwayne for opening up that avenue for all of us.”
That “us” includes Dave Bautista, who’s also making a name for himself outside of the ring
Robert Downey Jr. (as Tony Stark/Iron Man in “Avengers: Infinity War”): “Are you yawning?”
Dave Bautista (as Drax in “Avengers: Infinity War”): “*yawns*”
But before the casual movie fans knew him as Drax from “Guardians of the Galaxy” and as a Bond villain, WWE fans knew him as “The Animal” Batista.
Even The Rock’s cousin, Roman Reigns, who’s currently the top dog in WWE, is getting into acting.
He’s got a small but impactful role in “Hobbs & Shaw.”
Roman Reigns: “It’s just more proof that we, as WWE Superstars, go through so much. We learn so many different facets of performing arts.”
Cena and Roman agree that mostly because of The Rock, Hollywood may now be realizing how much overlap there is between wrestling and acting.
John Cena: “At the end of the day, we are all doing the same thing. We are telling stories. We have created a character, we put that character in a narrative and we tell stories.”
Roman Reigns: “You really get used to putting in the work and getting it done by any means necessary.”
All right, so now that The Rock, Cena and Bautista in particular are all killing it as actors, what’s it gonna take to get them in the same movie?
John Cena: “That’s an awesome question, and one that I often think about. The answer is always the same. The answer to that question is well beyond my control.”
Well in that case, we’ll just have to wait and see.
And The Rock isn’t just changing movies, he’s changing wax!
That’s right. Two Rocks. No waiting.
Dwayne Johnson: “Cheers! It’s good tequila. What do you think? Are you happy? You’re a sexy son of a [expletive].”
The Rock just got his second wax figure at Madame Tussaud’s, and he used it to promote himself and his new tequila.
He’s always talking about tequila in almost every Instagram post. He really needs to come up with a name for it.
Cheers Dwayne, you deserve it.
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