BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., Apr. 20, 2001 — There are those who think any mention of The Rock these days is in reference to either the Prudential symbol or that 1996 movie with Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage.
They’re about to learn otherwise.
The Rock, to put it bluntly, is the most popular wrestler in the WWF realm today. With trademark raised eyebrow and sayings like, “If you smell what The Rock is cookin’,” he dominates the media, from best-selling books (The Rock Says) to a ratings-high stint guest-hosting Saturday Night Live. If the rising popularity of wrestling could (just this once) be compared to the boy-band craze, then The Rock is the ’N Sync of the Smackdown world.
And, like the singing fivesome, The Rock (civilian name: Dwayne Johnson) hopes to spin his marketable brawn into a film career. His first stop? Commandeering an army of 10,000 as the Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns, a role that required The Rock to do what he does best: intimidate the entire cast, including Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and Oded Fehr, who return from the first Mummy. Even Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), better known as the mummy himself, is resurrected and headed for a climactic face-off with The Rock.
“Throughout the film, they’re in fear … they’ve gotta stop the Scorpion King,” the 29-year-old explains. “It sets the tone, it sets the tempo, it sets the premise for the entire film.”
And somehow, The Rock has made his limited screen time (less than 10 minutes) count. Already, preproduction has begun on The Scorpion King, a spin-off film starring his Mummy character. Michael Clarke Duncan, Kelly Hu (Martial Law) and Peter Facinelli (Can’t Hardly Wait) will co-star.
“[When I found out about The Scorpion King] I was jacked, I was so excited,” The Rock says. “On the phone I was like, ‘OK, well, that sounds tremendous, thank you very much, I appreciate it.’ Click …Then I was running around, going, ‘Wooo! I can’t believe it….’ I was calling everybody, going out to eat, celebrating, I was really, really excited about it.”
And where The Rock succeeds, the WWF succeeds as well, he says.
“It’s a boost for the industry, I think,” he says. “Because of my lineage. Certainly the moniker, [since] the Rock was created in the WWF.”
But unlike other athletes whose acting careers consist mainly of cameos, The Rock has gone as far as hiring acting coach Larry Moss (who taught Duncan as well as Hilary Swank) to prepare him for The Scorpion King. He’s also been flooded with encouragements from the likes of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“The support has been tremendous. Which obviously makes me feel fantastic, and very humbled. Especially having support from guys in the action genre, from Nicolas Cage to Stallone and of course, Arnold, who’s been fantastic… it’s very motivating and gives me a lot of incentive,” he says.
And when The Mummy Returns opens, look for The Rock to pore over critics’ words, opening-weekend numbers and exit polls, curious to see the results of his first film.
“I’ll be [checking the stuff]…[Because] the second time around,” he says, rubbing imaginary bills together, “it’ll be time to renegotiate.”
