The Rock wrestles with movie action in 'Mummy'
By Susan Wloszczyna



The Rock is on a roll. The cool and charismatic World Wrestling Federation superstar who was born Dwayne Johnson 29 years ago this week already has conquered the book world with a best-selling bio, put Saturday Night Live in a comic headlock as last season's top-rated host and made a splash at the presidential conventions. Now, he's hauling his act into a new arena. Namely, Hollywood. The Rock makes his movie debut in the epic The Mummy Returns, opening today. He's the Scorpion King, a mighty Egyptian warrior in loincloth and braids who flips and flings his foes around as if they were so many WWF action figures.

"They're not really wrestling moves," he says of the choreographed stunts. The fights "are a throwback to the days of doing battle in 3000 B.C." Going into Rock mode, he can't help but interject, "Handing out knuckle sandwiches. Some with cheese, some without."
But for a larger-than-life celebrity (6-foot-4 1/2 and 255 or so pounds) who is known for his way with words (his main mantra: "Can you smell what the Rock is cooking?"), he remains fairly silent in a brief prologue and during the climax as the top half of a computerized monster. You have to wonder whether he took one of his sayings to heart: "Shut your mouth and know your role!"

The Rock, the photogenic offspring of a Samoan mother and a black father, believes fans won't be too disappointed with his appetizer of a part. "It's just enough. Not too much, not too little." Besides, the real entree is being shot now. In a rare show of confidence, Universal signed the Rock to play the lead in a Mummy spinoff, The Scorpion King, even before his first film is released. In an even rarer show of confidence, the studio is giving the untested performer a $5 million-plus paycheck.
Wife Dany, a Merrill Lynch executive, makes sure the cash is well-invested.
Not bad for a one-time struggling Canadian Football League member who slept on a stained mattress snatched from a fleabag motel. The Rock is enjoying the ride so far. Speaking on the phone at 5 a.m. on the way to the Scorpion set in Los Angeles, he exclaims with big-kid joy while passing a Mummy Returns billboard.

But the Rock is very serious about not ending up on the box office ropes like a "jabroni" (his pet putdown). The self-proclaimed People's Champion is eager to be the People's Action Hero. "I hired an acting coach. I wanted to be 110% prepared." His choice? Larry Moss, who advised Helen Hunt for As Good as It Gets and Jim Carrey for the upcoming The Majestic. None too shabby.
He was keen to spar with Scorpion co-star Michael Clarke Duncan, the 6-foot-5 and about-315-pound Oscar nominee from The Green Mile, who plays bandit king Balthazar. "From a physicality standpoint, I thought going into this project that the Rock and Michael is like Rocky and Apollo." He enjoys that the fight scenes are so real. Sometimes too real. "I hit Michael so hard by accident I felt that I broke his jaw. There was dead silence on the set. But he got up like a trouper, shook my hand and said, 'That's OK.' I tell you, if we weren't best friends, he'd rip my head off. The movie would be Michael Clarke Duncan as The Balthazar King."

There's talk of turning The Scorpion King into a franchise, and the Rock is in discussions to do an action comedy, possibly with Chris Tucker. But he's taking things one opportunity at a time.

With his wife expecting their first child, a girl, in August, it's only natural to consider leaving behind the grind of WWF touring at some point. But the third-generation wrestler — his dad is Rocky Johnson, who grappled in the '70s, and his maternal grandfather is '60s champ Peter Maivia — remains loyal to his squared-circle roots.
"I can honestly say I'll never leave the WWF. I will always have ties there."

 

The Rock smashes stereotypes
By Susan Wloszczyna

Dwayne Johnson is rarely shy about bragging about himself when under the swaggering influence of the Rock, his wrestling alter ego. That includes his fledging movie career that kicks off this weekend in The Mummy Returns. In his book The Rock Says ..., he boasts, "Will the Rock be the next James Dean or Cary Grant or James Stewart? I don't think so. But he could be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger — only better looking."
But ask the newbie actor directly about what it is about the Rock that will allow him to succeed in other mediums when one-time WWF titans such as Hulk Hogan and Jesse Ventura have done only fair to middling, and he is stumped.

"The Rock is uncomfortable about talking about that one thing. I always get stuck with this question. I leave it up to you and other people to answer." Luckily, those in the movie biz who have a piece of the Rock are all too happy to expound on his star quality and leading-man potential. Says Chuck Russell, director of the Rock's star vehicle and Mummy spinoff, The Scorpion King: "When I took this project, my Hollywood friends raised their eyebrows. Six months later, the same people are impressed. Everyone knows him, from kids to my own mother. She got her picture taken with the Rock, and it made her year."

Stephen Sommers, director of The Mummy Returns, concurs. When his casting director suggested the Rock for the sequel, "I had never heard of the Rock and never watched the WWF. But when I met him, he was well-spoken, smart and ready to learn. That was key to me. I cast him, and a month later he was on the cover of Newsweek and hosting Saturday Night Live. I knew we were in really good shape."
As for the difference between the Rock and other sports types trying to cross over in movies, Sommers says, "I didn't want someone cheesy, and he never seemed cheesy." In real life, "he's a pretty nice, down-to-earth guy. When you have dinner with him, he eats twice as much as any human, but he isn't brash and cocky."

Industry watchers aren't laughing either when it's suggested that the Rock may be the man to replace such aging action heroes as the three S's: Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Seagal.
"He's got something," says Dan Marks of box office trackers ACNielsen EDI. "To the people who watch him wrestle, he's a really big star. But he's still got to be able to act. He can't just leer on screen." But with The Mummy Returns, "the Rock has a good first vehicle, and a lot of people are going to see it."

WWF impresario Vince McMahon knew even when the Rock was 12 and his father, wrestler Rocky Johnson, would bring him to events, that the youngster also had that unusual appeal. "You look into those eyes and know someone special is in there. He has so much charisma."

McMahon, a producer on The Scorpion King, believes that not only can the Rock be the next Schwarzenegger, he can be even bigger. By being a wrestler on TV, "he's starting with a universal platform wider than anything Arnold had as a bodybuilder. He is already known in syndication on a global scale. He can tell people in Germany or Africa to go see his film."

The WWF mastermind also is counting on the Rock to smack down stereotypes and open the studio doors for more of his ring cohorts. "He will certainly break the myth of the WWF performer being a big-muscle blockhead, like the Hulk. He's not a bad guy, but he can't act. Not in the ring or out of the ring. That's not the case with Stone Cold Steve Austin or Triple H or the Rock. They're the new breed." The Scorpion King, a summer 2002 release currently shooting in Los Angeles, will be the Rock's ultimate screen test, and director Russell is psyched.

"The film is a reinvention of the Arabian Nights movies and the Rock (who plays the last living member of a clan of trained assassins) has the right old-fashioned presence for it. Physically, he takes you back to the era of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Not since Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee has an action star moved with such grace. And the Rock just might be the kind of guy that we'd like to see kiss the girl."

The Rock does present an unusual problem. His physique may be too unique. Notes Russell: "Not only does he do his own stunts, I can't double the guy. He has a scimitar the size of a broadsword, and no one else can handle it. He really is someone special to watch.