dwayne johnson

Born on May 2, 1972 in Hayward (California), Dwayne Douglas Johnson comes from blue blood, on his mother’s side, since she, Ata Fitisemanu Maivia, distantly belonged to the family of the King of Samoa. The fighter holds the title of Seiuli, while in recognition of his racial heritage he sports an ostentatious tattoo with Polynesian symbols on his left arm. His father, Rocky Johnson, was a professional wrestler.

At the age of nine, he filmed videos without imagining that one day he would succeed in the world of celluloid: in them he repeated dialogues from Rocky and Raiders of the Lost Ark , his favorite films. “Because I was an only child, my mother would give me one of those old camcorders, and I would record for hours and hours,” he recalls.

Graduated in criminology in 1995 from the University of Miami, the boy played on the institution’s football team, but an injury put an end to his aspirations. Son and cousin of wrestling fighters (and grandson of a famous promoter), he ended up taking refuge in this discipline, with little sporting prestige, but with a legion of followers in the United States.

In 1997, Dwayne Johnson married Dany Garcia, his college sweetheart. Four years later she gave birth to Simone Alexandra, his first daughter. Unfortunately, the couple broke up in 2007.

After winning everything in the ring, and becoming the fastest wrestler to win a match, a feat he accomplished in six seconds, The Rock (nickname by which he is known in the world of wrestling) ended up becoming so popular that he was required for cameo appearances in the series That ‘ 70s Show and Star Trek: Voyager .

He appeared for the first time in the cinema with a very brief role in The Return of the Mummy , where he played a warrior who had sold his soul to Anubis in exchange for a military victory. But Johnson himself succeeded without any kind of supernatural pact, drawing attention to the point that the producer, Universal, ended up dedicating his own spin-off, The Scorpion King , to him around the character’s origins. He earned $5.5 million, a record figure for a first-time lead.

Although the film did not have the expected impact, it marked the beginning of a great friendship between the fighter and celluloid, which continued in titles such as The Amazon Treasure , Stomping , Be Cool , Movie Super Agent 86 , or The Other Two . He lavishes himself especially in the field of family cinema, with titles such as The Haunted Mountain , Toothbreaker , Journey to the Center of the Earth 2: The Mysterious Island or Surprise Dad .

He joined the most profitable automobile franchise in cinema today in Fast & Furious 5 , where he played Hobbs, a bounty hunter bent on hunting down Dominic Toretto and his gang. The character became a fixture in the franchise, so he has reappeared in the sixth and seventh installments.

A tireless worker, titles such as the epic Hercules and the catastrophic San Andrés have triumphed at the box office. After the comedy One and a Half Spy , he has accumulated numerous projects, such as the adaptation of the adventures of the pulp hero Doc Savage , the film version of Baywatch and the remake of Jumanji .

He has tried to pull off a more complex role, such as in Michael Bay ‘s Pain and Money , a recreation of a true story, where he played a member of a group of bodybuilders who carried out a kidnapping. And in the HBO ensemble series Ballers , which portrays various soccer players, she plays a former star trying to make it as a manager.

An example of self-improvement, it is noticeable that the actor strives to be more and more credible on screen. He even dreams of being cast in a William Shakespeare play one day. “I’m not the first one that producers usually call for that. But…”.