Can You Smell...What The Rock Is Cooking?

These days, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is not only cooking but also SERVING! The charismatic, third-generation professional wrestler, who has pivoted from being a blockbuster action-hero to a bonafide Hollywood actor with his stellar performance in Benny Safdie’s A24-backed Silver Lion-winning movie, The Smashing Machine, is the top contender for the Best Actor's Oscar this year.

- ANANYA GHOSH

‘The Blue Chipper’ received a 15-minute standing ovation at the recently-concluded Venice Film Festival for his portrayal of controversial mixed martial arts fighter Mark Kerr in the movie—a complete departure from his usual larger-than-life onscreen persona

I must admit that having fed on a rather unhealthy diet of Smackdown and Raw, I spent a ridiculously long amount of time in my adolescent years sniffing the air, cocking my head trying to “Smell What The Rock Was Cooking, and mastering that menacing one-raised-eyebrow look. The Rock”, to me, was the epitome of raw masculine energy and showmanship. The machismo and charisma of the ten-time WWE champion with his penchant for drama satisfied the kid in me who was smitten by He-Man. His fights with Triple H and John Cena were legendary, but my favourite was The Rock Vs Stone Cold... And that's the bottom line, ‘cause Stone Cold said So’ (you know if you know!). But soon, while still at the peak of his career, The Rock left WWE to pursue an acting career in Hollywood (and I moved on from The Rock to The Brock... Lesner). It had then baffled me why a wrestler would even think of a career in acting—those were innocent times, and we had no reason to doubt the authenticity of those gory ladder-, chair-, table-, and human-breaking fights.

My next rendezvous with The Rock was as Scorpion King in the 2001 Brendan Fraser-starrer, The Mummy Returns. It was a brief role, but served as a prequel to the 2002 spin-off, The Scorpion King—a movie that established him as a Hollywood leading man and marked his transition from The Rock to Dwayne Johnson, who eventually became one of Hollywood's most bankable action stars.

Cut to 2025. Dwayne Johnson’s lucrative Hollywood career will mark its Silver Jubilee next year. For me, the only distinguishable character played by him thus far was that of Maui [He voiced the character] in Disney's animated