It's been an interesting few years for Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. The professional wrestler turned Hollywood A-lister could once do no wrong and was one of Hollywood's highest-grossing, highest-paid action stars.
Johnson hoped to take over the DC Universe with Black Adam, but was quickly ousted from that franchise when the movie flopped. Around the same time, Young Rock was cancelled by NBC, his football league, the XFL, failed to take off, and WWE fans made it clear they didn't want him to steal Cody Rhodes' spot in the WrestleMania main event by savagely turning on the Brahma Bull.
A successful heel turn followed, but wrestling fans have since expressed disappointment with The Rock for abandoning storylines he inserted himself into and changing the narrative of what goes on backstage to make himself look better.
Why hasn't The Rock been in WWE for most of 2025? Well, he's busy reinventing himself as a serious actor, taking on a buzzy role in The Smashing Machine, an A24 movie about UFC champion Mark Kerr that many believe could win him an Oscar.
Johnson, who is known for his massive, hulking frame, is looking to take on much different roles moving forward—he's even got a Martin Scorsese movie in the pipeline—and appears to have shed a lot of weight to do so. We've seen this before, of course, as Dave Bautista similarly dropped a huge amount of muscle when his time as the MCU's Drax reached its end.
The Rock had to lose some muscle for his WWE return last year, but it was probably still quite challenging to shed all that extra weight from his intense training regimen. He still looks in terrific shape, though.
Variety recently spoke with Johnson about The Smashing Machine, learning more about his shift from action movies to more serious fare.
"I have, for a long time, wanted this," he said. "The three of us have talked for a very long time about, when you’re in Hollywood — as we all know, it had become about box office. And you chase the box office, and the box office can be very loud and it can become very resounding and it can push you into a category and a corner. This is your lane and this is what you do and this is what Hollywood wants you to do."
"I just had this burning desire and voice that was saying, 'What if there is more and what if I can?' Sometimes it’s hard for us to know what we’re capable of when we’ve been pigeonholed into something," Johnson continued. "It's harder to know what you’re capable of, and sometimes it takes people that you know and love, like Emily and Benny, to say that you can."
"I looked around a few years ago and I started to think, you know, am I living my dream or am I living other people’s dreams? You come to that recognition and I think you can either fall in line or go, I want to live my dreams now and do what I wanna do. I’ve been scared to go deep and intense and raw until now, until I had this opportunity," he added.
Johnson is taking a big risk and deserves a lot of credit for that. Whether it pays off for him remains to be seen, but he's clearly going all in on reinventing himself for this next stage of his acting career.