For much of his career, Dwayne Johnson has been stuck between the Rock and a hard place. In the early years of his transition from body-slamming World Wrestling Entertainment heavy to marquee movie star, he was still being billed under his nom de ring. Even once he retired that moniker, he seemed to be lugging behind him a persona from which he might never be free. There are people-pleasers and then there is this affable brawler-turned-actor, who appears to regard the contentment of the world’s multiplex-goers as his personal responsibility. Whether in vehicles comic (Central Intelligence, Baywatch), family-oriented (Jumanji, Jungle Cruise), four-wheeled (the Fast & Furious series) or disaster-based (San Andreas, Skyscraper), he is a rip-roaring razzle-dazzler, shiny of scalp and tooth, and so colossal that he isn’t merely the circus showman but the whole damn big top too.
Not that he hasn’t been lavishly remunerated for all that heavy lifting. He can out-grin and out-gross Tom Cruise: Johnson has 392 million Instagram followers to Cruise’s 15 million, and was Forbes magazine’s highest-paid actor for five of the last nine years. That includes 2024, when he pocketed $88m. (Cruise didn’t make the top 20 that year.)
