From crushing wrestlers in the ring
to crushing box office records,
Dwayne Johnson has spent the last 20 years
becoming a blockbuster behemoth.
He now stars alongside Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot
in Red Notice on Netflix.
This is my best friend.
-We're not friends. -We're best friends.
But how did he get here?
Strap in, put the pedal to the metal,
and prepare to speed down his road to Netflix.
Dwayne Johnson's career kicked off in 1996
under a less familiar name.
He stepped into the WWF wrestling ring
as Rocky Maivia.
He was sweet and earnest,
but it was his reinvention as wrestling heel "The Rock"
that would see him become the face
of late-90s wrestling
and the master of the catchphrase.
If you smell what The Rock is cookin'!
Skip to 2019 and he'd play himself
in Fighting with My Family,
where he meets Florence Pugh's
wannabe brawler Paige
and explains the secret to his in-ring persona.
The Rock is me, Dwayne Johnson,
just with the volume turned way up,
the treble adjusted, the base, same guy.
Wrestling popularity led to his first acting work
in 1999,
where he appeared in That '70s Show
playing his own father,
another famed wrestler, Rocky Johnson.
You know, I got a son,
and one day,
he's going to become the most electrifying man
in sports entertainment.
And in 2000, his wrestling career went intergalactic
when he starred in an episode
of Star Trek: Voyager.
Resistance is futile.
So is all your talk.
Dwayne's film career kicked off in 2001,
where he sold his soul for eternal life
as the Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns.
You can put his head on a CG scorpion's body,
but there's no mistaking that attitude.
He impressed producers so much
that an entire prequel was built for the character,
giving Dwayne his first leading role
in 2002's The Scorpion King,
a great showcase for his physical abilities
and that world-famous eyebrow.
And it gets so lonely.
In 2003, he headed to the jungle
as bounty hunter Beck in The Rundown.
Cementing him as the action star of the moment,
he even got an in-film endorsement
from another action film legend.
Have fun.
Based on 2004's Walking Tall,
Arnie passed the torch to the right guy,
as Dwayne took down a crooked casino,
armed only with a big stick.
Then, he was off to Mars as Sarge in 2005's Doom,
an adaptation of the popular video game
and a rare villainous role for our star.
Good luck with that, Karl Urban.
2005 also let Dwayne
flex his dramatic muscles in Be Cool.
He also got to show off some very groovy trousers.
Scorchin'!
And 2006 saw him stepping into the dystopian world
of Southland Tales
as amnesiac action star Boxer Santaros.
In the late 2000s, we saw more of Dwayne's funny side,
from putting himself in the hands of Hannah Montana
to squaring off against funnyman Steve Carell
in Get Smart.
His role as Agent 23 in the 2008 comedy
was the first time he was credited
as Dwayne Johnson instead of The Rock.
Though he still had that classic Rock style.
Thank you.
The laughs kept on coming when, in 2009,
he hosted Saturday Night Live
for the third time.
And later that year,
he turned up in Family Guy as himself
to help censor a raunchy love scene.
Wow.
Oh, and he played the tooth fairy
in 2010's Tooth Fairy.
If this guy turned up in your room at night,
you'd hand him your entire gob,
no questions asked.
And who could forget
his turn alongside Samuel L. Jackson
in 2010's The Other Guys
as the cocky and very short-lived detective
Christopher Danson.
Luckily, Dwayne's next character
lasted a bit longer,
the SS agent and bounty hunter extraordinaire
Lucas Hobbs.
Above all else, we don't ever,
ever let them get in the cars.
Chasing down the wrongfully accused Dominic Toretto
in 2011's Fast Five
was Johnson's ticket to the blockbuster big leagues.
The film took over $600 million at the box office
and established Hobbs as a vital piece
of the Fast and Furious universe.
Hobbs would return four more times.
In Fast & Furious 6, he worked alongside
his one-time nemesis, Dom,
to bring down Luke Evans' dastardly Owen Shaw…
in turn, earning him the wrath
of Jason Statham's Deckard Shaw
in Furious 7.
By the time we reach The Fate of the Furious
in 2017,
Hobbs was steering missiles by hand.
Is there anything this guy can't do?
Well, apart from get on with Jason Statham,
as proved by their hilarious team-up
in 2019's Hobbs and Shaw.
Expect more banter from these two
as a sequel is in the works.
While Dwayne spent the last decade
destroying an entire car festival's worth of motors,
he built himself into the ultimate leading man.
In 2013, he went from fast and furious
to be vast and furious
when he played a bodybuilder turned kidnapper
in Pain & Gain.
Then, in 2014,
he played the man, the myth, the legend, Hercules…
before returning to modern day in 2015
in San Andreas,
where he battled the largest earthquake in history
as helicopter rescue pilot Ray Gaines.
Shit.
Dwayne and San Andreas director Brad Peyton
had so much fun wrecking a city,
they teamed up to destroy another one
in 2018's Rampage.
In 2015, Dwayne took on
the biggest TV role of his career
as Spencer Strasmore,
a retired NFL player turned player-manager in Ballers.
Think of it as an NFL version of Entourage,
with Johnson on highly charismatic form
over its five seasons.
We got to hear Dwayne's more tuneful side
in 2016's Moana,
where he guided the film's heroine
as shapeshifting demigod Maui.
Sticking with the beach,
but less family-friendly, is 2017's Baywatch,
a raunchy take on the 90s TV classic,
where Dwayne played head lifeguard Mitch Buchannon.
In 2017's Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,
Dwayne continued to stretch his comedy muscles
and his actual muscles…
as the smouldering Dr Xander Bravestone,
a video game action hero possessed by the soul
of a neurotic high school student
Do you have control of that
or does that just happen naturally?
It just happens naturally.
A role so good, he repeated the trick two years later
in Jumanji: The Next Level,
where, this time,
he channelled the spirit of Danny DeVito.
Those are words I never expected to say.
Oh, my joints feel like butter.
Cementing his action-hero credentials,
Dwayne gave us his own version of Die Hard
in 2018's Skyscraper,
where he played a one-legged veteran
saving his family from the world's tallest building.
Don't eat your dinner during the jumping scene.
If watching Dwayne Johnson's Road to Netflix
has left you wanting more of his life story,
you could check out 2021's Young Rock,
a sitcom based on his teenage years
that jumps between his school days
and early football career,
and his life living amongst wrestling legends.
Which brings us all the way to 2021
and Dwayne's first Netflix Original movie,
Red Notice.
If our trip through his career taught us anything,
it's that he's just as comfortable
wisecracking as cracking skulls.
And here he gets to do both as FBI agent John Hartley.
Tasked with bringing in jewel thief Ryan Reynolds,
he soon finds himself
working with his former nemesis
to bring down an even bigger thief played by Gal Gadot.
Arrest me.
Make sure you don't miss Red Notice,
now streaming on Netflix,
and to hear how more
of your favourite stars took their road to Netflix,
make sure you subscribe to the channel.