THE NEXT ACTION HERO
by Corey Levitan

	Hasta la vista, Ah-nuld. 
	When "The Scorpion King" opens Friday, 
the 20-year reign of a certain 50something 
movie star is likely to terminate. Hollywood 
is already abuzz about how indisputably the 
"Mummy" prequel establishes World Wrestling 
Federation champ The Rock as Hollywood's 
premiere action hero. 
	The first journalists to screen the movie 
in L.A. last week were stunned by the 29-
year-old newbie's screen presence.
	"He's BETTER than Schwarzenegger," raved 
BBC Radio correspondent Gayl Murphy. "Arnold 
was never a sexy daddy. He was the guy that 
the guys liked. But The Rock is a 
heartbreaker. He's got the moves and really 
uses his body. 
	"And he's terrific in the role."
	"He translated well into the action-hero 
mode," said Scott Bowles of "USA Today." 
"And good actors can't always do it. Guy 
Pearce couldn't do it in 'Time Machine" and 
Chris O'Donnell couldn't in 'Vertical 
Limit.'
     "He certainly has that presence." 
	Rock-solid notices are also pouring into 
Hollywood hipness barometer 
AintItCoolNews.com.
	"People really seem to like this movie," 
says Harry Knowles, the website's founder.
	In a shock bigger than any gauze-wrapped 
digitized skeleton could provide, "The 
Scorpion King" turns out to be pretty damned 
good. More like an "Indiana Jones" than a 
"Mummy" franchise, its minimal special 
effects never substitute for plot or 
character development.
	"I didn't want to do the film if it was 
'Mummy 3,'" says director Chuck Russell, who 
grabs the felt chair from Stephen Sommers. 
"The fact that this film has a unique tone 
from the 'Mummy' movies is very important to 
me."
	The Rock plays the Scorpion King 5000 
years before Brendan Fraser encounters his 
silly ghost at the end of last year's "The 
Mummy Returns." He's known simply as 
Mathayus, a very human assassin desperate to 
rid ancient Gomorrah of its evil ruler 
(Steven Brand). 
	Any doubts that the 6'5", 250 lb. king of 
the ring could pull off toplining a $60 
million motion picture are dispensed with as 
quickly as Mathayus' enemies. The Rock 
frightens as effectively as Schwarzenegger 
in 1982's "Conan the Barbarian," while 
charming like the man in 1991's "Terminator 
2: Judgment Day."
	"Good Lord, are you going to kill me?" a 
terrified elderly bystander asks Mathayus at 
one point.
	"Maybe later," Mathayus responds, in a 
way that lets you know he would never do 
that.
	The Arnold comparison is unavoidable. 
Both men are exotic foreigners to the 
Hollywood scene, disregarded at first as 
muscle-headed doofuses, who prove that they 
have much more to offer.
	"It's worth comparing," says Russell, who 
directed Schwarzenegger in 1996's "Eraser." 
"They're two entirely different people, but 
they both have a sort of amazing background 
athletically. And, if I can risk being 
corny, they're both champions."
	Both also remind us that burliness and 
burlesque are not mutually exclusive. Like 
Schwarzenegger, The Rock has a keen sense of 
himself, and how funny he is playing against 
type. 
	"Ow!" he screams like a schoolgirl in the 
new film, after his arm is only slightly 
scraped in a swordfight with comely 
sorceress Cassandra (Kelly Hu).
	"There's a real sense of knowing that 
he's in an action scene while he's in it," 
says "The Scorpion King's" producer, Kevin 
Misher. "There's a wink and a nod that we 
know where we are." 
	Where Dwayne Douglas Johnson has been 
most of his life is wrestling. His Samoan 
mother, Ata, was the daughter of the 
legendary Peter Maivia, known on the mat as 
High Chief. Dwayne's African-American dad, 
Rocky, was also a wrestling champ. 
	Home life was about as normal as it is 
for "The Osbournes" -- without the humor. 
Surrounded by professional-wrestling family 
friends, the Johnsons lived all over the map 
before settling in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 
Dad squandered the family savings and became 
a drunk, according to The Rock's 2000 
autobiography, "The Rock Says..." The house 
and car eventually disappeared.
	But soon, so would young Dwayne, who had 
a promising alternative career on the high-
school football field. It took him to the 
University of Miami on a scholarship, where 
he ended up majoring in Jack Daniel's 
(actually: criminology) because All-American 
defensive tackle Warren Sapp already 
occupied his position.
	The perpetual benchwarmer raised hell as 
effectively as he would one day raise his 
right eyebrow. Once, he vented by attempting 
to yank out a teammate's tongue, hinting at 
the greatness to come.
	Dwayne gave the Canadian Football League 
a failed shot following his 1995 graduation. 
But, much like Michael Corleone, the family 
business pulled him back in. 
	Borrowing names from his father and 
grandfather, Rocky Maivia (or The Rock, for 
short) became not only the youngest WWF 
champ ever at 26, but also the most frequent 
(6 times). So astronomical was his rise that 
his catchphrases ("Do you smell what The 
Rock is cooking?"/"Know your role, Jabroni, 
and shut your mouth!") began to escape the 
ring and threaten popular culture.
	The Rock wanted to hurry the process, of 
course. So he asked WWF owner Vince McMahon 
to help make him a household name. Seeing 
the opportunity for wrestling cross-
promotion, McMahon pitched "Saturday Night 
Live." The Rock hosted in March 2000.
	"Everybody knows the rigors of pulling 
off that show and we've all seen people fall 
flat on their face," says Misher. "But he 
was able to pull it off, and in such a 
winning way. 
	"It was the combination of seeing a guy 
who looks like that, and can perform like 
that -- and seeing the sense of humor he has 
-- that convinced everybody."
	Well, not everybody...
	Russell, who took on "The Scorpion King" 
with The Rock already weighing it down, at 
first wrestled with doubt. The Rock's only 
previous screen experience was 5 minutes at 
the beginning and end of "The Mummy 
Returns," during which all he did was fight 
and yell in Egyptian.
	"I'd ask myself, 'Is this an 
opportunistic celebrity who's gonna jump 
right back to wrestling and not make it to 
my rehearsals?'" admits Russell, who is 
famous for his gut instinct about untried 
actors. (He introduced both Jim Carrey and 
Cameron Diaz to movie stardom in 1994's "The 
Mask.")
	"But The Rock so impressed me with how 
serious he was about acting and how willing 
he was to do everything -- from improv, 
study work and working out the chemistry 
with the other cast members -- that I was 
very comfortable by the time we started," 
Russell says.
	The Rock -- who received $5.5 million for 
"The Scorpion King," a hefty bulk-up from 
his $500,000 "Mummy Returns" pay stub -- 
prepped for two weeks with renowned acting 
coach Larry Moss. He was recommended by 
Michael Clarke Duncan, trained by Moss for 
his Oscar-winning turn in "The Green Mile."
	"When he came back, he was totally 
different," says Duncan, who also stars in 
"The Scorpion King." "The Rock was able to 
bring his emotions up and do a lot of other 
things that maybe he wouldn't have been able 
to do had he not studied with Mr. Moss."
	The Rock -- who splits his time between 
L.A. and Miami, home to his wife, Dany 
Garcia, and their baby daughter, Simone 
Alexandra -- is really a sensitive guy at 
heart, says Duncan. And while you don't get 
that from his loudmouthed wrestling 
caricature, he is able to radiate some of 
that on screen.
	"He's a little softie," Duncan says. 
"He's no Rock." 
	As proof, Duncan recalls what happened 
after The Rock's right elbow accidentally 
rendered him unconscious during a fight 
scene. 
	"I said, 'I'm gonna play on this thing,'" 
says Duncan, who wasn't really hurt. "So I 
took one of those cotton balls, dipped it in 
fake blood and stuck it up under my lip."
	Duncan asked The Rock if he looked OK for 
his close-up, cracking a big red smile.
	"He's like, 'MICHAEL!! I'M SO SORRY!!'" 
Duncan says. "And he starts getting ready to 
cry."
	All this, plus, the guy does his own 
stunts.
	"You don't have to cut away and put in a 
stunt double and suddenly you're looking at 
somebody's back as they go up a cliff," says 
Misher. "We had to hold him back from doing 
more!"
	Of course, now that the word is out, 
everyone wants a piece of The Rock. He's 
already been signed for his next movie, 
tentatively titled "Helldorado," an action 
flick set in the Amazon, in which he will 
play a bounty hunter. Shooting begins this 
fall.
	So how does all this pressure sit on the 
man? Is he comfortable knowing that he alone 
will probably transform you-know-who into 
the NEXT-TO-last action hero? 
	"Oh yes, Rock, yoo-arr do-eeng fan-tah-
steek, yah!" says The Rock, performing a 
perfect Schwarzenegger impression for The 
Post at the movie's L.A. junket. 
	In real life, the two are friends. After 
Schwarzenegger cracked his ribs in a 
motorcycle accident last year, The Rock sent 
him a tricycle in the hospital. And Arnold 
came to the set of "The Scorpion King" to 
wish its star well.
	"The comparisons have been great," The 
Rock says. "But his shoes are really big to 
fill. 
	"Not that I'm not confident or ambitious, 
but I'd prefer just to make my own path and 
do my own thing."