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It is proving to be a busy time for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
With fresh profiles in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Guardian among others, the former wrestler-turned-Hollywood star has been hard at work promoting his new movie, The Smashing Machine—based on the life of former UFC tournament champion Mark Kerr.
The movie, which debuts in movie theatres this weekend, reveals a different side of Johnson. Instead of a charismatic and muscle-bound action hero, a Disney demigod, or a gentle giant in a buddy comedy, Johnson embodies a flawed and volatile mixed martial artist as he grapples with his place in the rapidly changing world of combat sports.
The role has been discussed as Johnson’s shot at an Oscar nomination. Each of his recent profiles hints at this, making reference to the 15-minute standing ovation he received after the film aired at the Venice Film Festival. Yet it was during an interview with Variety’s Award Circuit podcast last week that Johnson reignited talk of a potential presidential run.
“It’s wild, man,” Johnson said when asked whether he would run for president in the future. “I’m always honoured that people ask that. I love what I do. I love storytelling. But yeah… we’ll see.”
This isn’t the first time that Johnson has fanned the flames of a political run. In 2017, the former WWE champion revealed that he was “seriously considering” running for president of the United States. He revisited the topic in 2021, when he told USA Today he’d consider a presidential run if “that’s what the people wanted.” He even reposted an article revealing 46 percent of Americans would support this presidential run.
“Not sure our Founding Fathers ever envisioned a six-four, bald, tattooed, half-Black, half-Samoan, tequila drinking, pick up truck driving, fanny pack wearing guy joining their club – but if it ever happens it’d be my honor to serve the people,” Johnson wrote.
After the poll result, Johnson claimed to have been courted by both of the dominant political parties in the US. But by October 2022, Johnson no longer seemed as excited by a pivot to politics, telling CBS Sunday Morning that he wouldn’t run in 2024 due to a desire to focus on parenting.
Yet even if Johnson were to run, what would his politics even be?
Over the past few years, Johnson appears to have softened his political stance, adopting a more moderate, carefully calibrated image that distances him from associations with so-called “woke” politics or progressive America. In 2020, Johnson endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. By 2024, however, the actor told Fox News’ Fox & Friends he would not be endorsing Harris for president, preferring to “keep my politics to myself”.
During the Fox & Friends appearance, Johnson bemoaned “cancel culture, woke culture, division, etcetera,” arguing that he preferred being “real.” He also revealed that he regretted endorsing Biden and contributing to the “division” and tribalism in American politics. “The endorsement that I made years ago with Biden was one I thought was the best decision for me at that time. But what that caused was something that tears me up in my guts — which is division,” Johnson said in the interview.
In hindsight, the interview is particularly revealing. When asked about the challenges facing America today, Johnson leaned heavily on right-wing talking points, targeting “cancel culture” and “woke culture” rather than issues such as gun violence, creeping authoritarianism, or the rising tide of hate. Even his choice to sit for a full hour on Fox News can be read as a signal that he was appealing to a more conservative audience—possibly because he recognized that this was the political camp most likely to embrace him.
In an era when masculinity dominates political and cultural conversations, Johnson’s unwavering embrace of the alpha male archetype has cemented his status as one of the world’s biggest movie stars. Beyond his latest turn as a hulking MMA fighter, he’s also borrowed a page from Trump’s playbook by forging a close relationship with the UFC, further aligning himself with the realm of professional tough guys. He famously presented the mythical BMF belt to the winner of UFC 244’s main event and later secured a high-profile partnership between the UFC and his footwear brand, Project Rock.
And yet, it was the UFC partnership that exposed Johnson’s hypocritical nature. As Project Rock rolled out marketing campaigns calling UFC fighters “the hardest workers in the room,” I reported exclusively for The Guardian that fighters did not receive a cut from the lucrative deal. Johnson—whose industry has multiple unions for professional actors—continues to work with the UFC, an entity known for its exploitative labour practices and mistreatment of fighters.
Johnson’s recent profiles touted his charismatic smile—a smile that, according to The Times, “makes you feel as if the sun is setting over an undiscovered tropical beach on which 10,000 baby sea turtles are about to hatch.” But behind that smile lies a man raised in the world of professional wrestling, where kayfabe—the pretence that everything in the ring was real—was a sacred lie. Johnson, ever the showman, weaponized this dynamic in his own life.
Over the years, Johnson has cultivated a blue collar, hardest-worker-in-the-room image that resonates with the American working class. Recent polls suggest he is seen as more “competent, credible, intelligent and trustworthy than most politicians.”
This myth-making was taken to the extreme when Johnson produced and starred in Young Rock, a sitcom based on his life and professional wrestling career. The show is set during the 2032 presidential campaign, with Johnson recounting fragments of his life in flashbacks during interviews on the trail. The show, albeit fictional, gave Johnson’s fans new insight into his family and his working class roots, while also giving them a glimpse into the future—a future where Johnson actually does run for president.
Yet Johnson cannot control every aspect of his image; every so often, unflattering reports slip through the cracks of his gilded trailer. Beyond his aforementioned exploitative partnership with the UFC, the actor has also been accused of demanding his Fast & Furious scripts be tweaked to make sure his character always won his fights (very alpha male!), arriving late on set, and urinating in bottles that he later handed to assistants.
This doesn’t suggest that Johnson is a bad person. But it does suggest he is there is more to the man than the public persona he has meticulously built over the past few decades. Even close friends like actor Emily Blunt—his The Smashing Machine co-star— expressed frustration with how much his public persona was a performance, an act to give the audience a “good show.” Even though Johnson is no longer an active wrestler, he can’t seem to escape the kayfabe.
This, naturally, extends to his politics. In a recent interview with Variety, Johnson was asked if he had a message for those who “feel like the world is on fire.” His response was as tepid as his centrism: “I’m happy to share something I’ve learned recently. My uncle said to me a couple of months ago, ‘It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.’ That stuck with me.”
For a wrestler who once went by “The People’s Champ,” Johnson seems remarkably wary of taking sides. And yet, by serving up little more than Hallmark sentiments dressed as politics, he may have succeeded in alienating both.
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