The New York Times has honored Dwayne Johnson with a profile. Despite reporter Brooks Barnes's rote tribute to the Artist Formerly Known as the Rock's "Paul Bunyan physique and Central Casting good looks", the piece raises suspicions that what really struck the editors as newsworthy is that, in these confused and festering times, at least somebody has got a long-term career plan. Having had mixed success with hit action films such The Scorpion King and non-hit action films such as The Rundown, and having had his acting praised for his work in such unlikely repositories for his talent as Southland Tales and Be Cool, the 36-year-old, six-foot-five-inch star is consciously making his pitch to the youth market. And not the tweens and the twentysomethings, either; it sounds as if his business cards should be printed with the motto, "You Know: For Kids!" A top executive at Walt Disney Studios says of Johnson, “He’s larger than life and has endless charisma but comes across as a regular guy on screen. That makes him a very unique talent.” But the judgement seems to be that, in a casting universe dominated, in Barnes's words, by those "who are either intense and brooding (Christian Bale) or pudgy and dorky (Seth Rogen)", the Rock lacks an "edge." That might help to explain why one is drawn to him, as to solid flotsam floating past in a hurricane, when he's passing for the most normal thing in the context of the storm of weirdness that was Southland Tales. "“Audiences, particularly kids," says director Andy Fickman, "seem to love discovering that a guy this big and this good looking is actually very sweet and very funny." As did the autograph-seeking stranger who, Barnes writes, interrupted Johnson's dinnertime interview to ask, "“Um, I’m sorry to interrupt you while you have a knife in your hand..."
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