The Rock Played a Gay Character Despite Being Told It Would ‘Ruin’ His Career

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has been one of Hollywood's most prolific leading men for so long now, playing similar variations on the reliable, wise-cracking action hero type in Red Notice, Jungle Cruise, Hobbs & Shaw and beyond, that it's hard to remember the days when he was something of an outsider in the movie industry, breaking into acting with small roles after a stellar wrestling career in the WWE.

While of those early parts may have been a little shaky (that Scorpion King CGI in The Mummy Returns still induces nightmares today), Johnson was still hungry enough as a newcomer that he took on the kind of character work that we will likely never see from him again—including in Be Cool, the 2005 comedy sequel to Get Shorty based on Elmore Leonard's novel.

Johnson's character in Be Cool was Eliot, an openly gay Samoan man who worked as a bodyguard in the music industry and had dreams of being a star himself. While a lot of the humor surrounding Eliot involved the kind of mid-00s gay jokes that probably wouldn't fly now, Johnson doesn't play him as a joke, committing to the character fully. (His performance was actually one of the few elements of the film that didn't get savaged by critics at the time.)

However, Johnson has just revealed that in those early stages of his acting career, he was advised by some "influential" industry people to avoid playing gay, as it could "ruin" his chances of getting bigger movie roles. He shared the story after his Out cover story from the Be Cool press tour resurfaced online. In typical Johnson fashion, he recalled "nicely" telling those industry folks to "f*** off."

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