The Rock Revealed The Bad Advice That The ‘Experts’ Gave Him When He Wanted To Become A Movie Star

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson made his movie debut in 2001’s The Mummy Returns, but his first leading role came a year later, in the hastily made spinoff, The Scorpion King. It was an inauspicious (and poorly rendered) beginning for a wrestler-turned-actor who would later become one of the biggest movie stars in the world. This week, after being presented with a mosaic of all of his leading man movies, The Rock thanked his fans — and a ritzy hotel in Los Angeles — for his justified-salary success.

“Holy sh*t – this surprise really sat me down and got me thinking about the journey and these unpredictable roads we all go down,” he wrote on Instagram about the Hotel Bel-Air giving him the mosaic, along with bottles of Teremana Tequila, naturally (no In-N-Out). He continued:

“20yrs ago when I first got to Hollywood – all the ‘experts’ told me, I shouldn’t call myself The Rock, I shouldn’t go to the gym and needed to lose weight – and definitely don’t talk about pro wrestling. I was told, ‘If you want to make it in Hollywood, you gotta be like these other guys…’ That never sat right with me, so I said I’m not doing that and the only person I gotta be like – is me. If I failed, then at least I failed being real and being myself.”

Years (and many Fast and Furious feud updates) later, “here we are and I’m saying ‘holy sh*t’ to this career mosaic on the wall and most importantly, I’m saying.. THANK YOU to all of you for rockin’ with me down these roads for all these years,” The Rock continued. “Love U guys and cheers to the most important thing we can all be – ourselves.”

You can read the post and watch The Rock’s video below: