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- Jack Goodwillie
- Andre the Giant. Andre the Giant's movie career may have been short-lived, but it's among the most memorable and impactful. Andre played the role of Fezzik in the 1987 fantasy classic, "The Princess Bride."
- Steve Austin. While it seems like low-hanging fruit to include a big name like Steve Austin on such a list, his extensive acting resume mandates it. The poster child of WWE's "Attitude Era" in the late '90s, Austin quietly put together a solid film acting portfolio.
- Batista. Dave Bautista has become a pillar for professional wrestlers-turned-actors thanks to the overwhelming amount of success he saw as Drax the Destroyer in Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy" franchise.
- John Cena. John Cena, one of the three most successful professional wrestlers currently in Hollywood, shunned a second career in acting for the longest time.
- Hulk Hogan Paved The Way
- Andre The Giant and Roddy Piper Made An Impact in Hollywood Too
- Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson Became The Biggest Actor on The Planet
- John Cena and Dave Bautista Showed That They Could Act Too
Though you might first think of someone like Hulk Hogan as the initial wrestler-turned-actor, he wasn’t. Professional wrestlers had long been part of film, even if it wasn’t exactly mainstream. In 1959, Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson was one of the stars of Ed Wood’s so-bad-it’s-good Plan 9 from Outer Space. He’d actually acted in many films before t...
Hulk Hogan wasn’t the only wrestler to try his hand at acting in the 1980s. There were two other names who made a lasting impact on cinema in the decade. 1987’s The Princess Bride is undoubtedly a modern classic that has been shared over generations. At its heart stands the larger-than-life Andre the Giant, a wrestler so awe-inspiring that he was a...
That changed with a certain eyebrow-raising Great One. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson rose to the top of the WWF with charisma and coolness on a level that had never been seen before. It led to him appearing in The Mummy Returns in 2001 as The Scorpion King, before reprising the role as the lead in The Scorpion Kingin ...
One of those WWE Studios stars broke through. After “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and The Rock left WWE, John Cena became the face of the company. Early in his acting career he tried to become an action star with forgettable films like The Marine, but he didn’t have much success. Then came Trainwreck. When Cena appeared in this major film, starring Amy...
- Senior Author
- Rowdy Roddy Piper – They Live. Despite being nearly 30 years old, the satirical bite They Live hasn’t waned a bit. If anything, with social mobility seeming less possible all the time, it’s maybe even timelier.
- The Rock – Pain And Gain. In twenty years time, in some quarters at least, Pain And Gain will be an acknowledged classic. It’s just that it’s a Michael Bay film, and everyone (quite rightly) can’t quite appreciate yet that Michael Bay has made something good.
- Batista – Guardians Of The Galaxy. Let’s put this in perspective. At this year’s Royale Rumble, Batista returned to the WWE after four years to win a title shot at Wrestlemania.
- The Rock – Be Cool. The belated sequel to Get Shorty, which attempts to skewer the music industry like the original did Hollywood, is generally a pretty wretched film.
- Philip Sledge
- Rocky III (1982) Rocky III was bigger and badder than the previous two installments in Sylvester Stallone’s all-time great boxing movie franchise, and some of that is thanks to Hulk Hogan’s brief yet iconic performance as Thunder Lips, the wrestler Rocky Balboa (Stallone) faces in an exhibition match early on.
- The Princess Bride (1987) Andre the Giant was one one of the most legendary wrestlers to ever step into the ring, but there are some out there who probably know the “Eighth Wonder of the World” from his work in Ron Reiner’s 1987 fantasy comedy, The Princess Bride.
- Spider-Man (2002) You can’t tell Peter Parker’s origin story without including Bone Saw McGraw, and luckily fans didn’t have to live in that reality in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies, as the first entry in the franchise saw the late Macho Man Randy Savage take on the role of the over-the-top and notorious wrestler.
- The Longest Yard (2005) There are movies with one or maybe two wrestlers, but the 2005 remake of The Longest Yard starring Adam Sandler featured some of the WWE superstars of that era with the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin, Kevin Nash, Bill Goldberg, and the Great Khali on both sides of the inmates vs. guards football game.
With Johnson releasing another blockbuster, Disney's Jungle Cruise, and John Cena and Dave Bautista both flying high, wrestlers have taken on the movies, and won, writes Sam Moore. The movie star...
Aug 24, 2021 · With the likes of Dwayne “The “Rock” Johnson, Dave Bautista, and John Cena currently dominating our screens in movies like F9, Jungle Cruise, The Suicide Squad, and Bautista’s forthcoming Dune,...
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Feb 7, 2021 · The latest in a recent trend of wrestlers-turned-movie-stars may have starred in a few MCU movies that have broken more bank at the box-office. But, when it comes to breathtaking cinematography (Roger Deakins), masterclass directing (Denis Villeneuve), and perfection-in-legacy-casting (Harrison Ford), Blade Runner 2049 reigns supreme among ...
