Dwayne Johnson and the Career Reinvention Oscar

“It was my honor to transform in this role for my director Benny Safdie,” Dwayne Johnson wrote on Instagram Monday, accompanied by a photo of him in his Smashing Machine prosthetics—eyebrows thickened, cauliflower ear poking out behind a wig. “Thank you brother for believing in me. Truth is this film has changed my life.” His verbiage had all the signifiers of a scrounging everyman finally given their big break—not exactly that of a historically highly paid actor addressing his somber little A24 film that scraped up a mere $6 million in its opening weekend. But this is Oscar brain, people—it doesn’t have to make sense; it just has to push a narrative. And a strong narrative is enough to make a beefed-up box office king like Johnson look like an underdog in comparison to his highbrow competitors come March.