One Of The Rock's Earliest Roles Was A Star Trek Alien
Before Dwayne "Scooter" Johnson became the action star he is today, his list of credits were naturally filled with just his wrestling appearances. The first time he showed up onscreen as anyone other than a wrestler was actually in an episode of That '70s Show, where he played ... okay, actually, he was here too playing a wrestler. He was playing the part of his own father, the real-life wrestler Rocky Johnson.
His next acting role was a guest part on a show called The Net, which we're just going to skip past. And after that, his next role was on Star Trek, as ... okay, he was again playing a wrestler. But he was playing an ALIEN wrestler, a Pandari—which is an alien species that had never been mentioned before and would never be mentioned again.
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If you only know Johnson from his current roles, you may be surprised that the crew used special effects to make him look smaller. We assure you, this was his natural size at the time, and back then, it was actually considered quite large. If you're truly unfamiliar with the Rock persona, you might also be confused at why he poses for the camera raising one eyebrow, but again, that was his trademark look at the time, and none of us did anything to intervene.
Paramount
The Rock's character, known only as The Champion. battles Seven of Nine, who's been unwillingly forced into competing in this bloodsport. "Resistance is futile," she says. "So is all your talk," says The Rock, and if we had to write a scene combining The Rock and Star Trek, with no knowledge of either other than through memes, this is totally how we would script it.
Sadly, his part in the episode ends soon after this. The pair's duel to the death ends without either dying, and Seven spends the rest of the episode talking to and fighting a different wrestler (played by J. G. Hertzler, who did a bunch of other Star Trek characters as well). We like to think that they offered The Rock the more major role, but he turned it down when he heard accepting it meant Seven would beat him.
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Top image: Paramount
