Dwayne Johnson, Highest Paid Actor, Now ‘People’s Sexiest Man Alive’

Dwayne Johnson at the AFI Fest 2016 World Premiere of Disney’s “Moana” in Hollywood, CA, November 14, 2016. Photo © 2016 Joseph Martinez/ Picturelux – All Rights Reserved.

[dropcap]P[/dropcap]eople magazine has named Dwayne Johnson, (a.k.a. The Rock,) its “Sexiest Man Alive” for 2016. He now joins an elite group of honorees that over the years has included Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and Jude Law to name a few.

This of course is all a great big PR orchestration. The title is given to a celebrity, most often an actor, who is in the middle of promoting a new project, movie, etc. For Dwayne Johnson, that would be his latest feature film, Moana, an animated Disney film, which premiered in Hollywood on Monday (November 14, 2016) and will open in wide release on Nov. 23. In the film, Johnson voices the character of the Mighty Demigod, Maui.

But that’s not all. On top of his ‘Sexiest…’ title he also elbowed out reigning top-ranked Robert Downey Jr. to become the world’s highest-paid actor and scored his biggest-ever annual paycheck in the process. Johnson’s $64.5 million payday in 2016 more than doubled his 2015 earnings, making him this year’s biggest dollar gainer according to Forbes.

Keeping busy is one way to the top as Johnson’s next project involves co-starring in the eighth Fast and the Furious film as well as in a remake of the Robin William’s film, Jumanji.

So what did Johnson think when he first heard about his latest title of People’s Sexiest Man Alive? He tells People “That’s awesome…. And then I thought, ‘Wow, we’ve pretty much reached the pinnacle.’ I’m not quite too sure where we go from here. I’ve done it all, this is it.”

But that might not be entirely true as he expressed some interest in following the footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger, a fellow bodybuilder-turned-actor, and perhaps going into politics as mentioned in a recent interview with British GQ last summer, [beautifulquote align=”full” cite=””]I can’t deny that the thought of being governor, the thought of being president, is alluring,” he said. “And beyond that, it would be an opportunity to make a real impact on people’s lives on a global scale.[/beautifulquote]

Look out 2020, President Rock may just be on the horizon.

For more on Moana, visit the official website.