Running for US President ‘a real possibility’, says Priyanka Chopra’s Baywatch co-star ‘The Rock’

WASHINGTON (TIP): Indian actor Priyanka Chopra may one day be able to say she acted with a US Presidential candidate.

That’s because her Baywatch co-star Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson told GQ magazine’s latest issue that running for election to be US President is “a real possibility.”

The magazine mentions that last year, The Washington Post published an op-ed suggesting the WWE wrestler-turnedactor could be a viable candidate for the post now occupied by Donald Trump, a former reality TV star himself. Since then, Johnson told GQ that he’s been really thinking about it.

GQ then asks Johnson the operative question.

Whether “he honestly might one day give up his life as the highest-paid movie star on earth-which is unquestionably easier, more fun, and more lucrative than being president of the United States-in order to run for office”?

States-in order to run for office”? “I think that it’s a real possibility,” Johnson, 45, replied, GQ says,” solemnly”.

“Im grateful how this idea has become very real to a lot of people. Years from now if I feel I can step up and become a strong, impactful and authentic leader for the people and our country – I will,” ‘The Rock’ said on Instagram last year after the Post’s article.

On its part, the magazine believes “the idea doesn’t sound crazy.” It’s because the same qualities that made Johnson “the highest-paid movie star on earth”, as GQ puts it, are what could well propel him into office, or at least give him a fighting chance.

Hollywood says ‘The Rock’ tests well in “all four quadrants”: old men, young men, old women, and young women. In plain English, that means everybody likes him.

“[He] is as close to guaranteeing you butts in the seat as anybody can be,” NBCUniversal vice chairman Ron Meyer told GQ.

There are two other reasons GQ cites to say Johnson running for US President “doesn’t sound crazy” – his “industrial strength patriotism” and “his tough-toplace ethnicity”.

That patriotism is well known in the US, where Johnson “frequently takes to social media to thank members of the armed forces, specifically and in aggregate, for their service,” as GQ writes.

Johnson’s ethnicity is black and Samoan. “This uncommon ethnic background means that, in the right light, he can read as Pacific Islander, Latino, Middle Eastern, Native American, Southeast Asian”, etc., etc., GQ writes. Johnson’s colouring therefore gives him “a hometown advantage everywhere on earth,” the magazine adds. (PTI)