Having to go back a decade to find the last time Dwayne Johnson didn’t play himself underlines the stagnant superstar’s biggest issue

The old mantra of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” applies to a lot of things in a lot of different ways, but it’s beginning to feel as though everybody would benefit if Dwayne Johnson were to shake up his screen persona for the first time in a long time.

For what’s felt like forever, the A-list megastar has appeared almost exclusively in projects that carry budgets of $100 million above and feature plenty of visual effects to go with explosive action sequences, where he’ll more often than not be playing a military or law enforcement veteran, with at least one reference made to his hulking dimensions. Oh, and there’s a 50/50 chance the jungle will be involved.

And yet, diminishing critical and commercial returns – coupled with the abject failure of Black Adam and a reneged promise to abandon Fast & Furious forever – has taken some of the shine off The Rock’s previously impervious box office armor. Hitting the nail on the head, a Reddit thread asking for the last time he didn’t play himself on the big screen hasn’t thrown up any answers from the last decade.

Be Cool, Southland Tales, Snitch, and Pain & Gain find the actor playing a gay bodyguard, an amnesiac action hero awaiting the end of the world, a troubled father roped into a dangerous mission, and a drug-addled ex-con, and each of them rank among his finest and most memorable returns because he actually stretches his wings, broadens his horizons, and does a little real acting for a change.

That can’t be a coincidence, and he won’t be an action star forever, so there’s a lot of people who’d love nothing more than to see the 51 year-old sink his teeth into meatier roles.