Having found fame as a champion wrestler, The Rock is relishing his new career as an acting heavyweight, he tells Steve Pratt.

THE Rock, six-times World Wrestling Federation champion turned actor, is the first to admit that his first attempts at acting weren't very good.

He admits to being "horrified" when he watched again his debut in an episode of an American TV series, The Net.

"It was the worst acting you have ever seen," he says.

I doubt if anyone told him at the time. The Rock - real name Dwayne Johnson - is a big man. His muscular form fills the door frame as he enters the room.

The build of the Hawaiian-raised, third-generation professional wrestler marks him out as a screen action man in the Schwarzenegger mould, but he's determined not to get stuck in a rut.

After being introduced in The Mummy Returns, his character headed his own movie, The Scorpion King. That was a big hit and caused Hollywood to take his acting ambitions seriously.

Welcome To The Jungle, earlier this year, gave him an action part with comedy moments. With roles as a gay man and a villain lined up, he's doing all he can to show his versatility.

The title of his current release here, Walking Tall, is familiar from a 1970s film about a real-life sheriff, Buford Pusser. Pusser was one man standing up for what he thought was right as a lawman in his small, rural Southern American town.

The Rock knew and loved that movie. "I saw it when I was eight. I loved the movie then, not because of the inspiring story, but because these guys were kicking a lot of ass. Once I got older I got to appreciate the real story of what he went through," he explains.

"On the set of The Scorpion King, we were talking about our favourite movies and one of mine is Walking Tall. I called my agent the next day to find out where Walking Tall's at. My idea was to do a remake. He thought I wanted the DVD. But we went to MGM and they were ecstatic."

He knew that he was physically unsuited to playing Pusser. "So we changed the name, which led to a bigger conversation. I wanted to go to where he lived and ultimately died, to talk to the family who helped with the research, and to just to let the town know, because they're all very sensitive. The legend of Buford Pusser is still very strong," he says.

"I thought the time was right to do a movie that epitomises what it's like to stand up for yourself. It just so happened this was pre 9/11, then everything started to go down.

"I thought the truth is this war might not be the answer, more fighting than standing up for yourself. But I've always been moved and inspired by this story.

"Once you do the research, you realise how much this guy went through. The challenge was to try to recreate that and bring it up to date in a way where you don't lose that old school, old-fashioned frontier type of justice in the movie."

The name of The Rock is enough now to get movies greenlit. He's wise enough to know that not every movie reaches the heights of The Scorpion King at the box-office.

He also recognises that he'd be foolish to abandon action roles completely. If he had to name two actors who personify the range for which he's aiming, they'd be Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis.

Playing a villain doesn't bother him. "Growing up, a lot of my heroes in movies were always the bad guys. I could relate to them a little bit more because they had more problems and more issues going on, but also had endearing qualities," he says.

He counts the likes of John Travolta and Christopher Walken among his co-stars but doesn't get nervous working with them. "It's more challenging. I'm very excited about it, as long as I have good help around me and I'm prepared," he says.

Every once in a while he returns to the wrestling ring. He went back in March for the Wrestlemania show "to help out the company, business is kind of down and it's a nice way for me to help out".

Football was his first choice of sport. He won a scholarship to Miami University where he scored as a football player. After being injured, he signed a deal with the Canadian league. "Then I got cut from the team, I wasn't even fit enough to play there," he explains. "After that, one chapter of my life came to an end. I didn't think to myself, 'I want to become The Rock or do films.' I just thought, 'I want to make more money than 300 bucks a week Canadian.' That was eight years ago. I had seven bucks in my pocket going back to my family."

So he turned to wrestling. He always thought any acting he did would be on TV, with which he was familiar through wrestling. He appeared in an episode of Star Trek and the comedy series, That 70s Show, before director Stephen Sommers wrote the role of the Scorpion King for him. That amounted to just one line in The Mummy Returns, with the promise of the spin-off movie to come later.

The Rock does have something to hide - a tattoo that covers much of his upper body and tells the story of his life. On movies, it has to be covered up by makeup, which he admits is "more a pain in the butt" than anything because it means he loses an hour's sleep, having to go on set early to have it covered up.

* Walking Tall (15) is now showing in cinemas.