Until now it seemed the best a wrestler-turned-actor could hope for was a career on par with Hulk Hogan. But Dwayne Johnson—the artist formerly known as The Rock—has boldly surpassed his handlebar-mustachioed predecessor and evolved from seven-time WWE World Champion into a bona fide movie star. After moderate hits “The Scorpion King” and “The Rundown” established him as a possible heir to Arnold Schwarzenegger's action-hero throne, Johnson made a surprise shift to different, less carnage-dependent genres—sports drama (“Gridiron Gang”), gangster comedy (“Be Cool”), family flick (this fall’s surprisingly lucrative crowd-pleaser “The Game Plan”)—signaling an eagerness to stretch as a performer.

His latest project, “Southland Tales,” represents the biggest cinematic challenge yet for the former brawler. A sprawling, trippy sci-fi epic sprung from the mind of writer-director Richard Kelly (whose debut was cult favorite “Donnie Darko”), the film envisions what Los Angeles on the brink of the Apocalypse in the year 2008 might look like. It’s certainly the strangest, least mainstream-friendly movie Johnson has made.

But the role of the film’s amnesiac hero, Boxer Santaros, a lost soul caught between two lives—a “reality” as a screenwriter with a porn star girlfriend (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and a past as an action movie star married to the daughter (Mandy Moore) of a Republican presidential candidate—seems a natural fit for a man whose own identity straddles two vastly different forms of mass-audience entertainment.

Johnson talked to Metromix about his transition from the wrestling ring to the big screen, the privilege of locking lips with no less than three lovely co-stars for “Southland” and leaving his WWE alter ego behind for good.

What do you think is the message behind the ambiguous “Southland Tales”?
It’s funny, because everybody takes something different from the movie when they see it. You have environmental issues, you have your political issues. I always go back to the entertainment factor, because I view the movie as a dark comedy. I love seeing the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles, because I love L.A. I’ve always thought that this was a love letter to Los Angeles, of all the wonderful things that we have here in L.A., but I also love seeing that other side [of the city] as well.

This is the first independent film you’ve worked on. Did it seem noticeably different from the big-budget studio movies you’ve made?
There’s a different type of energy and a vibe on the set when no one [is concerned with how much money they’re earning]. I was joking with Richard because at that time, my house wasn’t ready [in L.A.], so I had to stay in a hotel. And it cost me more money to make the movie than I actually made, because for two months I was staying at a hotel with ridiculous prices. And we laugh at it now, but it was great!

You end up making out with quite a few beautiful actresses in the film.
I mean, you’re kidding me! How lucky was I on the set? I kissed Sarah, I kissed Mandy, I kissed Bai Ling [who plays an industrialist’s slinky cohort].

Did you do any special rehearsals for those scenes?
Well, I went to them, and said, ‘I think it’d be a good idea if we made out a couple of times. Not all at the same time! One at a time!’ They didn’t think it was such a good idea. No, no, nothing like that. We show up on set and put a lot of trust in Richard and have a great time.

Along the same lines, there’s a scene where a psycho fan (played by Michele Durrett) demands at gunpoint that she perform oral sex on you on the shore of Venice Beach in broad daylight.
That was an interesting scene too because we can’t just shut down Venice Beach. So there were a lot of people, and they were all watching and all excited about this scene. And then [Durrett] pulls out the gun. And [the onlookers] are with their families, and there are children too, [saying] ‘look, it’s a movie scene!’ And she says what she says…and I could see [the parents’] faces. They’re like, ‘it’s time to go! Let’s go!’ [I’m] like, ‘Richard, we should get this maybe in one [take]. It’s a little inappropriate.’

With both a Disney comedy like “The Game Plan” and a daring indie like “Southland” on screen at the same time, do you feel like that diversity will indicate to people that you mean to be taken seriously as an actor?
Well, that’d be nice. I mean, I’ve always taken myself seriously as an actor. And there were some challenges that I faced about seven years ago when I first broke in, and I understood that, just coming from the industry that I came from. My main goal and intention…was to become a good actor and commit myself, which is why I quietly retired four or five years ago from wrestling.

“Southland” marks the first time you’ve been credited as “Dwayne Johnson,” rather than “Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.” Why is that?
Moving forward, it’ll be Dwayne Johnson. And getting back to when I first started, I never wanted to force anything. I wanted it to feel natural. I knew eventually I would just get to Dwayne Johnson and be billed as Dwayne Johnson only as an actor. It was a personal decision I made. I never wanted to say, ‘well, from this day forward I want to be known only as [Dwayne Johnson].’ That just didn’t feel right to me, because The Rock was a character I created. So now I felt the timing was right on “Southland Tales” to move forward and be billed as Dwayne Johnson.

Since “The Game Plan” has grossed over $85 million, is a sequel on the horizon?
We haven’t really talked about it. I do think it’s kinda too early. And I know what happens in Hollywood—they go, ‘we better start thinking about sequels!’ But the success we’ve had with that has really been tremendous. I couldn’t be happier with it. But right now, it’s all things “Witch Mountain.” [Johnson’s next project, a remake of Disney’s “Escape to Witch Mountain,” also directed by “Game Plan” helmer Andy Fickman.]