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Entertainment

How Wayne Rooney Could Improve Every Single Major Feature Film Ever Made

The Manchester United striker-cum-midfielder deserves an Oscar. Every Oscar. For every film ever made.

(Photo via Manchester United)

Haha, well. Wow. Hard to know quite what to do with this. Quite… quite hard to know where to start. Here we go, though – let's try to process this together:

United v aliens – we know who we're backing! — Manchester United (@ManUtd)June 14, 2016

Yes: that is Wayne Rooney, Daley Blind, Chris Smalling, Little Juan Mata and Ashley Young saving the earth from an alien invasion under the slightly dismissive instruction of Jeff Goldblum. Yes: that is what is happening here. Manchester United struck the deal of the millennium with 20th Century Fox, and this is what happens now. Remember when Wayne Rooney was in X Men? This is what happens now. Thank you, 20th Century Fox.

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There's Ashley Young, wearing the smirk of a boy who shouted "FUCK!" in class but somehow the kid two rows in front of him got the blame and has to sit in detention all break time while Ashley goes on the field and scores a hat-trick; Daley Blind, being quietly, Dutchly baffled; Juan Mata, in his final Manchester United appearance before Mourinho kills him; Chris Smalling, with his voice of– OK, OK, you remember when you were a kid and you used to watch kid's TV? And there was a very specific advert set up to sell toys to boys (water pistols, dinosaur trading cards, weird little Mad Max wrist-mounted play vistas, &c.), where two boys would gather in a locker room, surrounded by their posses, and they would have a weird non-contact fight which was essentially just boasting, like they would say really sincere things in estuary accents, like, "Bridge to Command, this is your leader" then really dramatically make a move on a Battleship board, that sort of thing. So you have Boy #1, who has perfect frosted tips and a cool digital watch and is clearly The Cool Kid, and let's say they are playing trading cards or whatever, and he puts down the first card, like, "I play: Charizard!" and all the other kids are losing their minds at this move – they are holding their heads, just howling; they are whispering to each other in that way kids do where they describe something that literally just happened to someone who also saw it, like "Did you see that? He just played Charizard" – and you, the viewer, suspended in this perfect warm solution of milky disbelief, you are like: "Damn. There is no way this kid is going to beat a Charizard. This second kid is dead now. Motherfucker is going to have to move schools," and then the other kid, the doomed boy, Boy #2, looks back at his posse all cocky, and he draws out a Mew – slowly, so they can do special close-up lightning effects on the Mew card, because you know this Mew is savage – and then he plays it so hard the entire locker room rumbles, and he looks up and says something like: "You just got played, Garth" and what I am saying is: that second kid, Mew kid, he has Chris Smalling's same exact voice. Watch it again, tell me I'm wrong:

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United v aliens – we know who we're backing! — Manchester United (@ManUtd)June 14, 2016

So the Manchester United squad has some deficiencies. Does it stop them being sent into space to fight aliens? It does not stop them being sent into space to fight aliens. And their captain, O captain, is little Wazza Rooney, incomprehensibly the only footballer being sent into space in his full football kit, which asks a lot of questions on its own (was Wayne Rooney late to lift off so had to just go in what he was wearing? Is a full Manchester United kit what Wayne Rooney is always wearing? Does he sleep in that kit? Is he some sort of adidas-sponsored nevernude?), but Wayne Rooney leads them into space and then they defeat a load of aliens – nobody seems to get a confirmed kill, but whatever; they are up there and they are doing their best – and then Wayne Rooney says, "Nice battle, boys, but the war isn't over," because the war isn't over. There are still a lot of remaining questions. Like: why did we have to send five Manchester United squad members to fight aliens? Why was Ashley Young one of those squad members? Why is Daley Blind the subject of such heat-of-the-battle micro-aggressions revolving around the pronunciation of his name? But no, seriously, why did we send footballers up? Did all the actual pilots and soldiers die? Was Wayne Rooney the only one left? There are so many questions here.

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I want to say right now that I hate Wayne Rooney as a footballer, but I think I fully, fully love him for giving his limited all to this dumb endeavour. Wayne Rooney cannot act. But here he is, standing in front of a green screen, asking the world to believe him.

I want to say right now that it is amazing that Wayne Rooney seems medically unable to say a scripted sentence that doesn't have the word "boys" buried in there somewhere.

I want to say right now that I want Wayne Rooney to be in every film made from now on, and also every film ever made up until now.

I want to imagine that, right now.

I want you to come with me on this journey.

Film: The Godfather
Role: The Godfather
Would Wayne Rooney improve this film? Yes

It's summer, a summer wedding. Polished classic cars litter the driveway up to the house. A clutch of bridesmaids giggle under an awning. The bride cuts the cake. Confetti flutters in the air, laughter. A handsome Italian singer croons towards a swaying crowd. In the distance: a lake, with boats. But darker now, into the shade. Men with sweaty foreheads and combed hair queue outside a door. Two brick shithouse units stand either side. Through the door, a creaking leather chair. A small Italian-American is ushered in. He is shaking, nervous. "A–ah–ah ah–ah," he says. "Ah–ah ah, ah–Wayne Rooney."

Wayne Rooney, his cheeks stuffed fat with Greggs bread rolls, adidas kit on under his tuxedo jacket, turns to face him. "You come to me, boys," he says, flatly, Scousely. "On the day of my daughter's wedding. And you do not even think to call me godfather." Wayne Rooney, laughing and tossing an orange, seconds away from being shot. Wayne Rooney, clumsily stroking a cat. Wayne Rooney, crying and gnashing over the body of James Caan. In the end, The Godfather only won three Academy Awards. Imagine how many it would have got with Wayne Rooney in the lead.

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Film: Wolf of Wall Street
Role: Jordan Belfort
Would Wayne Rooney improve this film? Yes

Wayne Rooney is in a suit and Wayne Rooney is in a sports car and Wayne Rooney is married to Margot Robbie and Wayne Rooney is decking quaaludes and Wayne Rooney is making money over money and Wayne Rooney is trying to shag Joanna Lumley and John O'Shea is his little Jonah Hill one and Wayne Rooney is on a yacht, high and screaming, and Wayne Rooney is being interrogated by the FBI and Wayne Rooney is finding loophole after loophole and Wayne Rooney is feeling it all crashing in around him and Wayne Rooney is a sober man, Wayne Rooney is on the alcohol-free beer sending Post-It notes to Big Johnny Shea-Shea, and Wayne Rooney is guilt, and Wayne Rooney is going to jail, and at the end, Wayne Rooney is absolved, Wayne Rooney is tanned and dark and healthy, Wayne Rooney has survived prison and is a changed, remade man, and Wayne Rooney is wearing a wireless microphone, and Wayne Rooney leans closer, to you and to the camera, Wayne Rooney leans in and Wayne Rooney whispers: "Sell me this pen."

Film: The Notebook
Role: Noah
Would Wayne Rooney improve this film? Yes, but also very much no

Colleen Rooney is splashing and laughing in the sea. Birds flutter in the distance. "Do you think," Colleen Rooney asks, "in another lifetime, I could've been a bird?" And this is where Wayne Rooney's emotional depth really comes into play. Because he has none at all. I feel like in moments of extreme distress, Wayne Rooney cannot really raise his voice above a sort of autocue monotone. Like, if Wayne Rooney was in extreme pain – his leg has just been shot off, for instance, by snipers at the FA Cup final, and he is crawling towards the assembled medics nearby, blood on his mouth and on his kit, and he is screaming… even then, I feel like him saying "help me, medics, I am dying" would still come out quite flat and emotionless, like that robot you used to be able to get to say things out loud for you on old computers. So anyway, yes, I would really like to see him gaze wistfully into the sea and then grab Colleen Rooney so hard his flat cap fell off, and then say, with Rooneyesque anti-aplomb: "If you are a bird, boys, I am a bird." That is something I would very much like to see.

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Film: Star Wars
Role: Yoda
Would Wayne Rooney improve this film? Yes

First instinct: yes, I want Wayne Rooney as Darth Vader, flatly saying, "I feel a disturbance in the force, boys," the force-choking Ryan Giggs. But Wayne Rooney excels when he is playing a sweet, good-hearted underdog, a wise maester, a pure being, and also someone who is going bald, and so for that reason he has to play Yoda. Imagine Marcus Rashford (Luke) wearing little Wayne Rooney on his back as he whispers, "Do or do not, boys, there is no try." Imagine a CGI Wayne Rooney telling the Jedi Council that fear is the path to the dark side, and that anger leads to hate, and that hate leads to stamping on Richard Carvalho's balls in the quarter final of the European cup.

Film: Grease
Role: Sandy
Would Wayne Rooney improve this film? Yes

Are you joking? Would Wayne Rooney improve this film? Are you joking? The only way to improve this film is with the addition of Wayne Rooney. Wayne Rooney, hair curled, tight leather jacket, cigarette under the stiletto, Wayne Rooney shoulder-shaking with John Travolta in a funhouse mirror, Wayne Rooney having chills, Wayne Rooney is electrified, boys? Wayne Rooney requiring you to shape up, because he needs a man? The greatest musical but possibly also the best half-time pep talk of all time? Yes. Yes. Incontrovertible proof: every film is improved with Wayne Rooney in the title role. Every single film. Cast him as every member of the Ghostbusters. Cast him as both the lead roles in Legend. A Jack and Jill remake with Wayne Rooney as both Jack and Jill would win every single Oscar. Yes, yes, yes. Wayne Rooney is the acting great this country is crying out for.

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@joelgolby

More Wayne Rooney:

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Theory: Wayne Rooney Should Have Always Been a Professional Wrestler

'My Jedi Master Was Alan Stubbs': Wayne Rooney on Star Wars Is a Surrealist Masterpiece