Dwayne Johnson has largely been pigeonholed during his acting career as an action star capable of hitting comedic beats but rarely going outside his comfort zone when it comes to the roles he chooses. That all changes with the release of The Smashing Machine, a biopic where Johnson plays MMA legend Mark Kerr, with the film set for its debut at the Venice Film Festival in September.
After watching the 2002 documentary detailing Kerr’s struggle with addiction from pain medication years earlier, Johnson
always envisioned himself playing the lead role but timing just never worked out for the film to happen. Finally, Johnson got the chance to move forward on the project after the global pandemic ended and he teamed up with Uncut Gems filmmaker Benny Safdie to direct the film.
Despite The Smashing Machine being his passion project for over a decade, Johnson admits he still wasn’t sure he could pull off playing Kerr in the movie.
“It was very real,” Johnson said about his nerves for the role when speaking to Vanity Fair. “I had not experienced that in a very, very, very long time, where I was really scared and thinking, I don’t know if I can do this. Can I do this? I realized that maybe these opportunities weren’t coming my way because I was too scared to explore this stuff.”
To portray a former MMA champion, Johnson trained extensively to ensure the action sequences played out properly but the real trick as actually making his own physical transformation into Kerr.
Johnson revealed he underwent several hours of makeup every single day on set but that time allowed him to get in the mental headspace where he was playing a real person and not some scripted character from a screenplay.
“I just sat in front of that mirror for three to four hours and watched it all change,” Johnson said about the process to look like Kerr. “There were about 13 or 14 different prosthetics. Subtle, yet I think very impactful. By the time I got to set, I was Mark Kerr and I felt it, from how he walked to how he talked and how he looked at life.”
That physical transformation made him look like Kerr but Johnson admits the real test was actually playing the part, especially the emotionally charged scenes he shared with close friend Emily Blunt, who plays Dawn Staples, Kerr’s real life girlfriend who also appeared in the documentary.
“If Emily and I weren’t best friends, I don’t know that we could’ve gone to the places we went to,” Johnson said. “That closeness created the trust, which then allowed for the vulnerability, which then allowed for [us to] go anywhere.”
Blunt, who was just recently nominated for an Academy Award for her work in the film Oppenheimer, praised Johnson’s acting skills where they really had to trust each other for some heavy scenes.
“It seemed to be an effortless immersion—like a full disappearance, spooky,” Blunt said about Johnson’s performance. “From day one, he was elsewhere. He has absorbed and borne witness to so much of what Mark has experienced that it was such a beautiful thing to watch this person let go of having to be an image, of having to be The Rock, and crack himself in half for this role.”
The hype around The Smashing Machine could potentially lead to the award circuit in 2026, especially considering the film is being produced by A24 — a boutique, independent studio known for collecting trophies.
For the first time in his career, Johnson is finding himself in those conversations as well.
“There’s a song from George Strait called ‘Where Have I Been All My Life?’ This reminded me of that,” Johnson said. “Where have I been? The thing I was fearing is the thing that actually gives me the greatest peace—a safe place to explore all this stuff that I’ve experienced over the years. I have a place to put it.”
