TORONTO – Dwayne Johnson was part of some incredible stunts in his action film career, but the physical challenge of changing his voice for his latest role was a completely different test.
The A-list Hollywood star has generated massive buzz for his performance Smashing MachineJohnson plays former UFC star Mark Kerr. Johnson, along with director Benny Safdy and co-star Emily Blunt, has worked closely with Carr on the project, and the results are astounding as per the early reviews (the film is currently screening at the International Film Festival, with a North American wide release set on October 3rd).
Johnson sat for a conversation with Cameron Bailey at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, detailing how he worked to guide every aspect of Kerr’s existence into his clear voice.
“And Mark Kerr, he’s this contradiction in walking. A man’s beast, a beautiful human,” Johnson said. “He was very kind, very kind, kind and soft, and worked with Liz Himmelstein, who was Emily’s voice coach. Oppenheimer And a few other people, Emily, connected me to Liz. It’s fascinating, as I’ve never gone through the process before tuning and creating another voice, and when you talk to Liz, she’s amazing.
“She’s going, “You’re going to talk from scratch. You’re going here, above, and outside.”
“She’s going,” Mark says from here (points to her throat), very soft. So, you’re talking like Mark, so think about it. From here it becomes very soft. “There is also the transformation. ”
Having starred in countless action and adventure films and built his name as one of the most popular professional wrestlers of all time, Johnson is renowned for his incredible physique. But that doesn’t mean he can walk the set as “rock” for his future UFC Hall of Fame.
Johnson had to undergo extensive prosthetic leg every day of filming. We estimated that this process took “3-4 hours” to shape the face like the Cars, directed by two-time Academy Award winner Kazuhiro.
Johnson and Safdy remembered early from studying Kerr’s footage, so that was only part of the puzzle.
“His build was something you didn’t see,” Johnson said. “It’s like a sprinter and wrestler combination, and he’s this incredible athlete, Benny said early.
“I think I said, ‘How do you say this? It’s fluffy. I like it, it’s bigger,'” Safdi said. “He said immediately, “I’ll get all that you mean and give me this time.”
If Johnson fails to embody the emotional aspects of Kerr’s journey, and Johnson “calls as one of the greatest actors of all time — and praised Creatine’s Safdy as the ideal environment for a lifetime performance, none of these physical changes would make a difference.
“I think the inside part was the biggest challenge because I knew me and we had to go internally… you realised very quickly to get the place we went to go where we went. “And love and trust allowed for vulnerability and I couldn’t – we couldn’t do it without this love and trust and vulnerability we have.”
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