Dwayne Johnson has mostly punched holes in pigeons as an action star who can hit comedic beats during his acting career, but rarely goes outside his comfort zone when it comes to the role he chose. Everything is released and changed Smashing Machinea biopic in which Johnson plays MMA legend Mark Kerr, the film is set to debut at the Venice Film Festival in September.
After watching the 2002 documentary detailing Carr’s struggle with addiction from painkillers a few years ago, Johnson always imagined himself playing the lead role, but timing never worked out for the film to happen. Finally, Johnson had the opportunity to move forward with the project after the global pandemic ended.
in spite of Smashing Machine Johnson has been a passion project for over a decade, so it was still unclear whether he could play Carr in the film.
“It was very real,” Johnson said of his nerves when talking. Vanity Fair. “I was in such a very, very, very, very, very, very long time and not going through anything I was really scared and thought about. I don’t know if I can do this. Can I do this? These opportunities were so scary that I was scared to explore something like this.”
To portray the former MMA champion, Johnson trained extensively to ensure that the action sequence was done properly, but it’s a real trick to actually converting his own physical transformation into a car.
Johnson revealed he wears makeup for several hours every day on set, but that time allowed him to enter the mental headspace where he played an actual character, not a character from the script.
“I just sat in front of that mirror for three or four hours and saw it all change,” Johnson said of the process of looking like Kerr. “There were about 13 or 14 different prostheses. It’s subtle, but I think it’s very impactful. By the time I set it up, I felt it on Mark Kerr, how he was talking and how he saw life.”
That physical transformation made him look like Kerr, but Johnson admits that the actual tests actually played the part. In particular, the emotionally recharged scene she shares with her best friend Emily Blunt, who plays Dawnstaples, Kerr’s real-life girlfriend, who appeared in the documentary.
“I don’t know if Emily and I weren’t best friends, we could have gone to the places we went,” Johnson said. “That intimacy created trust, which enabled vulnerability, which allowed us to go anywhere (we) anywhere.”
Blunt, he was recently nominated for an Academy Award for his film work Oppenheimerpraised Johnson for his acting skills. There, we had to really trust each other for some heavy scenes.
“It seemed like an easy immersion – total loss, creepy,” Brandt said of Johnson’s performance. “From the first day he was somewhere else. He absorbed a lot of what Mark had gone through, bored and watched this person have to become an image, become a rock and split himself in half for this role.”
Hype around the smashing machine could lead to an award circuit in 2026. Especially considering that the film is produced by A24, an independent studio known for collecting trophies.
For the first time in his career, Johnson finds himself in those conversations as well.
“There’s a song from the George Strait that says, ‘Where were I?’ This reminded me of that,” Johnson said. “Where were I? What I was afraid of is what actually gives me the greatest peace. It’s a safe place to explore everything I’ve experienced over the years. There’s a place to put it.”
11 comment