Dwayne Johnson recently told Vanity Fair that he spent “three to four hours” in the makeup chair each morning during the filming of “The Smashing Machine,” Benny Safdie’s sports drama that casts Johnson as two-time UFC heavyweight champion Mike Kerr. It’s a rare dramatic pivot for Johnson, who admitted he felt an unprecedented level of nerves when going into production.
“It was very real. 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?’” Johnson said. “I realized that maybe these opportunities weren’t coming my way because I was too scared to explore this stuff… I was so hungry for an opportunity to do something raw and gritty and rip myself open. And all of a sudden, ‘Smashing Machine’ comes along.”
The film tracks Kerr’s professional triumphs and personal struggles, including his substance abuse battles and his tumultuous relationship with wife Dawn (Emily Blunt). Johnson and Blunt are close friends after starring in “Jungle Cruise” together, which helped Johnson lean into his vulnerable side on camera.
“DJ has been pigeonholed into the image of the big hero who’s got all the answers and he’s going to fix everything and he’s invincible,” Blunt told Vanity Fair. “I think until this moment, maybe he thought that was the only lane that people wanted to see him in.”
“I just sat in front of that mirror for three to four hours and watched it all change. There were about 13 or 14 different prosthetics. Subtle, yet I think very impactful,” Johnson said about his transformation. “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… If Emily and I weren’t best friends, I don’t know that we could’ve gone to the places we went to. That closeness created the trust, which then allowed for the vulnerability, which then allowed for us to go anywhere.”
Blunt called Johnson’s transformation an “effortless immersion” into Kerr, “like a full disappearance, spooky. 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,” Blunt added.
Johnson concluded, “You have to be willing to tap into all the stuff that you’ve gone through, and this was stuff that I had not explored on camera or otherwise. I’m not a big therapy person, even though I’m an advocate for whatever it is you need. I found it so scary, but also, so nourishing and freeing. I ripped it open.”
“The Smashing Machine” world premieres in competition at the Venice Film Festival before opening in theaters Oct. 3 from A24.
