Key Takeaways
- Dwayne Johnson's Transformation: He portrays real-life sports figure Mark Kerr in The Smashing Machine.
- Positive Reception: Early reviews highlight the film’s realism and Johnson’s performance.
- Physical Preparation: Johnson gained 30 pounds of muscle specifically for the role.
- Director's Vision: Benny Safdie aimed for a cinéma vérité style, emphasizing continuous shots.
This week sees the release of the much-talked-about dramatic turn from Dwayne Johnson after years of big-budget action movies. The Smashing Machine enters the octagon this Friday, with early Thursday preview screenings, and almost all of the talk behind the film has been positive. As our Chris Bumbray points out in his glowing review, “It’s this realism that impressed me the most about Safdie’s solo debut, with him also writing the screenplay. The fighting sequences are brutal without being stylized, and Safdie smartly cast real fighters opposite Johnson […] critics will respect it while Johnson’s many fans will be dying to see him in something so different from the rest of his filmography. He’s done an excellent job reinventing himself, and no one can deny The Smashing Machine was well worth the effort all involved put into it.”
Today, you can preview his transformation into the real-life sports figure, Mark Kerr, with a couple of recently released clips from the film. In the first clip, Johnson goes through his MMA training with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu sparring, doing some pad work and weightlifting. Former mixed martial arts fighter Bas Rutten is seen here coaching Johnson as Kerr and Elvis’ “My Way,” which was played in the first trailer, blasts in the soundtrack. In the second clip, we see Johnson and co-star Emily Blunt as Kerr and his girlfriend, Dawn Staples, as they have a fun night out at a carnival. We’re shown one of the more subdued conflicts between them as Dawn really wants to go on a ride that Mark fears may make him sick.
Johnson recently spoke with Variety over what it meant to turn into Mark Kerr for The Smashing Machine, saying, “This transformation was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. There was a physical transformation, prosthetics, vocal transformation — he has a very specific way of talking. When I first got together with Benny [Safdie, director], we watched tapes of Mark, and Benny said, ‘I want to film this and never cut away from you.’ I knew what that meant. He said, ‘I don’t want to cut away. I want to shoot this cinéma vérité, with a prowling camera. You have a great stunt double, but I don’t want to use him.’”
Safdie would go on to tell Johnson that he would need to gain weight to play Mark Kerr, with the actor putting on 30 pounds, but having to do so through certain methods. “It’s not just gaining weight. It’s putting on a quality of muscle that has fast-twitch capacity. He’s a wrestler. It’s not about bodybuilding. I’ve never done so much trap and neck work in my life. Old-school wrestlers with no necks? That’s what I had to do. And I held that weight for three and a half months. Then, two weeks later, I had to roll into ‘Moana.’ So it was Mark Kerr and Maui. Big dudes.”
