Fear is not something one typically associates with Dwayne Johnson. Certainly not in the ring, as the charismatic heel with the cocked eyebrow, and not in Hollywood, where he has cemented himself as one of the industry’s most bankable, and singular, motion stars and producers.
By all accounts the formulation was working. But for years he’d had a suspicion that he may do extra, supply extra, as an actor. However when it got here time to dive into one thing extra uncooked, extra weak for “The Smashing Machine,” a drama about MMA fighter Mark Kerr that he’d been fascinated about for over a decade, he realized one thing: He was scared.
“It’s not easy to think, ‘Hey, I’m capable of doing this and I know I can do this,’” Johnson, 53, instructed The Related Press in a latest interview. “You may seem, may have a veneer, that you’re capable of it and you’re confident. But I was very nervous and scared to do it because it’s something that I hadn’t done before.”
Johnson has been open about his tough childhood, his turbulent relationship along with his late father, Rocky Johnson, and their monetary insecurity. But as an entertainer, he’d stored all these previous wounds out of the image till now. For the primary time in his profession, he determined to take that trauma and channel it into one thing he loves: Efficiency and storytelling. And it is already put him within the Oscar dialog.
“The Smashing Machine,” which opens in theaters Oct. 3, wasn’t only a leap into the unknown for Johnson. For his co-star Emily Blunt and filmmaker Benny Safdie, directing a function alone for the primary time, it was an opportunity to precise totally different sides of themselves as nicely.
“It’s hard for us to know what we’re capable of sometimes,” Blunt mentioned. “Maybe you need friends around you putting a jet pack on your back and saying, ‘You can’ and ‘you’re awesome’ and you have so much that you can delve into.”
The little voice grows louder
As an actor, Johnson by no means actually did the indie factor. He didn’t must. In 2001, he burst onto the scene in a blockbuster, “The Mummy Returns,” and by no means regarded again. In lower than 25 years of creating films, his movies have remodeled $12.5 billion on the international field workplace and none of these are Marvel.
When he determined to sit down down and watch John Hyams’ documentary about Kerr, his larger-than-life profession was firmly on the ascent with Luke Hobbs and the “Jumanji” franchise nonetheless to return. It caught with him, nevertheless, and some years later when he based his manufacturing firm Seven Bucks, he acquired the rights.
Extra years would move till one other film ignited the spark once more: The thrillingly frenetic “Uncut Gems.” And he determined to carry “The Smashing Machine” to the filmmakers who’d had the imaginative and prescient to place an actor like Adam Sandler in a job like Howard Ratner. What if they may see one thing totally different for him too?
“I think everybody has this certain idea of who he’s gonna be,” mentioned Safdie, who co-directed ‘Uncut Gems’ along with his brother Josh. “When I met him, and he brings this story, I was just like, OK, I get it. There’s so much there that maybe he’s not being asked to show.”
Johnson even introduced the undertaking in Nov. 2019. Then the pandemic hit, and “The Smashing Machine” went again within the cabinet.
Fusion on ‘Oppenheimer’
Safdie, nevertheless, hadn’t stopped fascinated about it. He’d even despatched Johnson a model of a Nautica sweater Kerr had worn (dimension XXL), together with a handwritten letter saying it doesn’t matter what occurred, he hoped he might be concerned in a roundabout way. Johnson by no means responded. And the obsession spiraled.
“It burrowed itself into my brain,” Safdie mentioned. “Imagining Dwayne as Mark … it was like my imagination went crazy with it because I really just wanted to see it in existence.”
The reality is Johnson by no means received the letter, or the sweater. Who is aware of what may need occurred if he had. However in actuality, one other, stranger door had opened when Safdie discovered himself performing alongside Blunt in “Oppenheimer.” Understanding that she’d turn out to be shut with Johnson on “Jungle Cruise,” he took an opportunity and instructed her about “The Smashing Machine” not just for Johnson, however for her too.
Blunt too had been desperate to see Johnson push himself. When she met him on “Jungle Cruise” she thought he’d be nearer to “The Rock” and shortly got here to know that was not solely a personality he performed however “the performance of a lifetime.”
“That’s self-realized performance,” Blunt mentioned. “I was like, ’You wrote it? You saw it? How many more bonkers people have you got lurking inside of you?’”
She began to surprise if Johnson was this nice character actor who didn’t even notice it. In “The Smashing Machine,” she noticed a “visceral, exciting opportunity for all of us to put our feet to the fire.”
Blunt added: “All three of us felt that, you know? That moment of terror of what you’re trying to create is something very unique. This was going to be, especially for DJ, I realized, a very unique experience and a kind of launch into the unknown. But I think maybe Benny and I knew that he could do it.”
Flexing new muscle mass
Kerr was an early pioneer with UFC in its infancy nicely earlier than the worldwide MMA chief blossomed right into a mainstream sport. Whereas revered by core struggle followers, Kerr’s recognition exterior the cage by no means reached the heights or monetary riches and endorsement offers loved by fashionable UFC stars equivalent to Ronda Rousey, Conor McGregor and Jon Jones.
He additionally struggled with dependancy to painkillers and overdosed twice earlier than getting sober. Then there was his sometimes-volatile long-term relationship with then girlfriend Daybreak Staples (whom he would later marry, have a toddler with, and finally separate from).
This may all require a unique sort of preparation for Johnson, who needed to form his muscle mass into that of an MMA fighter as a substitute of a wrestler. The transformation additionally included a brand new voice, new hair and facial prosthetics, overseen by Oscar-winning artist Kazu Hiro, which required practically 4 hours in a make-up chair.
However by the point the cameras had been rolling, each Dwayne Johnson and The Rock had successfully disappeared. This, Blunt mentioned, was useful throughout their home struggle scenes, the place punches could not have been thrown however the emotional wreckage is huge.
“The environment that Benny creates is one of such spontaneity that you really blur the lines between fiction and reality,” Blunt mentioned. “It makes the scenes terribly exciting, but I think it makes them quite hard to come down from, because you’re really in a spell.”
Safdie determined to shoot their arguments in sections. Some they spent a variety of time on, taking pictures them time and again. However the closing second of their worst struggle, they shot simply as soon as.
“When you’re holding on to somebody for dear life, I do know what that feels like and it’s not fun,” Safdie mentioned. “Seeing that happen at such an intense level, it was like, ‘Done, we have it. We don’t need to do that again. I don’t want you guys to do it again.’”
When Safdie referred to as minimize, they took a 90-minute break. Everybody was crying.
That entire Oscar factor …
Blunt and Safdie have finished the awards factor a couple of instances now. When requested what they’ve instructed Johnson concerning the circus, Blunt groaned: “Oh my God, we try not to discuss it really.”
Safdie, who gained a Silver Lion for steering on the Venice Movie Competition, simply hopes that folks join with the story and possibly study slightly bit about themselves.
No matter comes of it, Johnson is glad he overcame the worry and listened to that small voice — not the louder one with all of the receipts telling him to remain in his lane.
“This has been the most challenging of my entire career, but also the most freeing of my career and the most gratifying because I knew what the opportunity was and that opportunity was for me to explore and access things that I hadn’t in the past, certainly not on film,” Johnson mentioned. “I didn’t want to wake up tomorrow going, God … I really wish I got out of my comfort zone back then. I wanted to wake up and say, ‘I’m so glad I got out of my comfort zone.’ And I’m so glad I did it.”
Blunt added: “So are we.”
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AP Sports activities Author Dan Gelston contributed from Philadelphia.
