Dwayne Johnson Worked Through Personal ‘Stuff I Had Not Explored’ in New Movie

Dwayne Johnson dug deep into his own personal struggles while making a rare dramatic turn in his next movie.

Johnson, 53, opened up to Vanity Fair about feeling nervous to film his new A24 movie The Smashing Machine, a biopic centered around the life of former UFC fighter Mark Kerr. During Johnson’s interview, he confessed to feeling nerves about filming a movie for the first time “in a very, very, very long time” and admitted that perhaps dramatic roles had not been offered to him over the years “because I was too scared to explore this stuff.”

“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,” he told the outlet. “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 reunites Johnson with his Jungle Cruise costar and close friend Emily Blunt. He brings Kerr, the 56-year-old former mixed martial artist, to life; she plays his then-girlfriend Dawn Staples.

As Johnson told the outlet, he first saw the 2002 documentary The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr, some time in the mid-2000s and got in touch with director Benny Safdie about collaborating after watching Safdie’s 2019 movie Uncut Gems. 

Safdie, 39, described the idea for the movie as “something I couldn’t shake” over the years, and he found time to put the project together with Blunt when they filmed 2023’s Oppenheimer together.

An official synopsis for the movie simply describes The Smashing Machine as “the story of legendary mixed martial arts & UFC fighter Mark Kerr.” The 2002 documentary on Kerr’s life displayed the mental and physical toll MMA fighting takes on its competitors, and trailers for the movie — which also stars Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten and Oleksandr Usyk — indicate the narrative film follows similar subject matter. 

Johnson told Vanity Fair that he and Kerr got to know each other “a bit” over the years due to the overlap in their career paths. (Kerr wrote he was “still in disbelief” that Johnson was portraying him in an April Instagram post, after the movie’s first trailer released.)

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Some 25 years into his acting career, Johnson remains best known for action or comedy-oriented roles and has only rarely delved into dramatic acting.  “After all these years I’ve been making movies, it became so glaring to me. It’s almost like a… There’s a song from George Strait called ‘Where Have I Been All My Life?’ This reminded me of that. Where have I been?” he told Vanity Fair.

“The thing I was fearing is the thing that actually gives me the greatest peace—a safe place to explore all this stuff that I’ve experienced over the years. I have a place to put it,” he added.

The Smashing Machine is in theaters Oct. 3.