Dwayne Johnson on making ‘The Smashing Machine’
Dwayne Johnson on making ‘The Smashing Machine’
TORONTO – Dwayne Johnson has played a G.I. Joe, a Scorpion King, and even the tooth fairy, but becoming the role of Mark Kerr for “The Smashing Machine” brought on a different set of challenges he hadn’t experienced before.
Johnson has always been a muscular guy. Throughout his career as a professional wrestler, his physique changed from that of a collegiate football player to a chiseled-out-of-stone bodybuilder. He’s maintained that action figure-like physique for his movie roles, even to this day. However, when it came time to prepare to play UFC Hall of Famer Kerr, even “The Rock” needed to change.
“The external was physically realizing that I had to transform my body,” Johnson said during a the North American premier Q&A at Prince of Wales Theatre. “When I spoke to Benny very early, we both identified that Mark Kerr’s body, if you go back and you Google him and you see him, he really had this – and it’s not hyperbole – he had this really rare air, unicorn, athletic build of a man who was so dominant as a wrestler and with all these fast-twitch muscle fibers.
“And on top of that being a heavyweight. And on top of that, being at that time, was the greatest fighter on the planet. His build was just – it’s something that you just don’t see. It’s like this combination of a sprinter and a wrestler and just this incredible athlete. So, Benny (Safdie), early, said, ‘I don’t know if you’ve ever been told this before, but I think you’re going to need to gain weight.'”
The physical aspect of transforming into Kerr was up Johnson’s alley, as he’s been an athlete for his entire life. Even at 53, he just needed the time to make it happen. But there were more nuances to the character than just physical appearance, which was also enhanced by hours of prosthetic makeup to emulate Kerr further.
“Then there was the voice transformation, because Mark Kerr is this walking contradiction,” Johnson said. “… Beautiful human being, but he’s so soft spoken, and so kind, and gentle and tender. I worked with Liz Himlstein, who was Emily (Blunt)’s voice coach on ‘Oppenheimer’ and a few others. Emily connected me with Liz, and it was fascinating because I had not gone through that process before of modulating and creating a voice.
“When you speak to Liz, she was amazing because she said something to me earlier on, and she goes, ‘I’m going to say something to you, and if it registers to you, hold on to this as you build this character.’ She goes, ‘You speak from the ground up. From (the ground), up and out.’ She goes, ‘Mark, speaks from (the throat). Very soft. So, think about that as you’re talking like Mark. Have it be from here, very soft.’ So, there’s that transformation, too.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the toughest transformation for Johnson to undertake was the fighting aspect of the character. Johnson spent time on the mats training like a true MMA fighter to prepare for the role, which really opened his eyes to the toughness of fighters, but it wasn’t the physical aspect of it that was hard. The mental aspect of the fight training was the true test, which he credits co-star Blunt and director Safdie for helping push through.
“That was the biggest challenge,” Johnson said. “… There’s fighting in the ring, which I worked very hard in MMA training camp. I put on 30 pounds of muscle, but it’s also a different kind of muscle when you have to play Mark Kerr. The kind of muscle I had to put on was a different quality of muscle. I know that might sound weird, but it’s fast-twitch, because you have to be able to move. … That was the physical part, but the internal part was the biggest challenge because I knew where I had to go internally.”
