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Dwayne Johnson’s connection to Mark Kerr runs deeper than his role in The Smashing Machine.
Long before stepping into the fighter’s shoes for the upcoming biopic, Johnson had already crossed paths with Kerr back in the 1990s.
Appearing on the season premiere of Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast, Johnson revealed that he first met the MMA legend during his early wrestling years.
“In the mid-90s. I started wrestling in ’96 after my football career ended. In ’97-’98, whenever we wrestled in LA, we all went to the same gym. That’s where I met Mark, Coleman, Kevin Randleman, Don Frye. Legends,” he recalled.
At the time, Johnson was still trying to find his footing in WWE under the name Rocky Maivia.
“It wasn’t going well. I was getting booed,” he admitted.
“These guys? Fighting for Pride in Japan and making real money. I remember saying to Mark, ‘Hey man, if I ever want to talk to you about this stuff, is that okay?’ He said, ‘Absolutely.’ I was a jabroni, and he was like, ‘Good for you, kid.’”
Looking back, Johnson shared that he had no idea about the private battles Kerr was facing.
“What I didn’t know then was what he was struggling with, addiction, depression, shame. You look at him and think he’s on top of the world. But that’s the lesson: you never know what someone’s going through.”
Johnson also opened up about the extreme physical preparation that went into embodying Kerr on screen.
“This transformation was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. There was a physical transformation, prosthetics, vocal transformationm he has a very specific way of talking,” he explained.
Working with director Benny Safdie, Johnson said the approach was raw and immersive.
“Benny said, ‘I want to film this and never cut away from you.’ I knew what that meant… If Mark gets punched, I’m getting punched.”
To capture Kerr’s unique physique, Johnson had to undergo intense changes.
“I had to put on 30 pounds. Benny said he wanted me to look a bit ‘puffy,’ and I agreed. But 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.”
The actor spent months training his neck and traps to mirror Kerr’s wrestler build, holding the weight for over three months before switching gears to voice Maui in Moana.
As Johnson put it with a laugh, “So it was Mark Kerr and Maui. Big dudes.”
