{"id":161772,"date":"2025-09-22T20:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T20:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/161772\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T20:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T20:19:11","slug":"dwayne-the-rock-johnson-admits-he-wasnt-acting-in-one-the-smashing-machine-scene-after-telling-fighter-to-hit-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/161772\/","title":{"rendered":"Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson admits he wasn’t acting in one ‘The Smashing Machine’ scene after telling fighter to hit him"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dwayne \u2018The Rock\u2019 Johnson knew that he needed to feel what his character actually went through to improve a scene.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear from his reaction to finished movie that \u2018The Smashing Machine\u2019<\/a> was an incredibly emotional project for Johnson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The WWE star plays the role of former UFC<\/a> fighter Mark Kerr<\/a> in a biopic written and directed by Benny Safdie.<\/p>\n

Early reviews of the film are very positive, with it even receiving praise from UFC president Dana White<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s<\/a> performance as Kerr has been highlighted in particular, with the Hollywood star pushing himself further than before in order to make this story as real as possible.<\/p>\n

\"DwaynePhoto by Jeff Bottari\/Zuffa LLCDwayne \u2018The Rock\u2019 Johnson admits he was legitimately stunned by a punch during one \u2018The Smashing Machine\u2019 scene<\/p>\n

Dwayne Johnson knew that playing the role of Mark Kerr would be a difficult challenge<\/a> for him to take on as an actor.<\/p>\n

However, as the fighter\u2019s own fellow legends have praised<\/a>, Johnson did whatever he could to blur the lines between where he ends and Kerr begins.<\/p>\n

The UFC\u2019s old tagline used to be \u201cAs Real As It Gets\u201d, which the lead actor lived up to, as he revealed in a recent media roundtable ahead of the film\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a moment in the trailer where I\u2019m on my knees and I look up and I look dazed \u2013 that\u2019s real,\u201d Johnson admitted. \u201cI got my bell rung and Benny was like, \u2018Hold on, stay there.\u2019 I was seeing three heads of Benny Safdie and 15 heads of Mark Kerr at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DwaynePhoto by Chris Unger\/Zuffa LLC<\/p>\n

Johnson recalled how he had to tell his partner in that scene, who is a fighter, that he was pulling his punches too much.<\/p>\n

It took \u2018The Rock\u2019 some time to convince his fellow actor to hit him for real, but he accomplished his goal with the help of Benny Safdie.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Benny\u2019s not cutting away, this is the end of the movie. You know this really happened to Mark. You have to lay it in. Just don\u2019t hit me here, you\u2019ll break my jaw. Don\u2019t hit me in my temple, you\u2019ll kill me. But you can hit me here in the cheek bone.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Dwayne \u2018The Rock\u2019 Johnson knew that this was a part of the challenge of \u2018The Smashing Machine\u2019<\/p>\n

While most actors that are worth as much as Dwayne \u2018The Rock\u2019 Johnson won\u2019t be trying to convince people to stop pulling their punches, he knew this was necessary for the scene.<\/p>\n

He shared in the press interview that after going back to watch the footage from this particular fight, he spoke to Kerr about what he was feeling in this moment.<\/p>\n

\"MarkMark Kerr reacts after winning the UFC 14 heavyweight tournament. Credit: Zuffa LLC via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Johnson recalled how the former fighter had told him that the 30-40,000 people in attendance was why he continued to take punishment while not being able to move rather than quitting.<\/p>\n

Kerr didn\u2019t want to let anyone down, and neither did Johnson once it became clear to him that his director wanted these moments to be as authentic as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have chills now as he was telling me that. So, the man who lived his life so we could all feel it, I knew going into that scene\u2026 Benny said, \u2018I would never love to never cut away from you in these fights. We have a great stunt double. We have two. I\u2019d love to just use you.\u2019 And I know what that meant.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dwayne \u2018The Rock\u2019 Johnson knew that he needed to feel what his character actually went through to improve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,72275,134,72276,72277],"class_list":{"0":"post-161772","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-dwayne-the-rock-johnson","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-mark-kerr","14":"tag-the-smashing-machine"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}