{"id":112548,"date":"2025-09-01T19:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T19:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/112548\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T19:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T19:36:08","slug":"dwayne-johnson-wore-14-prosthetics-daily-for-his-toughest-mma-role-as-mark-kerr-in-the-smashing-machine-wwe-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/112548\/","title":{"rendered":"Dwayne Johnson wore 14 prosthetics daily for his toughest MMA role as Mark Kerr in The Smashing Machine | WWE News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DwayneDwayne Johnson (Image Source: Getty) Perhaps all that experience has led him to something totally new: Dwayne Johnson<\/a> is heading into new territory with The Smashing Machine, a biopic in which he will play troubled MMA legend Mark Kerr. The film, which premiered September 1, 2025, at the Venice Film Festival, is a stark departure from Johnson’s well-worn action-comedy persona. The film will be directed by Benny Safdie<\/a> and produced by A24, and is likely to generate awards-season buzz, and maybe even an Oscar nomination.<\/p>\n

A daily transformation for Dwayne Johnson of 14 prosthetics and raw emotion<\/p>\n

For Johnson to convincingly become Kerr, he went through a rigorous daily makeup routine, three to four hours in the chair every day, and wore 13 to 14 prosthetic pieces. What he describes as a subtle but profound process: \u201cBy the time I got to set, I was Mark Kerr,\u201d he said, noting how the prosthetics helped him physically and psychologically step into the fighter\u2019s persona, down to his posture and perspective on life.But it wasn’t just skin-deep, because it was a mental switch that made it possible for Johnson to access the depth and fragility of a guy who fought not only in the Octagon but outside it, also with addiction and other emotional struggles.Also Read: <\/p>\n

Fear, friendship, and a turning point in a blockbuster career<\/p>\n

Johnson admitted that this was the first time in years that he genuinely felt scared and nervous by a role. In interviews, he recalled questioning his own capability: \u201cCan I do this? \u2026 I was too scared to explore this stuff.\u201d But The Smashing Machine finally gave him the opportunity, and the challenge, to do something raw, demanding, and deeply personal.Part of that emotional journey was his relationship with co-star Emily Blunt, who portrays Kerr’s partner, Dawn Staples. But their real-life companionship bred trust and ease on set, which helped the duo confront fervently emotional and sexually charged scenes. Johnson was haunting, Blunt said that, \u201cIt seemed to be an effortless immersion, like a full disappearance, spooky,\u201d she said. \u201cHe cracks himself in half for this role.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dwayne Johnson (Image Source: Getty) Perhaps all that experience has led him to something totally new: Dwayne Johnson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[24826,13120,49,48,31998,641,638,63538,82,56312],"class_list":["post-112548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-a24","tag-benny-safdie","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dwayne-johnson","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-mma-biopic","tag-sports","tag-the-smashing-machine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}