![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/10.1.25-SMASHINGMACHINE-SEANJORGENSEN-62-696x464.jpg\" "\\"SEAN")
Ryan Bader at the screening of The Smashing Machine. SEAN JORGENSEN-LAS VEGAS PHOTOGRAPHER-A24 THE SMASHING MACHINERyan Bader spoke with Cageside Press about his role as UFC legend Mark Coleman in the film\u00a0The Smashing Machine\u00a0which is in theaters now.<\/p>\n
Former Bellator two-division champion Ryan Bader hasn\u2019t been seen in the cage since 2024, but he can be seen back in action in the new film \u201cThe Smashing Machine\u201d which stars Hollywood heavyweights Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt which is in theaters now.<\/p>\n
While athletes turned actors are rarely thrust into big roles for their first time out, director Benny Safdie gave Bader plenty to work with in his role as Mark Coleman, the UFC Hall of Famer who was friend and coach to Johnson\u2019s Mark Kerr. \u00a0The film sees Bader given his share of scenes to work with opposite the experienced Johnson and Blunt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very excited and at the same time scared and not knowing what to expect. I got thrown right into the fire. I went from doing an audition with Benny Safdie, the writer and director and then we got a text saying \u2018see you in three weeks\u2019 and then I was in Vancouver and I\u2019m on scenes with two of the biggest movie stars in the world, Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson. It was pretty surreal. But I kind of just took it like a big fight. Right? I\u2019m like. \u2018Hey, I\u2019m gonna prepare And walk in there, knowing that I did everything I could possibly do to be successful.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n
As has been mentioned in several interviews, director Safdie\u2019s commitment to capturing the era featured and his approach to working with actors was praised by the stars of the film. \u00a0Bader echoed the same sentiments, saying that Safdie made it easy to do what he needed to for his first acting role.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Benny] Safdie was great. I leaned on him a lot. He made it very comfortable. I didn\u2019t walk into a scene and feel overwhelmed, which I thought I would it being my first time. He made it seem like \u2018Hey. It\u2019s nothing. Walk in there. Do your thing. If you need to use your own words a little bit you can do that.\u2019 I credit a lot of that being comfortable to Benny Safdie for sure. And walking into a scene and it\u2019s in a hotel doing fight interviews before I fight I can definitely related to that right? So I kinda just put myself in \u201cHey, I\u2019m prepared for a PRIDE Grand Prix as Mark Coleman\u2019 which is kind of my lineage, and I know Mark, and I studied his tapes, his fights, his demeanors and stuff, and the relationship between him and [Mark] Kerr.\u201d<\/p>\n
Apart from his work with Johnson and Blunt, Bader also got the chance to act opposite boxing\u2019s unified and undisputed heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk in the film. \u00a0Recently, Usyk has been tied to talks about a potential crossover into MMA for a fight with social media lightning rod Jake Paul. \u00a0Bader says that not only is Usyk interested in MMA, he might be more prepared from the get-go to make the move than anyone may expect.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorking with him was awesome. He\u2019s super funny. He\u2019d be making us laugh on set. You\u2019ll be there, we\u2019d have make up for a couple hours and then kind kind of wait around and then he\u2019s always making us laugh. We got to get in the ring in a little bit. It was after the Tyson Fury fight so his jaw was a little messed up so we never really got to actually kind of spar or anything. But doing those scenes and and teaching us little stuff on the jab and how to hide it. Great guy and had a lot of fun with him. We have one scene you know together in the [PRIDE] ring, and yeah he\u2019s a pleasure work with\u2026Don\u2019t let him fool you, he knows a little more than he makes out. He was throwing up arm bars and stuff and it looked good. I think as a kid he trained a bunch of different martial arts and he\u2019s retained quite a bit. Obviously boxing is his deal right now, he\u2019s the best in the world, he\u2019s the champion. But he even said at a premiere we did in Toronto that he wants to do wants to do MMA. So him Jake Paul would be the perfect fight to make. And like I said, on the feet he\u2019s a killer, but he knows more than he makes out.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for his real fight career, Bader has said that the targeted time for his next bout would be the annual New Year\u2019s Eve event in Japan for the RIZIN promotion where he would ideally take on the winner of the recent heavyweight tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Smashing Machine\u201d starring Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader, and more can be seen in theaters worldwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Bader at the screening of The Smashing Machine. SEAN JORGENSEN-LAS VEGAS PHOTOGRAPHER-A24 THE SMASHING MACHINERyan Bader spoke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[1857,49,48,639,641,1868,1858,1866,1860,1262,1296,638,1865,1864,1863,1859,1867,82,1861,640,1862],"class_list":["post-199003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-bellator","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-conor-mcgregor","tag-fighting","tag-gsp","tag-invicta","tag-jon-jones","tag-lfa","tag-martial-arts","tag-mixed-martial-arts","tag-mma","tag-one-championship","tag-one-fc","tag-pfl","tag-rizin","tag-ronda-rousey","tag-sports","tag-titan-fc","tag-ufc","tag-wsof"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199003","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=199003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}