{"id":124735,"date":"2025-09-09T08:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T08:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/124735\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T08:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T08:30:07","slug":"dwayne-johnson-told-ben-safdie-im-your-chicken-man-for-lizard-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/124735\/","title":{"rendered":"Dwayne Johnson Told Ben Safdie I\u2019m Your Chicken Man for Lizard Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAfter a rapturous Venice bow for The Smashing Machine, Dwayne \u201cThe Rock\u201d Johnson on Sunday talked about his next collaboration with director Benny Safdie<\/a> for Lizard Music. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m your Chicken Man,\u201d Johnson recalled telling Safdie after he was pitched for 45 minutes on reteaming for Lizard Music after they wrapped production on The Smashing Machine<\/a>. Their next joint project is based on the Daniel Pinkwater kids novel about a young boy who becomes involved with intelligent lizard musicians\u00a0who tell him of a little-known invasion from outer space.<\/p>\n

\n\tJohnson talked up Lizard Music as a \u201cwhimsical\u201d movie about a boy who stumbles on a secret late-night broadcast of lizards playing music, only to pass through a hidden door to meet a Chicken Man, to be played by Johnson.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Rock is in Toronto for a North American premiere of The Smashing Machine, where Johnson performs the role of real-life MMA legend Mark Kerr. \u201cI wanted something like this for such a long time,\u201d Johnson said during an informal conversation at TIFF at the Royal Alexandra Theater, about doing a movie creatively for himself, rather than acting in a Hollywood tentpole aimed at his legions of fans. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Smashing Machine.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCheryl Dunn\/Venice Film Festival<\/p>\n

\n\tJohnson recounted having to transform his own body into that of Mark Kerr. \u201cHe had this rare unicorn build of man who so dominant as a wrestler and with all of these fast twitch muscles, on top of being a heavyweight,\u201d he recalled. <\/p>\n

\n\tLong story short, Johnson had to gain weight for the role, and develop muscles other than his own frame to move more quickly in the ring. \u201cHe\u2019s still a beast of a man, but still so soft-spoken,\u201d he added about Kerr, who will attend the North American premiere in Toronto. <\/p>\n

\n\tJohnson, as a former pro wrestler, also recalled as part of his transition to becoming a Hollywood movie star following in the footsteps of his late and Canadian father, Rocky Johnson, a WWE Hall of Famer, in getting into the ring. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think about my dad, about the complicated relationship we had, but how life can come full circle and years later I can come back and have this life,\u201d Johnson said after touching down in Toronto. Born and raised in Nova Scotia as Wade Douglas Bowles, Rocky Johnson started wrestling in 1964 in and around Toronto.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHis trajectory from the ring to Hollywood film sets includes roles in The Scorpion King, star turns in the\u00a0Fast & Furious\u00a0franchise, the\u00a0Jumanji\u00a0series and Disney tentpoles like the Moana\u00a0films and the action-adventure\u00a0Jungle Cruise.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI remember a kid who was trying. I was just jumping off a cliff. That was the thing that really launched my career,\u201d Johnson told the TIFF audience after watching a clip from The Scorpion Kings, which was shot in the Sahara desert and called for action sequences.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFrom action to cut, I fell in love. I was bitten,\u201d he said of catching the acting bug. At the same time, Johnson said it took a long time before he could bring his Hollywood acting chops to a more serious movie role. \u201cI\u2019d been wanting to do something like this, it just took all that time to do something like The Smashing Machine,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\tJohnson\u2019s Hollywood career has also included work as a producer and co-owner of Seven Bucks Productions, launched in 2021 with partner Dany Garcia. \u201cWe loved movies, and if you love movies, you want to be part of creating movies in any way you can,\u201d he said of launching the production banner whose name recalled his early attempt to join the Canadian Football League as part of the Calgary Stampeders as a path into the National Football League, only to be cut from the CFL team roster.<\/p>\n

\n\tBack home in Florida, Johnson recalled looking into his pocket to see how much money he had at 22 years of age and having to move back in with his parents. He counted $7 in his pocked.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe all get knocked down. Everybody goes through that,\u201d Johnson recounted, as he also thanked former Stampeders coach Wally Buono, who is now with the B.C. Lions, for ultimately paving his way to big success in Hollywood after standing in his way from breaking into pro football.<\/p>\n

\n\tJohnson was joined on stage in Toronto by co-stars Emily Blunt<\/a> and writer\/director Safdie. \u201cWhen I first Dwayne, I saw this swirl behind his eyes. There\u2019s this incredible magnetism that draws you in. but there\u2019s also complex emotions just waiting to get out,\u201d Safdie said of his need to collaborate with Johnson. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe sat under this umbrella and talked and shared our souls. I was just taken by how different he was than what I had imagined,\u201d Blunt recalled when first working with Johnson on Jungle Cruise in Hawaii as she discovered, as had Safdie, a vulnerability inside The Rock that was coming out. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a rapturous Venice bow for The Smashing Machine, Dwayne \u201cThe Rock\u201d Johnson on Sunday talked about his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[52390,6491,25398,10555,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-124735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-benny-safdie","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-dwayne-johnson","11":"tag-emily-blunt","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}