Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s dedication to his role in The Smashing Machine was steadfast — so much so, the actor almost got knocked out cold on set.
Johnson, 53, revealed that one scene in the biographical sports film, in which he portrays MMA fighter Mark Kerr, left him weak in the knees after he was punched incredibly hard.
“It felt like when you get rocked by a real fighter multiple times,” Johnson told CBS Sports during a combat sports media roundtable for the upcoming Benny Safdie-directed movie on Monday, September 22. “There’s a moment in the trailer where I’m on my knees in the ring and I look up dazed. That’s real. I got my bell rung. Benny said, ‘Hold on! Stay right there!’ I was seeing three heads of Benny Safdie and 15 heads of Mark Kerr.”
Since Johnson opted to do his own stunts in the movie, he wanted to make sure the camera caught his raw reaction to getting hit by his opponents. Safdie, 39, takes viewers close up into the ring during another fight, in which Johnson went full method. The former WWE superstar had a conversation with his scene partner about not holding anything back.
“I said, ‘Hey brother, you’re pulling the punches. You need to lay it in and hit me,’” Johnson remembered. “He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Benny isn’t cutting away. This is the end of the movie. You know this really happened to Mark. You have to lay it in.’ I said, ‘Look, just don’t hit me here, you’ll break my jaw. Don’t hit me in the temple, you’ll kill me. But if you can hit me in my cheekbone.’”
Johnson continued, “He goes, ‘No, no, no. I’m not going to do that.’ I said, ‘I need you to hit me.’ He goes, ‘I respect you. I’m not doing that.’ I asked Benny to come over. Benny said, ‘You have to hit him because I’m not cutting away.’ I grabbed him and said, ‘Please, brother. It’s you and me here. It’s OK.’”
After the initial hesitation and encouragement from his cast and crew, Johnson’s scene partner began hitting him with full force.
“He hit me so hard!” Johnson said. “That’s what you see in the movie. Not only is he hitting me, but I realized watching back that he’s coming down. That was a punch! Dude!”
Johnson underwent a dramatic transformation to portray Kerr, 56, sitting through three to four hours of hair and makeup each day on set. He showed off a leaner physique at the 2025 Venice International Film Festival ahead of the film’s premiere.
“This transformation was something I was really hungry to do,” Johnson said on September 1, per The Hollywood Reporter. “I had been very fortunate to have the career that I’ve had over the years and to make the films that I’ve made, but there was just a voice inside of me, a little voice that said, ‘Well, what if I could do more — I want to do more and what does that look like?’”
Johnson also held back tears discussing Kerr’s relationship with Dawn Staples, which is depicted in the movie.
“Mark was the greatest fighter in the world at one point, but this film is not even really about fighting — it’s a love story,” Johnson explained. “It’s a love story about Mark and Dawn in this relationship, and it’s a love story about Mark and the love that he had for the thing that he did — his struggle with trying to deliver [in the ring], his challenges and his overcoming. As you know, Mark OD’d twice, and he’s lucky to be alive — and that’s part of why this story is so special.”