Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Words by JANE CROWTHER

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Though Benny Safdie’s Venice hit The Smashing Machine centres on the experience of real-life UFC champ Mark Kerr, the key to the story – according to the actor portraying him, Dwayne Johnson – is the relationship between Mark and his girlfriend, Dawn Staples, played with a perma-tan and acrylic nails by Emily Blunt. The bond between Johnson and Blunt is also integral to the project. It was clear to see as Greg Williams joined the duo and Safdie for a pre-premiere toast at the St. Regis before riding across the Venice lagoon to debut their work at the festival. In the Grande Salle, the film was received with a fifteen-minute standing ovation and praise for both leads’ performances.

Having become ‘best friends’ while making the action-adventure Jungle Cruise, the two actors discussed next projects, with Blunt encouraging Johnson to follow his heart and ambition in breaking out of blockbusters. When they began to work on Kerr’s biopic, Blunt admits she found Johnson’s physical and emotional transformation ‘spooky’. ‘It was one of the most extraordinary things watching him disappear completely,’ she told the press on the Lido earlier in the day. Blunt’s metamorphosis was equally impressive as she spent time with her real-life counterpart. ‘I got to know Dawn well and she was very generous with her story with me,’ Blunt said. ‘There was a deep profound love and devotion they had for each other amidst an impossible environment.’

Safdie explained the process he went through with both actors to achieve the level of authenticity he was looking for. ‘Dwayne, Emily and I kept thoughts like, ‘What is it like to really be Mark Kerr? What is it like to really be Dawn Staples?’ We wanted to empathise with these characters in a way that felt like our own feelings. I ended up calling this a kind of Radical Empathy. First, because empathy should be cool, and second, because I wanted this movie to exist as a memory for everyone who watches it.’

The film will surely live in the memory of voting bodies come awards season – with Blunt entering the conversation again for another perfectly essayed performance.

Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Words by JANE CROWTHER

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The transformation of Dwayne Johnson into UFC champ Mark Kerr isn’t just in performance – though that’s revelatory with Johnson’s best dramatic work to date. It’s also about evolving as an actor and public figure. As he arrived at the Venice Film Festival to premiere The Smashing Machine, which he also produced, he told journalists that he’d wanted to take on a role like this for some time and that he and his director, Benny Safdie, and co-star, Emily Blunt had discussed the process for a while. Blunt, he said, had encouraged him to make the leap to such a challenging role.

“The three of us have talked for a very long time about, when you’re in Hollywood — as we all know, it had become about box office,’ the star of Fast & Furious, Jumanji and Moana said. ‘And you chase the box office, and the box office can be very loud and it can become very resounding and it can push you into a category and into a corner. This is your lane and this is what you do and this is what Hollywood wants you to do.”

‘I looked around a few years ago and I started to think, you know, am I living my dream or am I living other people’s dreams? You come to that recognition and I think you can either fall in line — ‘Well, it’s status quo, things are good, I don’t want to rock the boat’ — or go, I want to live my dreams now and do what I wanna do and tap into the stuff that I want to tap into, and have a place finally to put all this stuff that I’ve experienced in the past that I’ve shied away from.’

In the A24 film Johnson charts a three year period in Kerr’s career when he was fighting an addiction to painkillers, defining the now-huge UFC world and riding a rocky road with his girlfriend, Dawn (played by his Jungle Cruise co-star and friend, Blunt). He shows a vulnerability audiences haven’t seen from the actor before in a performance that already has awards heat. Johson brought the real Kerr to the festival with him and told the press that the process of playing the fighter had changed his life. And he thinks that the film will offer something to audiences too – not just athletes and sportspeople. ‘It’s not about the wins or the losses … it’s also a film about what happens when winning becomes the enemy. And I think we can all relate to that pressure.’

Winning might be something Johnson has to get comfortable with as we head into awards season given the glowing reviews he’s received out of the festival. The star was greeted rapturiously by crowds on the premiere red carpet after he travelled there with Greg Williams – and the film received a 15 minute ovation, reducing the actor to tears. ‘I’ve been scared to go deep and go intense and go raw until now, until I’ve had this opportunity,’ Johnson admitted. Facing the fear looks like it was worth it – it’s a knockout turn.