After working together in Jungle Cruise, Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt will reunite for Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine. Both stars will be wowing audiences in their transformative real-life roles of Mark Kerr and his then-wife Dawn Staples. Just when you thought Johnson’s almost unrecognizable role as the MMA athlete was a career game-changer, Blunt told him when they first met what she felt his real “performance of a lifetime” was to her.
We know Dwayne Johnson’s best movies tend to fall in the blockbuster genre, but his role in the upcoming A24 movie will have Johnson show off not only his intense makeup, but also Benny Safdie’s signature “radical empathy” element of delving into the psychology of the athlete. However, his Smashing Machine co-star Emily Blunt got real to ET while at TIFF about what she told Johnson his real “performance of a lifetime” was when they first met, and I totally get it:
When I first met him years ago, I said, 'The Rock is the performance of a lifetime, because you are so the opposite of that guy.’
It’s easy to forget that the wrestlers we see in the ring are portraying characters of their own. Hence, many wrestlers become big-screen actors, like Dave Bautista and John Cena. The same can be said for separating The Rock with Dwayne Johnson.
What fans should know about the WWE Champ is that The Rock was a fast-talking, aggressive crowd-pleaser in the ring, spouting quotes like “Lay the Smackdown!” At the 1999 Royal Rumble, the pro-wrestler even committed the questionable action of beating Mike Foley in front of his kids.
At the end of the day, we remember that Dwayne Johnson gave a convincing performance in the world of wrestling, just like he has in his movies. The bankable actor comes off as a total teddy bear to fans, whom he thanked for 20 years in Hollywood, and any other time his movies achieved a box office milestone. His young daughters all think the world of their dad, whose big list of what they love about Johnson is too adorable for words. All of these qualities don’t sound at all like a guy ready for a “smackdown.”
Emily Blunt continued to say how proud she was of her “dear friend,” whose transformative performances had her wondering one thing:
I think people deemed him fit for a certain lane. [...] It got me thinking about how many characters he has lurking in that enormous frame.
I’d like to believe the new A24 movie will be a turning point for Dwayne Johnson’s career in showing another side of his acting range. The Game Plan actor previously got real about blaming himself for not being offered more interesting roles, being too “scared” to explore anything intense.
But after being inspired by The Safdie Brothers’ Uncut Gems, which helped audiences see Adam Sandler differently, Johnson contacted the filmmakers to put together a biopic based on the HBO documentary of Mark Kerr. Something tells me that him diving into a new challenge like this will be one of the best career decisions he’s ever made. Hopefully some Oscar recognition will be in his future.
Leave it to Emily Blunt, who’s frequently worked on multiple projects with Dwayne Johnson, to tell us his “performance of a lifetime” came from portraying The Rock for many years in the ring. Given what a sweet guy Johnson comes off as, I won’t argue with her there. You have the chance to see the high-grossing actor show us what he’s made of with the 2025 movie release of The Smashing Machine in theaters on October 3rd.
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