Credits: Harald Krichel / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0.
At the Venice Film Festival on September 1, 2025, Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, surprised by unveiling The Smashing Machine, Benny Safdie’s 2025 film in which he portrays MMA pioneer Mark Kerr. Given a fifteen-minute standing ovation, the actor allows himself vulnerability and a marked physical transformation. The stake is an artistic metamorphosis, far from blockbusters. It could put him in the awards conversation. Indeed, this comes ahead of the French release on October 29.
The Facts: A Fifteen-Minute Ovation and Tears at the Venice Film Festival
On September 1, 2025, at the Venice Film Festival (82nd edition), Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock premiered ‘The Smashing Machine’ by Benny Safdie. After the screening in Sala Grande, the film received a standing ovation of about 15 minutes, a tribute that visibly moved the actor, to the point of wiping away a few tears, alongside Emily Blunt and Mark Kerr himself. The moment marked the start of an unexpected awards-season campaign for a star more often associated with mainstream blockbusters than intimate dramas.
A Against-Type Role: Mark Kerr and the Other Side of the Myth
In ‘The Smashing Machine’ with Dwayne Johnson, the actor plays Mark Kerr, a pioneer of mixed martial arts (MMA) and two-time heavyweight tournament winner in the UFC in the late 1990s. Far from a triumphant tale, the screenplay explores the pressures of elite sport, addiction to painkillers, and a troubled romantic relationship — themes already exposed by the 2002 HBO documentary, The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr (Wikipedia). Safdie’s film does not sanctify the ring: it focuses on the battered body, the doubts, and how a champion tries to stay afloat when victory slips away.
Emily Blunt plays Dawn Staples, Kerr’s partner. Her performance helps shift the film toward the intimate. Indeed, addiction is not only portrayed in terms of falls and relapses. It also manifests in the collateral damage to those around him. The on-screen chemistry reunites Johnson and Blunt after Jungle Cruise and fuels a less muscular, more vulnerable performance that the actor claims as a decisive step in his trajectory.
A Deliberate Metamorphosis: Prosthetics, Wig, and Discipline
To portray Kerr, Johnson agreed to alter his silhouette. Additionally, he endured a daily prosthetic makeup routine. He mentions spending three to four hours each morning in front of the mirror. He uses a dozen prosthetics to thicken or alter certain features. He also wears a wig to recapture the late-1990s look. Far from the imposing builds he’s used to, the actor works here on fragilities. Indeed, shortness of breath, stiffness, and scars tell of a career worn down by fights.
This transformation is not merely cosmetic: it changes his acting. Johnson abandons punchlines and omnipotence for a palette mixing restraint, hesitation, bursts of anger, and stretches of tenderness. Benny Safdie, directing his first solo feature here, sets up staging with nervous realism, close to a documentary gesture: cameras up close, tight framing, the noise of the arenas and the silence of the locker rooms.
Emily Blunt, a Decisive Partner; Benny Safdie, a Solo Expected
Emily Blunt plays a key role on-screen and in preparation. She says she wanted to honor a real, living person, without embellishment. Moreover, Johnson stresses the trust that helped him leave his usual register. The duo serves a director known for ‘Good Time’ and ‘Uncut Gems’ (co-directed with his brother Josh), whose tension and social acuity are evident. But ‘The Smashing Machine’ marks a break: Safdie conducts alone a portrait of a man where the obsession to win devours private life.
Schedule and Distribution of The Smashing Machine: France on October 29, 2025
The film screened in Venice in official competition on September 1, 2025, before a U.S. theatrical release on October 3, 2025 (studio A24). In France, the release is scheduled for October 29, 2025, with Zinc handling distribution. Early reactions from the festival, between ovation and praise for the performances of the two leads, fuel the buzz of an awards season where Johnson, rarely awarded for dramatic roles, could surface. Without presuming winners, the alignment checks several boxes. It is indeed a reference festival. Additionally, it is an independent studio experienced in arthouse film campaigns. Also, the role is both physical and emotional.
From WWE to Hollywood: What “The Rock” Brings to the Role
Before becoming one of the world’s biggest box-office stars, Dwayne Johnson was a professional wrestler in the WWE, where he was a ten-time world heavyweight champion (eight times WWF/WWE champion and two times WCW champion). This ring experience, with its rises and sudden falls, informs his performance: Johnson knows the drama of a scrutinized body, silenced pain, and the masculine myth one must uphold publicly. The heightened fame driven by social media adds pressure that the film, by extension, puts into perspective. Indeed, his Instagram account has more than 390 million followers (@therock). What price do you pay to stay on top?
Early MMA: A Sport in Formation
The Mark Kerr of the film is from a time when MMA was shaping its rules and limits. On the American scene and then in Japan (Pride FC), fights followed one another, and so did injuries. Painkillers become a crutch as much as a trap, and the Kerr-Staples relationship wavers. By revisiting those years, ‘The Smashing Machine’ joins the line of portraits of battered athletes — think The Wrestler or Raging Bull — but with a contemporary grounding: the era of global leagues and viral images, where performance is an endless stream.
What The Rock’s Metamorphosis Signals
Dwayne Johnson’s metamorphosis does not erase his popular successes (Jumanji, Fast & Furious, Red Notice). It broadens his scope. The icon of family entertainment, a producer at Seven Bucks Productions, takes an artistic risk: showing himself broken, disturbed, sometimes lost. This openness to emotion matters as much as the pounds lost or hours in makeup. It feeds a different imagination of strength: no longer an unshakeable rock, but a man who holds on while faltering.
Outlook: From Venice to Theaters
‘The Smashing Machine’ does not tell invincibility; it tells what it costs to embody it. By measuring himself against Mark Kerr, Dwayne Johnson upends his legend: behind “The Rock,” an actor willing to weaken his image to better reinvent it. The Venice Film Festival gave him a trial by fire; the theatrical release will reveal whether this promise endures. For now, curiosity is strong, and the bet — that of a displayed vulnerability — is largely won.