Mark Kerr Went To Set While The Rock Was Playing Him, But It Was His Son’s Reaction To The Smashing Machine That Stuck With Him: ‘He’s Almost Like Whispering’

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The 2025 movie schedule is about to unleash a film that could very well mark an important milestone for wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson. His starring role as MMA legend Mark Kerr in the upcoming biopic The Smashing Machine, saw the man also known as WWE Superstar The Rock getting a 15 minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival, and word is also floating around that he may nab his first Oscar nomination for the role. Now, Kerr has opened up about visiting the set during filming, and his son’s emotional reaction to seeing Johnson portray him.

What Did Mark Kerr Say About Being On The Smashing Machine Set As Dwayne Johnson Played Him?

There are only a precious few people who will ever know what it’s like to have a film made about them (especially since such things frequently happen after said subject is no longer with us), but now early MMA/UFC fighter Mark Kerr is one of those people. Those who’ve already seen The Smashing Machine have lauded Dwayne Johnson’s “scarily unstable” performance as Kerr, while those he worked with, like co-star Emily Blunt, have talked about how he was able to “completely disappear” into the real-life character of Kerr.

If this is all making you wonder how Kerr himself responded to seeing Johnson in character when he visited the set, he recently told Sports Illustrated that it was, indeed, a trip. He remembered:

So the first time I walked on set, we’re in this arena [in Vancouver] and they’re getting ready to do the introduction for the PRIDE Grand Prix. DJ is the last one to come in the ring. Nobody tells me he’s getting prosthetics. Nobody tells me they’re going to do this cauliflower ear. I’m looking in the ring and DJ’s walking up behind me, and I turn around. All I could do is cuss at him. All I could do is just literally look at him and go, ‘Oh my God, dude. F— you.’ It was this out-of-body experience.

Lordy. It had to have been an immense shock to think he was going to turn around and see the man we all recognize as “DJ,” only to be met with a version of his own face from a couple of decades ago. Blunt and Johnson have previously spoken about having to be willing to do things like “rip your rib cage open” to portray a living person’s story, and it sounds a bit like Kerr experienced something similarly tough when seeing Johnson as him for the first time. He continued, and noted that his son had an even stronger response after watching the movie:

My son saw [the film] in New York. He’s almost like whispering on the phone, ‘Dad, he’s got your hand movements, and he’s got your speech pattern, he even walks like you. It was uncanny.’

The upcoming A24 movie hits theaters on October 3, so we’ll all be able to see how The Smashing Machine affects us very soon.