For Dwayne Johnson, The Smashing Machine was so much more than a job.
As award season continues with the Golden Globes on Jan. 11—hosted by Nikki Glaser—the former wrestler opened up about how the film, a biographical movie about former MMA fighter Mark Kerr, bore special significance for him.
“Over the past decade and a half, I’ve lost 15 friends to addiction and to suicide,” he told Zuri Hall on LIVE from E!: Golden Globes 2026. “And in a way, The Smashing Machine was a love letter to them, and also a love letter to those who are still here but still fighting. And if you’re struggling with addiction, struggling with mental health, or if you love someone who’s struggling with addiction like I did, then stay in the fight, because on another side of that struggle is some sort of grace.”
In fact, working on the movie changed the way Dwayne viewed his own father.
“What the film pushed me to do was to be radically empathetic to those who are struggling, because I had a complicated relationship with the human being who struggled with addiction, and that’s my dad,” he explained. “He’s no longer here, and he struggled with his addictions.”
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