\nJohnson arrives at the press conference for \u201cThe Smashing Machine\u201d during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on Monday, Sept. 1. Alessandro Bremec\/NurPhoto\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u201cDamn, he\u2019s half of what he was!\u201d one person wrote after Johnson\u2019s new physique went viral.<\/p>\n
\u201cWow nice transformation,\u201d another wrote.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Monday, during the film\u2019s press conference, Johnson opened up about his decision to team up with Safdie to portray Kerr in \u201cThe Smashing Machine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\nEmily Blunt and Johnson at the Venice Film Festival on Monday, Sept. 1. WireImage<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\nEmily Blunt and Johnson at the Venice premiere of \u201cThe Smashing Machine\u201d on Monday, Sept. 1. Simone Comi\/ipa-agency.net\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re in Hollywood \u2013 as we all know, it had become about box office,\u201d he began. \u201cAnd 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI just had this burning desire and voice that was saying, \u2018What if there is more and what if I can?’\u201d Johnson continued. \u201cA lot of times, it\u2019s harder for us \u2013 or at least for me \u2013 to know what you\u2019re capable of when you\u2019ve been pigeonholed into something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson then thanked Safdie and Blunt for helping him realize his \u201cdream\u201d of portraying Kerr on the big screen.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it takes people who you love and respect, like Emily and Benny, to say that you can,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve been scared to go deep and intense and raw until now, until I had this opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rock has a soft spot after all. Dwayne Johnson, 53, was brought to tears on Monday night after his newest movie, \u201cThe Smashing Machine,\u201d received a 15-minute standing ovation and sparked Oscar buzz following its premiere at the 82nd Venice Film Festival, per Variety. Dwayne \u201cThe Rock\u201d Johnson at the Venice Film Festival premiere […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1992274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[305874,313617,344655,333428],"class_list":["post-1992273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-dwayne-johnson","tag-emily-blunt","tag-mark-kerr","tag-venice-film-festival"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Dwayne-\u2018The-Rock-Johnson-sobs-over-15-minute-standing-ovation-for.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1992273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1992274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1992273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1992273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1992273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}