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Dwayne Johnson\u2019s career best performance in the upcoming film The Smashing Machine has the ex-pro wrestler earning serious Oscar buzz ahead of the 2026 awards.<\/p>\n
The 53-year-old actor, whose career has mostly been geared towards larger-than-life action roles and some family friendly comedies, underwent a dramatic transformation both physically and mentally to play UFC Hall of Famer Mark Kerr in the biopic about his life. The Smashing Machine, which opens nationwide on Oct. 3, has already racked up some award wins with Benny Safdie taking home the Silver Lion for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival where the movie premiered.<\/p>\n
While he\u2019s never been considered a heavyweight when it comes to his dramatic acting, Johnson has received overwhelmingly positive reactions for playing Kerr \u2014 a hulking savage in the ring but a gentle giant outside \u2014 while dealing with a period of time during his career when he was struggling badly with drug addiction.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Johnson] stands at the precipice of a career-defining moment, and one he has sought for quite some time,\u201d Variety\u2019<\/a>s Clayton Davis wrote about his performance in the film.<\/p>\n \u201cComparisons to Mickey Rourke\u2019s Oscar-nominated turn in Darren Aronofsky\u2019s The Wrestler (2008) are inevitable and apt. Both films center on fighters grappling with physical deterioration and personal demons. Where Rourke drew from his boxing background, Johnson taps into something rawer and psychologically complex. Working with two-time Oscar winner Kazu Hiro (\u201cBombshell\u201d and \u201cDarkest Hour\u201d), Johnson undergoes a physical transformation that erases any thought of a WWE star in costume. In fact, he could even position himself as this year\u2019s Brendan Fraser, whose makeup-assisted turn in The Whale earned both acting and technical\u00a0Oscars, likewise for an actor who was thought of as an unlikely awards contender.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson long considered The Smashing Machine as his passion project after he saw the 2002 documentary of the same name and he learned more about the former wrestler turned fighter. It took him many years to finally get the project off the ground but now The Smashing Machine is about to debut with A24 \u2014 an independent studio with a huge amount of Academy Award wins \u2014 backing the film.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s impossible to hide Johnson in any film \u2014 being a 6-foot-5 muscle bound giant will do that for you \u2014 he\u2019s effectively disguised behind the prosthetics that turn him into Kerr for the movie.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t hurt that Johnson spends a huge part of the film acting opposite Emily Blunt, who earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in Oppenheimer.<\/p>\n The result has been a career defining role for Johnson, who was brought to tears <\/a>after a 15-minute standing ovation following the film\u2019s debut in Venice.<\/p>\n \u201cJohnson has rarely played a loser, but he\u2019s always been likable, displaying a massive grin to match his massive pecs in action vehicles that never allowed him to showcase much range,\u201d The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>\u2019s Jordan Mintzer wrote about the movie. \u201cHe manages to go deep here without overdoing it, killing the audience with kindness as a benign warrior who suffers from one scene to the next, triumphing briefly in the ring before succumbing to addiction and\/or romantic grief.<\/p>\n \u201cLike Mickey Rourke in\u00a0The Wrestler\u00a0\u2014 a film from which Safdie seems to take a few cues \u2014 the actor delivers an intoxicating mix of blood, sweat, tears, protein and total helplessness.\u201d<\/p>\n