Dwayne Johnson and his role in ‘The Smashing Machine’: “This has been the most challenging of my entire career”

Despite having fought pretty much every mean face in the WWE, there are still some things that scare The Rock.

In a recent interview promoting his new project The Smashing Machine, Dwayne Johnson confessed to having fear and nerves over a new challenge, and admitted that this role forced him to confront it head-on.

Johnson described the project as a mirror for his anxieties. He spoke of waking in the middle of the night with panic, of being haunted by grief and self-doubt.

“It’s not easy to think, ‘Hey, I’m capable of doing this and I know I can do this,’” Johnson, 53, told The Associated Press. “You may seem, may have a veneer, that you’re capable of it and you’re confident. But I was very nervous and scared to do it because it’s something that I hadn’t done before.”

“It’s hard for us to know what we’re capable of sometimes”

The Smashing Machine is a biographical sports drama centred on the life of Mark Kerr, a prominent figure in the early days of mixed martial arts. In the film, Dwayne Johnson portrays Kerr, taking on the internal struggles that threatened to derail his life.

Emily Blunt plays Dawn Staples, Kerr’s partner, whose relationship with him becomes a key emotional thread in the story.

For Emily Blunt, who co-stars, the experience was equally revealing. Rather than purely spectacle, she saw the film as a chance to explore character arcs shaped by fear, loss, and uncertainty. Blunt said bringing these undercurrents to life was humbling—and a risk, creatively speaking.

“It’s hard for us to know what we’re capable of sometimes,” Blunt said. “Maybe you need friends around you putting a jet pack on your back and saying, ‘You can’ and ‘you’re awesome’ and you have so much that you can delve into.”

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“The Smashing Machine” opens in cinemas on Friday 3rd October across the country.

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