Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest Dwayne Johnson is a wrestling star known in the ring as The Rock. He's won eight WWE championships and he's a movie star. His new movie, which he produced and stars in, is a perfect fit in which he gets to use his muscles, his fighting ability, and to show what a good and nuanced actor he can be for anyone who may have doubted it.
It's called The Smashing Machine, and it's based on the story of Mark Kerr, one of the American pioneers of mixed martial arts and of the UFC, the ultimate fighting championship. The movie is about the high of having tens of thousands of fans cheering for you, the thrill of winning, and the physical pain after some fights when muscles are torn or bones are broken and your face is smashed.
Emily Blunt plays Kerr's girlfriend in a very combustible relationship, which strains under the pressures and pain of Kerr's career. Kerr is portrayed by Johnson as incredibly powerful and vulnerable, the paradox that I'd imagine characterizes many professional fighters. Johnson plays both extremes very convincingly.
He optioned the movie and brought on Benny Safdie to direct it, and Safdie's solo directing debut without his brother Josh. The movie is based in part on a documentary about Mark Kerr, and many of the scenes closely follow the documentary, reproducing fights and statements made by Kerr. Dwayne Johnson's father was a pro wrestler, one of the first black stars, whose ring name was Rocky Johnson.
Dwayne Johnson's maternal grandfather was a Samoan pro wrestler, and his grandmother was one of the first Samoan pro wrestling promoters. Johnson's TV series Young Rock was based on his childhood and his family. He also starred in the HBO series Ballers. Johnson made his movie debut in the 2001 film The Mummy Returns.
He starred in the spinoff The Scorpion King and went on to star in two Jumanji films, Fast and Furious sequels, the Disney animated film Moana and its sequel, and Black Adam. He's hosted Saturday Night Live five times. Dwayne Johnson, welcome to Fresh Air. I really like this movie a lot.
Thank you, Terry. Good to talk with you.
I read that you considered becoming a mixed martial arts fighter, but you didn't. Why did you consider it and why did you not do it yourself?
First of all, I realized I don't like getting punched in the face, so I would prefer not to, as these guys do. But in 1997, I was wrestling for the WWE. And my career at that time wasn't going as planned. And it was actually going backwards, and I wasn't making much progress. And I wound up getting hurt. I tore a ligament in my knee. And so I went home.
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Chapter 2: How did Dwayne Johnson prepare for his role in The Smashing Machine?
And even though it's performative and fictionalized, the wear and tear comes in the falls, the slams, and also the wear and tear comes in the form of just consistently doing it every night in a different city.
So in the world of pro wrestling, our goal was to entertain the fans, and our goal was to really protect each other in the ring so we can move on to the next town tomorrow night, hopefully not injured. But if you were injured, We all worked injured, even the guys and the girls today. Everyone is injured to some capacity and everyone just protects each other as best they can.
Can you describe the difference between your baby face persona and your persona as The Rock?
So my original name when I went in to WWE was Rocky Maivia. And I hated that name because it was when I got into wrestling, as you said in my introduction, my grandfather was a pro wrestler. My dad was a pro wrestler. My grandmother was one of the first female promoters. in pro wrestling, so I came from a long lineage.
And while very proud of my family's history in pro wrestling, I also wanted to make it on my own, and I wanted to carve my own path. And so they came up, WWE came up with this name, Rocky Maivia, a combination of my dad's name, Rocky Johnson, and my grandfather's name, High Chief Peter Maivia. So it was showing respect to my family lineage. And all part of the good guy, baby face persona.
And I remember having a conversation with Vince McMahon, who was the owner at that time of WWE. And he said, when you go out every night, I want you to smile. I said, can I ask you why?
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Chapter 3: How did Dwayne Johnson's family background influence his wrestling career?
He goes, I want to make sure that the crowd thinks and knows that you're grateful to be here and you're grateful for the opportunity. So I always want you smiling. I want you to be the quintessential baby face. And I remember at that time, Terry, thinking, well, I feel like there might be other ways for me to show how grateful I am, but also this is a performance. And
Even before I went out with my big smiles as requested from WWE, it just didn't feel right to me. So I made my debut and my very first match in WWE, which was actually my very first match ever, and that was in Madison Square Garden. And I went out and we had my match and I wind up winning the whole thing, which was a pretty incredible night. And the smiles were consistent.
Every night I would smile. But then what happened quite quickly is the fans picked up on that and it wasn't good because they felt, and it was true, that I wasn't being just real and authentic. And they began to turn on me.
When you won that first match, did you know you were going to win? Was the choreographed for you to win?
Oh, yeah. So that's the world of pro wrestling is you know and well aware of who's going to win that night and who's not. That's why I'm always careful to say, not to say how many people I actually beat because it's actually, I didn't, you know, and they allowed it to happen. So everybody supports everybody. But yes, I did know that.
Okay. So compare the baby face to The Rock.
Mm-hmm. So now when I get the call from WWE and says, hey, after your injury, when you heal up at the end of the summer, we're going to bring you back as a heel. And then that night I got on the microphone and I said, Rocky, my via is a lot of things. Because they were chanting Rocky Sucks, which was a lot of fun in that world when you have 20,000 people. Well, here's the thing.
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Chapter 4: How did Dwayne Johnson transition from wrestling to acting?
In that world, when you're a good guy and they're chanting Rocky Sucks, that's a death sentence.
Yeah.
Now, when you're a bad guy and you say, hey, I may be a lot of things, but sucks isn't one of them. Then I said something that really lit the crowd and they just booed even more. But it was different back then because then I became a heel that night. And within three months, I became the hottest heel in the company. And the Ascension happened pretty quick. But you know what, Terry? It was...
That moment was so defining for me because it really allowed me to step into my power. And what I mean by that is just being real and authentic.
Chapter 5: What injuries has Dwayne Johnson faced throughout his wrestling career?
And even in this crazy world of pro wrestling, every time I grabbed the microphone and I said something or every action that I did came from a very, very real place. And it was like instantaneously the crowd knew it and they said, oh, this guy's holding up a mirror. That's who he is. And we love it. And then The Rock was born.
I thought you were going to tell me that you trash-talked the audience, that you became a villain to the audience.
Well, that's what I did do. I became like the Don Rickles of pro wrestling.
So there's a scene in the new movie, The Smashing Machine, where...
Chapter 6: What inspired Dwayne Johnson to pursue a career in MMA?
Where we see that Mark Kerr is known for the body takedown by grabbing his opponent by the legs, by the back of his legs and pulling up his legs so that the opponent is flat on his back while Kerr stands over him and smashes his face till it's all bloodied and, you know, the match has to end. There was a similar scene in your wrestling career.
This was, I think, WrestleMania 14 against Ken Shamrock. And Shamrock knocks you out, gets you in an ankle hold. The announcers are speculating that he's broken your ankle. You're bleeding from the mouth. I can't tell if the blood is real. Your head is hanging over the edge of the ring, and you're taken away on a stretcher. And Shamrock has won.
The referee reverses his decision and declares you the winner because Shamrock refused to break the ankle hold. He gets into a rage. He literally throws the ref out of his way, runs over to the stretcher as you're being wheeled out of the arena and starts attacking you. So how much of that is staged and how much of that was real? Were you really hurt? Was that real blood?
In professional wrestling, it is always and only real blood, and that's the truth. That night was WrestleMania, and I knew what the finish of the match was going to be. I knew that he was not going to break the ankle lock and the referee was going to reverse the decision. We knew that. We talked backstage. We rehearsed for hours and hours and hours.
And prior to us getting to WrestleMania, myself and Ken Shamrock, we were already wrestling each other every night on the road. So by the time we got to WrestleMania, we had our chemistry, we had our alchemy, and we had a really, really great match that night. So the reason why I was bleeding from the mouth is because he suplexed me
And this is where a lot of times in wrestling, you can train, you can have your techniques, you can do your best to protect your guy, your dance partner, as we call it. But sometimes just things hurt, and you land in a way that hurts. So he suplexed me, and I landed in a way that really, for the moment, damaged my lungs and blood vessels.
Oh, okay.
And that's why I was spitting up blood. So that was part of the match that we didn't plan, but just happens. So I was on the stretcher, which I knew the ambulance was going to come and take me out. It was all part of the finish. So I did know everything that was going to happen that night, but I did not know that I was going to start bleeding from my lungs.
Oh, that sounds horrible. Did Shamrock know you were bleeding for real and that you were seriously injured?
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Chapter 7: What does Dwayne Johnson think about living the wrestling gimmick?
So in MMA, you don't have to sell your pain. You're in pain. I mean, those when a blow is landed, it's for real. It's not rehearsed. I want to play a clip from the documentary that your new film, The Smashing Machine, is largely based on. It's a documentary about Mark Kerr and his career as an MMA fighter.
So in this part, he's describing how the first time he fought, there was this overwhelming fear and nausea. And he didn't know if he could do it, but he was okay once he stepped into the ring. He had already been a freestyle wrestler. So he's starting MMA because he's broke. He needs the money. As you said, there's more money in MMA, at least at that time, than there was in wrestling.
Chapter 8: What challenges did Dwayne Johnson face in his relationship with his father?
So we see his first MMA fight, doing a takedown of his opponent, getting him on his back, and then smashing him in his face. And then we hear Mark Kerr talking about the things that he does in a fight. And he's actually describing what he's doing in the fight that we're watching. So here's the clip.
It kind of got me fired up. You know, I was like, okay, I can get in there and just manhandle these people. This one situation with two possible outcomes. You're either going to beat somebody's ass or you're going to get your ass beat. And then the question you ask yourself is how competitive are you? What lanes are you willing to go to try to win? Are you going to poke him in the eye?
Are you going to take your thumb and dig in the cut to pull it open a little wider? Of course you will.
So we're not only hearing him say, of course you'll do all that. You'll put the finger in his cut. And we're seeing him actually do it. Did you ask yourself that question, putting yourself in Kerr's shoes to portray him on screen about, you know, how far would you go?
to win if you were not wrestling but doing MMA and doing it for real where the blows actually do always connect and you do want to bloody the person to win?
It's very primal. And... For some folks, that's tough. It's hard to listen to. It can be hard to see and watch. But it takes a very, I think, unique person to become an elite MMA fighter. And you get locked in a cage or a ring. And it's two people enter and... one's gonna lose and one's gonna win. And what made Mark Kerr special was, I think, sure, he was a physical anomaly.
His body, Terry, his silhouette, his body, his shoulders, his legs, he was a dominant amateur wrestler. And for wrestlers who then transitioned into MMA, they have a very unique build in And their shoulders, their traps, their quads. But also they have this, a different kind of quality to their muscle. And there's a lot of, it's like fast twitch quality to their muscle.
And what made Mark unique was he was this rare breed of 6'2", 275, 80 pounds. He could move like a cheetah. But he also had this... willingness to do whatever it took to win. And that means, as wild as it sounds, during the fights, if his opponent had a big cut or gash in his face, Mark would take his thumb and he would make that gash and cut even bigger.
And he would begin to pull it open and put his thumb in there. Now, again, you've got to keep in mind that What you just let the listeners hear, that was from a tournament in Brazil. And that tournament was, you go down to Brazil. And that was the first time he ever had a fight, ever. And he essentially gets thrown to the wolves. And in this tournament, there were...
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