A fighter reckons with his turbulent past

THE DAY BEFORE THE SMASHING MACHINE PREMIERES at the Venice Film Festival in early September, Mark Kerr describes his emotional state as “vibrational.”

- RORY DOHERTY

Johnson as Kerr in the film

It’s tough to pin down where jet lag ends and nerves begin, but not long before audiences will see Dwayne Johnson act out his life story, the 56-year-old former mixed martial arts fighter is just trying to roll with the absurdity of the moment. Entrusting your story to someone and putting it out there for public consumption is no small thing, even when you’ve lived out much of that story in the public eye.

Kerr’s battle with painkiller addiction and a strained, volatile relationship pushed his fighting career, once on the cusp of historic achievement, to its breaking point. And the man Kerr entrusted it to is writer-director Benny Safdie, best known for co-directing the 2019 crime drama Uncut Gems with his brother Josh. In Venice, Safdie effuses about his subject’s generosity and vulnerability, and Johnson makes headlines for sobbing following the film’s premiere, as his own journey to tell Kerr’s story launches his transition from blockbuster action star to Serious Actor—the Oscar buzz began long before anyone had even seen the film.

It’s an emotional time for them all. As Safdie said to Kerr at the outset, “You lived your life so we can all feel it.”