Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt on 'The Smashing Machine'

Fear is not something one typically associates with Dwayne Johnson.

- 

Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt with 'The Smashing Machine' director Benny Safdie (AP)

(AP)

Certainly not in the ring, as the charismatic heel with the cocked eyebrow, and not in Hollywood, where he has cemented himself as one of the industry's most bankable, and singular, action stars and producers.

By all accounts the formula was working. Yet for years he'd had a suspicion that he could do more, offer more, as an actor. But when it came time to dive into something more raw, more vulnerable for "The Smashing Machine," a drama about MMA fighter Mark Kerr that he'd been thinking about for over a decade, he realized something: He was scared.

"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 in a recent interview. "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."

Johnson has been open about his difficult childhood, his turbulent relationship with his late father, Rocky Johnson, and their financial insecurity. Yet as an entertainer, he'd kept all those old wounds out of the picture until now. For the first time in his career, he decided to take that trauma and channel it into something he loves: Performance and storytelling. And it's already put him in the Oscar conversation.

"The Smashing Machine," which opens in theaters Oct. 3, wasn't just a leap into the unknown for Johnson. For his costar Emily Blunt and filmmaker Benny Safdie, directing a feature alone for the first time, it was a chance to express different sides of themselves as well.

"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."