The Rock pushed his limits while filming The Smashing Machine, a biopic on MMA legend Mark Kerr, and ended up with a legitimate concussion in the process.
The Great One recently appeared on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon to promote his upcoming movie, where he revealed that director Benny Safdie insisted on realism and wanted no stunt doubles in the fight scenes.
“Yes. So, Benny Safdie had this motto before we started shooting, which was, ‘As real as it gets. Let’s make it as real as it gets.’ And then he said to me, ‘I would love, in these fighting scenes, to never cut away from you. And I would like to not use your stunt double.’
Well, I know what that means. That means I’m getting my a$$ kicked. And I said, ‘Absolutely. Let’s do it.’ Aside from putting on the 30 pounds of Mark Kerr muscle, I went through a three-month training camp with MMA fighters and coaches because I really had to look the part.”
One important scene in the movie was a recreation of Kerr’s 2000 PRIDE Grand Prix fight with Kazuyuki Fujita.
“There’s a scene at the end, and this happened in real life. Mark Kerr is in Japan, fighting in front of 30,000 people against Fujita. Mark is on all fours, Fujita is wailing away on him, and he’s not moving. But he’s not knocked out – he’s just taking every hit. And I asked Benny, ‘Are we going to shoot the scene like that?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’”
The Final Boss then revealed that he asked co-star Yoko Hamamura, who played Fujita, to strike him for real. This led to him suffering a concussion.
“I told the fighter I was working with, ‘Hey brother, I know it sounds crazy, but you’ve got to hit me. You have to hit me.’ And he was a Japanese fighter, very respectful. He said, ‘No, no, I will not hit you.’ He refused.
Finally, I said, ‘Please, we have one shot at this. You must hit me.’ Benny came over and said, ‘You must hit him. I know you respect DJ, but you respect the real fight with Mark Kerr in Japan. Keep our integrity and whale away.’
So in the movie, you’ll see him rocking me over and over. After that fight, you see me looking loopy, that’s because I had a concussion. But that’s the thing, if you’re going to make an MMA movie, you’ve got to go all the way. And that’s what we did. You’ve got to play the part.”
The Smashing Machine will hit theaters on Friday.
