On the latest episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet, former MMA champion Mark Kerr opened up about his emotional reaction to seeing the new A24 film about his life, “The Smashing Machine,” which was released in U.S. theaters today, October 3, 2025. The film, directed by Benny Safdie, had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2025.
Kerr, a two-time UFC Heavyweight Tournament Champion, described being overcome with emotion when he first saw a near-complete version of the film in January. “Oh God, I cried. Just cried and cried,” he said. “They brought me out in January, and the film was about 80% complete… My brother Michael met me out here, small little studio, it was Benny, myself and my brother, we watched it… watching how deep they got emotionally on stuff was just unbelievable”.
He recounted how the project first began in 2019 when he was contacted by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s agent, Brad Slater, which led to a phone call with Johnson himself. Kerr described that initial call as being almost “transactional.” “[DJ’s] like, ‘Here’s what I’m going to do.’ He said it’s going to be this, this, this, and this… and you just don’t need to do anything,” Kerr recalled.
After the initial announcement, the project stalled for years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Hollywood strikes. During that four-year period, Kerr said he never once reached out to Johnson. “I had his phone number. I never called or text him in four years, it wasn’t gonna change anything,” he explained. “I just kind of left it… in the universe”.
The project was revived in the fall of 2023 after Kerr decided to call Johnson’s agent. He eventually received a call from Johnson, who he said was a “different person” than the one he spoke to in 2019. “And it was this, ‘Hey, you know, we’re moving forward with this. Production has already started. When it moves, it’s going to move fast,’” Kerr said Johnson told him.
The film is based on Kerr’s life, which was famously chronicled in the 2002 HBO documentary of the same name. That documentary detailed his dominance in the early days of MMA as well as his struggles with an addiction to painkillers.
The new biographical drama stars Dwayne Johnson in a dramatic turn as Kerr, with Emily Blunt co-starring as his girlfriend, Dawn Staples. The cast also includes Ryan Bader as Mark Coleman, Bas Rutten as himself, and boxer Oleksandr Usyk as Igor Vovchanchyn. Principal photography for the film took place from May to August 2024.
Following its world premiere in Venice, director Benny Safdie was awarded the Silver Lion for Best Director. The film has received generally positive reviews from critics, holding a 73% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 68 out of 100 on Metacritic. Click below to watch the full interview.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
