The Smashing Machine director thought The Rock was an as***** who ghosted him after pitching him the movie: ‘He is frustrating’

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Safdie too talked about working with Dwayne while making an appearance on the Impaulsive podcast. He said, “I always knew he could do the role, and I appreciated the fact that he wanted to do this and put in the work for it. He gained 40 pounds of muscle for the role, and he knew exactly what I was talking about when I told him to get bigger. He’s just so internal, and he’s so emotional. You just love him, and you want to give him a hug, but then at times he is really frustrating. That is who I wanted to show, someone who is not easy to live with.”

Safdie extensively talked about the prosthetics used on Dwayne as well, in order to make him look like Matt Kerr. The man responsible for Dwayne’s incredible transformation into Kerr is Oscar-winning prosthetics artist Kazu Hiro. He too recently gave an interview to Variety and talked about the challenges he faced while working with Dwayne.

“It’s very important and very easy to make someone unrecognisable, but the very important part is to really reflect the meaning of the makeup and the purpose of the makeup, and also the subject we are trying to portray. I knew that there would be a lot of physical activity, sweating and fighting, like a punch in the face,” said Hiro.

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Bas Rutten, Dwan Staples, and Oleksandr Usyk, The Smashing Machine will release in the theatres on October 3.