Johnson dug deep to play UFC fighter and MMA pioneer Mark Kerr in the biopic “The Smashing Machine.”

Dwayne Johnson reveals how his parents’ personal struggles influenced one of his heartbreaking movie scenes

Johnson dug deep to play UFC fighter and MMA pioneer Mark Kerr in the biopic "The Smashing Machine."

By Lauren Huff

Lauren Huff

Lauren Huff is an award-winning journalist and staff writer at ** with over 12 years of experience covering all facets of the entertainment industry.

EW's editorial guidelines

December 29, 2025 9:30 a.m. ET

Leave a Comment

Dwayne Johnson in 'The Smashing Machine'. Credit:

Things got personal for Dwayne Johnson while filming a pivotal moment in the Mark Kerr biopic *The Smashing Machine*.

In the scene, Mark (Johnson), a UFC fighter and MMA pioneer, has just overdosed and is in the hospital. His friend, Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader), pays him a visit and implores him to go to rehab. Though Johnson's character has had a few private emotional moments in the film to this point, this scene is the first time he's really vulnerable and breaks down in front of anyone else.

To nail the scene, Johnson tells host Gerrad Hall on *The Awardist* podcast about the two things from his own life that inspired him. The first is his own father's addiction. "My dad had an addiction, and I have lived that life where my dad was a fast talker, and he could fast talk his way in and outta things," the actor and wrestler says. "And I like to say that, you know, he quit his addiction in the morning, and by the evening time he quit quitting. You know, that's what addicts do is oftentimes they'll try to lure you in, and the moment they see a little opening that, 'Oh, you're believing my story,' that's it. Hooks are in, and I just wanna get onto the next."

Dwayne Johnson in 'The Smashing Machine'.

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.***

He continues of the scene, "I have lived that, where you hear, and you see Mark in the hospital [going], 'Can you believe these guys? It was so unfair. They're asking me who the president was. And I was just coming through and I was unconscious.'"

The other deeply personal moment Johnson pulled from was seeing his mom in the hospital during her treatment for cancer. "The second half to that, is more — it hurts my heart — is that when my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer, she was diagnosed with stage 3B lung cancer. And when you know those stages, that's not good. You know you gotta have those conversations with your family," he recalls.

Though his mom would go on to make a full recovery, Johnson vividly remembers her first day of treatment and what the doctor said when he came into the room. "She was laying on the hospital bed, and I was kind of standing over her, holding her hand. And then the doctor came in and the doctor, he didn't say, 'Hey, you're gonna be all right.' He said, 'We're gonna take good care of you.'"

Brendan Fraser didn't know who Dwayne Johnson was before 'The Mummy Returns'

How prosthetics helped Dwayne Johnson transform for 'The Smashing Machine'

Johnson continues, "And I'll never forget it. She pulled the sheets up over her face, and she started, like, really crying. And I had never seen my mom cry like that. In the moment, I looked down and I saw this, like, little girl, you know?"

The *Jungle Cruise* star says he felt like his character probably felt the same way about his own hospital stay, and he brought that into his performance. "I felt like that's probably the last place that Mark Kerr wants to be as well," he says. "Just like it was the last place my mom wanted to be in that moment of vulnerability, and you're looking up at people and you just wanna cover your face. So yeah, that's where I went."**

- Awards Shows & Events

- The Awardist Podcast Episodes

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW The”