{"id":178870,"date":"2025-10-02T13:45:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T18:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prowrestling.net\/site\/?p=178870"},"modified":"2025-10-02T13:13:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T18:13:25","slug":"mark-kerr-on-dwayne-the-rock-johnson-playing-him-in-the-smashing-machine-film-facing-kurt-angle-and-their-friendship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowrestling.net\/site\/2025\/10\/02\/mark-kerr-on-dwayne-the-rock-johnson-playing-him-in-the-smashing-machine-film-facing-kurt-angle-and-their-friendship\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Kerr on Dwayne &#8220;The Rock&#8221; Johnson playing him in &#8220;The Smashing Machine&#8221; film, facing Kurt Angle and their friendship"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"prowr-2435928034\" class=\"prowr-apple-podcast-button-link prowr-entity-placement\" style=\"margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto;text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/pro-wrestling-boom-podcast\/id1365989370\" aria-label=\"SUBSCRIBE IN APPLE PODCASTS\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestling.net\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/advanced_ads\/2019\/07\/Logo2019_ApplePodcasts_320wide.png?fit=320%2C78&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"SUBSCRIBE IN APPLE PODCASTS\"  srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestling.net\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/advanced_ads\/2019\/07\/Logo2019_ApplePodcasts_320wide.png?w=320&ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestling.net\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/advanced_ads\/2019\/07\/Logo2019_ApplePodcasts_320wide.png?resize=300%2C73&ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" width=\"320\" height=\"78\"   \/><\/a><\/div><p><b>By Jason Powell<\/b>, ProWrestling.net Editor (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/prowrestlingnet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@prowrestlingnet<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><b>Insight With Chris Van Vliet with guest Mark Kerr<br \/>\nHost: Chris Van Vliet<br \/>\nPodcast available via <a href=\"https:\/\/podcast.chrisvanvliet.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Podcasts.Apple.com<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LTLrZQuzBaY?si=ghpgFB4otE8WUZMs\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><b>On his first reaction to the film:<\/b> &#8220;Oh God, I cried. Just cried and cried. 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 [Safdie &#8211; director], myself and my brother, we watched it, and some of it just hit me. They didn&#8217;t tell me, \u2018Hey, listen, Dwayne&#8217;s gonna do all this prosthetics.&#8217; I didn&#8217;t see that till I was in Vancouver, and just watching how deep they got emotionally on stuff was just unbelievable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b>On how Dwayne Johnson became involved in the project:<\/b> &#8220;That was originally when I got contacted in 2019 by Brad Slater, who is DJ&#8217;s agent. It was this conversation of who owns your rights, or who owns a screenplay. So I directed him in that place, and that was like, Dwayne wants to do this. That was the first that I was like, Huh? It was like DJ wants to do this, not that he&#8217;s gonna do this, we&#8217;re just gonna figure out maybe some options. Then Seven Bucks Production acquires the rights, and then I get a call from DJ right before the BMF belt in Madison Square Garden. He makes that announcement, and I&#8217;ve said this, it&#8217;s like back in 2019, the conversation I had with DJ was almost transactional. It was like, \u2018Here&#8217;s what I&#8217;m going to do.&#8217; He said it&#8217;s going to be this, this, this, and this, and this, and this is going to happen, and you just don&#8217;t need to do anything. Then COVID hits, writer&#8217;s strike, all this stuff, and I had his phone number. I never called or text him in four years, it wasn&#8217;t gonna change anything, right? Wasn&#8217;t gonna call him up and say, \u2018You gonna make it yet? You gonna make it yet?&#8217; I just kind of left it to, it sounds silly to say, but I left it in the universe. It&#8217;s like, if it&#8217;s gonna get made, there isn&#8217;t anything I can do about it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b>Whether he thought it would still be made:<\/b> &#8220;I had hope that it would, but I just lived my life like nothing was going to change. My wife would say, \u2018Go call him.&#8217; I said, \u2018You know, somehow, some way, I truly believe that the universe would go hey, now&#8217;s when you need to reach out.&#8217; So in the fall of 2023, at the end of October, I called Brad Slater, and he just was like, \u2018Oh my god, I can&#8217;t even believe you&#8217;re calling me.&#8217; This is what he said. He goes, \u2018I can&#8217;t tell you. You need to talk to Dwayne.&#8217; I&#8217;m like, \u2018Okay, you can&#8217;t say a word?&#8217; He goes, \u2018Nope, I can&#8217;t, it needs to come from him.&#8217; And I&#8217;m like, Oh my god. So it&#8217;s either \u2018Hey, this thing&#8217;s scrapped forever&#8217; or \u2018Hey, we&#8217;re rolling forward with it.&#8217; So that was Thursday, and he goes, \u2018DJ will text you over the weekend.&#8217; So he texts me the next day. He&#8217;s like, \u2018Hey, I&#8217;ll call you over the weekend.&#8217; That whole weekend goes by, the whole week goes by, and I&#8217;m like, Oh my God. Now it&#8217;s like, nine days later. I&#8217;m like, what the f&#8212;? So I get another text that next Friday, it&#8217;s like,&#8217; I&#8217;ll call you over the weekend.&#8217; It was like Saturday, and then it was like Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was like, \u2018Are you available?&#8217; I&#8217;m like, Oh my God. So I get on the phone with him, and the difference was in 2019, I said transactional. In 2023, it was just like a different person, a different space he was in. And it was this, \u2018Hey, you know, we&#8217;re moving forward with this. Production has already started. When it moves, it&#8217;s going to move fast.&#8217; Not understanding one of his assistants had moved heaven and earth to clear out 12 weeks. He&#8217;s so busy, I don&#8217;t even know how he&#8217;d find 12 minutes, let alone 12 weeks, right? So they found a place in Vancouver and all this stuff. And it was like, he wasn&#8217;t kidding. When he goes hey, I&#8217;m gonna announce it, this is what got me, he goes to the world that this thing&#8217;s going forward. Not to California, it&#8217;s to the world. And I&#8217;m like, all of a sudden it goes and it&#8217;s heading down the tracks, it&#8217;s incredible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b>On wrestling Kurt Angle:<\/b> &#8220;I think total of eight times. It ended up being four, four.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b>On Angle winning the Olympic trial:<\/b> &#8220;He did. Yeah, the two years prior to that, I had beat him from the world teams. This is just how beautiful a person he is. So my mom, who had terminal cancer in &#8217;96, I tell people, you want to know a bad month? So, 1996 January, Dave Schultz, I wrestled for Foxcatcher. So did Kurt. Dave Schultz is murdered. I&#8217;m over in Russia when they make that announcement. Just heart goes absolutely cold, we still haven&#8217;t competed yet. And so the coach is like, if you don&#8217;t want to compete tomorrow, you don&#8217;t have to. And I&#8217;m like, okay. We&#8217;re in Siberia, Russia, and I go, Okay, I&#8217;ll compete. So I competed, but my heart wasn&#8217;t into it, so I lost the first match, and I go, F&#8212; it, I&#8217;m done. I go home. I was supposed to actually fly from Russia to Foxcatcher to continue to train for the nationals, which were in April. So I ended up going home to Ohio. My brother asked me to come home, and he says, \u2018Hey, listen, you know, the cancer is terminal. It&#8217;s metastasized outside of my mom&#8217;s colon, and they&#8217;re going to try some experimental chemo. She&#8217;ll have to have a chemo pack on to pump chemo for 24 hours a day. But it doesn&#8217;t look optimistic.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So I go ahead and just devastated, and I gather myself up and I go, Okay, I&#8217;m living in Arizona. I continue to train. I end up going to Athens, Greece, and end up pulling my transverse abdominal and drop into my groin muscles, pulling them completely out. And so I can&#8217;t compete in the Nationals, so I have to petition to get in Olympic trials. They are in Spokane, Washington, and I wrestle Mark Coleman. I lose to Mark right off the bat. So, my chance to be an Olympian, I could be an alternate, but I can&#8217;t get to Kurt, right? So I throw shoes away, literally, like, f&#8212; it! What&#8217;s the point? And Arthur Martori, who had the Sunkist Kids [Wrestling Club]. He comes over, says, \u2018Listen, it&#8217;d be the last time your mom&#8217;s gonna watch you wrestle. Why don&#8217;t you get your shoes on?&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m like my God, you&#8217;re right. So I get my shoes on, and I wrestle three more, four more matches that day. And it puts me in a spot to be where I can be second alternate on the Olympic team. So I wrestled the next day. I mean, my body is just devastated, and I end up losing that match. So I gather myself up, go to Ohio and me and my mom watch Kurt win the gold medal, and then we try everything to get a hold of him afterward. And my mom dies September 3, we get a letter from him, September 5, and it&#8217;s this beautiful, beautiful letter. I can&#8217;t even talk about it. Make me bawl. In the letter, he&#8217;s basically like, because you made me Kurt&#8217;s biggest obstacle, it helped him win the gold medal, because it was an obstacle he never thought he could overcome. Now, I&#8217;ll have to show you the letter someday. It&#8217;s one of those we&#8217;re still to this day reading it, or my brother reading it, it just drops you. It&#8217;s incredible.&#8221;<\/p><div id=\"prowr-1376312357\" class=\"prowr-content-4 prowr-entity-placement\"><!-- Tag ID: prowrestling_incontent_2 -->\r\n<div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"prowrestling_incontent_2\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"prowrestling_incontent_2\", slotId: \"prowrestling_incontent_2\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><b>Whether he still keeps in touch with Angle:<\/b> &#8220;I actually bumped into him again in Philadelphia for WrestleMania, and we just had a beautiful conversation. Such a good, just a great human being, yeah, you know, just really good human being.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=\"prowr-2770366921\" class=\"prowr-after-content prowr-entity-placement\"><a class=\"spreaker-player\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spreaker.com\/show\/pwboom\" data-resource=\"show_id=3275525\" data-theme=\"light\" data-playlist=\"show\" data-width=\"100%\" data-height=\"340px\">Listen to \"Pro Wrestling Boom Podcast\" on Spreaker.<\/a><script async src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/widgets.js\"><\/script><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":146673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7,2],"tags":[239,110,3132,61],"class_list":["post-178870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview_highlights","category-misc_news","category-newsticker","tag-dwayne-johnson","tag-kurt-angle","tag-mark-kerr","tag-the-rock"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mark Kerr on Dwayne &quot;The Rock&quot; Johnson playing him in &quot;The Smashing Machine&quot; film, facing Kurt Angle and their friendship - Pro Wrestling Dot Net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/prowrestling.net\/site\/2025\/10\/02\/mark-kerr-on-dwayne-the-rock-johnson-playing-him-in-the-smashing-machine-film-facing-kurt-angle-and-their-friendship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mark Kerr on Dwayne &quot;The Rock&quot; Johnson playing him in &quot;The Smashing Machine&quot; film, facing Kurt Angle and their friendship - Pro Wrestling Dot Net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/prowrestling.net\/site\/2025\/10\/02\/mark-kerr-on-dwayne-the-rock-johnson-playing-him-in-the-smashing-machine-film-facing-kurt-angle-and-their-friendship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pro Wrestling Dot Net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-02T18:45:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestling.net\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2024\/03\/therock3.jpg?fit=225%2C225&ssl=1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"225\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"225\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jason Powell\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jason Powell\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/prowrestling.net\\\/site\\\/2025\\\/10\\\/02\\\/mark-kerr-on-dwayne-the-rock-johnson-playing-him-in-the-smashing-machine-film-facing-kurt-angle-and-their-friendship\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/prowrestling.net\\\/site\\\/2025\\\/10\\\/02\\\/mark-kerr-on-dwayne-the-rock-johnson-playing-him-in-the-smashing-machine-film-facing-kurt-angle-and-their-friendship\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jason Powell\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/prowrestling.net\\\/site\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ff3b4e448549ff94ff694c757fddb15a\"},\"headline\":\"Mark Kerr on Dwayne &#8220;The Rock&#8221; 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