Dwayne Johnson shedding pounds to play old man after 'Smashing Machine' transformation

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After bulking up to portray legendary MMA fighter Mark Kerr in The Smashing Machine, Dwayne Johnson is slimming down to play a man who befriends a chicken in his next movie.

Following his latest film’s buzzworthy premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Johnson, who has been earning raves as the lead in the upcoming sports drama, made headlines for his lean appearance on the red carpet.

“It’s out there now, big news is I’m teaming up with (his Smashing Machine director) Benny Safdie again and we’re gonna make a film called Lizard Music, which is based off of a novel written by Daniel Pinkwater,” Johnson said during a retrospective talk about his career during the Toronto International Film Festival.

“Benny pitched me this after we wrapped The Smashing Machine, and after about 45 minutes, his pitch ended, and I said, ‘I am your Chicken Man,'” Johnson continued. “The role that I will play is a very whimsical and eccentric 70-something-year-old man called the Chicken Man, and his best friend is a 70-something-year-old chicken. So that will be my next role … I’m so excited to get a chance to hopefully transform again like I was able to do in Smashing Machine.”

The biopic (which arrives in theatres on Oct. 3) delves into the darker sides of Kerr’s life outside the octagon, including his battle with drug addiction and a fraught relationship with his girlfriend (played by Emily Blunt).

“We became fast friends,” Blunt said after joining Johnson onstage as she remembered their first meeting on the set of 2021’s Jungle Cruise. “We sat under this umbrella and we just talked and shared our souls and I was taken by how different he was from what I had imagined. I said to him early on, ‘The Rock is the performance of a lifetime,'” she said.

“I saw this swirl behind his eyes,” Safdie said of their first meeting. “There’s this incredible magnetism that draws you in, but there’s also complex emotions just waiting to get out.”

Johnson’s appearance at TIFF was a first for the wrestler-turned-actor and served as a bit of a homecoming for the action star. His late father, Rocky Johnson, was born in Nova Scotia and spent some of his early years living in Toronto, where he was briefly homeless.

“My dad was a very proud Canadian and where he came from,” Johnson said, as he spoke about his father’s troubled upbringing before he found fame as a wrestler.

“I always think about my dad; he passed away suddenly in 2020. So every time I come back, I get off the plane, I think about my dad and about the complicated relationship we had, but also how life can come full circle — that he was here and had one kind of life — and years later I can come back and have this kind of life,” Johnson said. “I’m lucky and grateful.”

Before he became one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, Johnson endured some lean years and he recounted his rocky rise to the top to a rapt crowd at the Royal Alexandra Theatre. Initially, he had dreamed of becoming a pro football player and had a stint in the CFL with the Calgary Stampeders.

“I was making $250, $300 — Canadian — so I wasn’t making a lot of money, but I was still doing what I loved to do,” Johnson recollected. “I thought that was my path. But I got cut from the team and (coach) Wally Buono called me in his office and said, ‘You have great potential, it’s just not your season right now.'”

His whole goal was to become an NFL player. “I was going to take care of my parents, buy them their first home … I thought football was going to happen … I had to close that chapter in my life,” he said.

Instead of a life on the gridiron, Johnson found himself at the age of 22 with $7 in his pocket back home, living with his parents.

“I never forgot that time and I never forgot that moment. It left an indelible mark,” he recalled. “Seven bucks. Where do I go from here?”

Johnson became one of the biggest names in pro wrestling and went on to star in a slew of successful movies, including a pair of Jumanji films, Rampage, San Andreas and the Fast and the Furious franchise. Seven Bucks became the name of the production company he co-founded with his ex-wife, Dany Garcia.

His pursuit of an acting career came when he landed a bit part as the Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns. “From action to cut, I fell in love. I was bitten. That’s very real,” he said of catching the acting bug.

But his role in The Smashing Machine gives him a chance to shake things up. 

“I’ve been lucky to have the career that I have been able to have over the years, but I wanted something like this for such a long time,” he said. “You know how we all have that little voice behind the ribcage that tells us there’s more and what-if and go for it.”

Johnson said he was finally able to take a leap of faith with the encouragement of Blunt and Safdie.

“I tried to reassure (him) that it’s good to be scared,” Blunt said.

“It’s important to have people around who can meet you halfway and believe in you and say, ‘You can do it’ … I felt for a few years, I was pigeonholed because I allowed it to happen,” he said. “I started to think, ‘Am I living my dream or am I living other people’s dreams?’ It comes full circle to meeting Benny (and his friendship with Emily) and saying, ‘This is for me’ … When it’s for you, a funny thing happens. The world opens up.” 

The Toronto International Film Festival runs until Sept. 14.

mdaniell@postmedia.com