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Mark Kerr hopes his turbulent past inspires others going through difficult times.
On Friday, October 3rd, The Smashing Machine, based on Kerr’s life, featuring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Emily Blunt, and directed by Benny Safdie, hits theaters nationwide. The movie tells the story of Kerr’s rise in MMA as he navigates personal hardships.
In theaters tonight 🌗🎬
Can’t wait to hear your reactions.
Enjoy our film!
THE SMASHING MACHINE
Written & Directed by Benny Safdie@a24 pic.twitter.com/pauPhV4d5i
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) October 2, 2025
We were able to speak with Kerr to get his thoughts on the movie before its release.
What was it like to have a movie based on your life go into production?
At first, there’s a little disbelief, thinking, You’re going to make it about me and my life? Then it starts setting once I had conversations with Dwayne (Johnson), it’s this complete trust in what he was doing and understanding from our conversations. It’s like, Yeah, DJ, I trust you. I completely trust you to move forward with this. Then, when all the pieces got assembled, A24, Benny (Safdie), Emily (Blunt), Dave Copeland, Hiram, producing it, it just was like, Wow, okay. It’s like an A-list of people involved.
What was it like to see your life play out in the big screen?
It was gut-wrenching. At moments, it was difficult to sit there through it. It’s a very therapeutic thing to watch that because it’s almost like watching a home movie. The accuracy of it, what they did, how the prosthetics they had on DJ, all that stuff. It was like watching a home movie and going, Oh, man, I didn’t behave very good there. I didn’t do that very good there. So I mean, a lot of it was therapeutic It was the process to be able to just walk through all that stuff.
It seems that you found fulfillment in life after MMA, which is hard for many MMA fighters. How did you get to this place where you feel like you could be content in life without MMA?
It took me a minute. And I said, for me personally, the biggest thing I had to overcome is that fighting is what I did. It’s not who I am. Who I am is so much more than just a fighter. And so I identified so much with just being a fighter that anything else I did in life just seemed unfulfilling. Unfulfilling because fighting was so fulfilling when I did it. And it gave me so many different things. And then I get into a regular life, and I can’t find this point of fulfillment. And it’s one where it’s like when I’m able to go, that’s what I did. It’s not who I am. I’m so much more in that distinction. Just allowed me freedom that I didn’t have for a lot of years.
What message do you hope viewers leave with after watching The Smashing Machine?
Life is hard. It doesn’t owe anybody anything, but sometimes if you’re just able to make it to the next minute, that’s the next minute you need to make it to the next one, and there’s hope and there’s redemption and allow yourself grace. Allow yourself that forgiveness for things that happen, and so hopefully people can take away just this incredible journey that I went through and get through it and realize that I’m okay.