Having earned raves for bulking up to play the wrestler Mark Kerr in his MMA fighting prime for “The Smashing Machine,” Dwayne Johnson is about to undertake another radical transformation. He’s shedding pounds to portray a ” whimsical, eccentric 70-something year-old” called Chicken Man in “Lizard Music.”
The film, which will reunite Johnson with “The Smashing Machine” director Benny Safdie, is an acting challenge that the Rock jumped at the chance to pull off.
“Benny pitched me this after,” Johnson said during a career retrospective talk at the Toronto Film Festival on Monday where “The Smashing Machine” will screen. “And after about 45 minutes, this pitch ended and I said, ‘I am your Chicken Man.’”
Johnson, who had shed much of the 30 pounds of muscle he packed on as Kerr, still looked like he could benchpress a Humvee.
“I still have a long ways to go,” he acknowledged.
“I’m so excited to get a chance to hopefully transform again like I was able to do in ‘Smashing Machine,’” Johnson added. “[It means] eating less chicken.”
The film is an adaptation of a Daniel Pinkwater novel and tells the story of a septuagenarian whose best friend is a 70-year-old chicken. Like “The Smashing Machine,” which has earned Oscar buzz for Johnson, it’s an opportunity to subvert his action hero image. After starring in blockbusters like “Jumanji” and “Fast Five,” Johnson said he was ready to shake things up.
“I felt for a few years, I was pigeonholed because I allowed it to happen,” Johnson admitted. He added, “‘Smashing Machine’ is for me.”
The sports drama doesn’t shy away from showing the darker sides of Kerr’s story, including his toxic relationship with his girlfriend (Emily Blunt) and substance abuse struggles. It’s about as far removed from “Moana” as one can get.
“You hope it’s like, ‘Hey, we made this thing,’” Johnson said. “‘We love it. We hope you do too, and if you don’t, it’s OK. Maybe you’ll like the next thing.’”
Not that Johnson is abandoning big-budget crowdpleasers entirely. He revealed he’ll be re-teaming with Kevin Hart on “Jumanji 3,” which will start shooting in November.
“The films that I made in the past, I love them,” Johnson said. “I’ll go back to making them again.”
