Is Emily Blunt single-handedly responsible for Dwayne Johnson’s new direction?
It wasn’t particularly surprising when Dwayne Johnson (otherwise known as ‘The Rock’) moved from the world of professional wrestling to professional acting. WWE is, first and foremost, a performance, and bringing that swagger and showmanship to the big screen seemed like a natural evolution.
Over the past two decades, Johnson has coasted along on his oodles and oodles of charisma, striding onto the screen in any number of absurd action comedies and proving that he doesn’t have to act in order to be completely riveting.
So far, he’s been in no danger whatsoever of winning an Oscar. Whether he’s playing a primatologist or a lifeguard, he is always The Rock. His genius is his ability to maintain his wildly charismatic persona in all situations. Celebrities like David Beckham, for example, are charismatic as public figures but often struggle to translate that once they have lines to read. Johnson, however, is a master at being the most laid-back, crowd-pleasing version of himself no matter the context.
Lately, however, it seems that one of his co-stars has seen some untapped potential in him. Johnson met Emily Blunt during the filming of their 2017 Disney adventure movie Jungle Cruise. They hit it off, and although the film didn’t offer the former WWE star an opportunity to flex his dramatic muscles, it did seem to provide Blunt with the idea that he could, if he wished, become a serious actor.
Flash-forward to 2019, when Johnson purchased the rights to a biopic about the MMA and UFC champion Mark Kerr. Bennie Safdie, who helped show audiences that Adam Sandler could be a serious actor in Uncut Gems, tentatively agreed to direct the film, but delays from the pandemic left it in limbo.
A few years later, Blunt and Johnson were on the phone, talking about how much he wanted to star in a film version of Kerr’s life. He sent her a documentary about him, and she quickly called him back to say (via Variety), “You must make this movie.” As it happened, she was working with Safdie at that very moment. Both had roles in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and were regularly on set together. She mentioned her conversation with her Jungle Cruise co-star.
As it turned out, Safdie had sent Johnson a gift way back when they had first started talking about the project, a shirt that Kerr had worn in the ring that never showed up. “Benny thought I ghosted him, and maybe I was just a fuckin’ asshole,” Johnson said. “I felt so bad.”
Thanks to Blunt, their conversation started up again, and The Smashing Machine is now set for release by A24 this fall. Not only did Blunt ensure that the film got made, but she also landed herself a role in it as Kerr’s wife, Dawn Staples.
As if that weren’t enough, Johnson and Blunt are also set to appear in Martin Scorsese’s next film, a crime drama about Hawaii’s criminal underworld in the 1960s and ‘70s. The news of the movie hit Hollywood like a ton of bricks. The Martin Scorsese teaming up with The Rock? It seemed like an April Fool’s joke. But when Leonardo DiCaprio signed on, it became very real indeed.
Not surprisingly, Scorsese didn’t go out of his way to work with Johnson. It was the other way around. Blunt and Johnson pitched the idea to the Taxi Driver director and apparently convinced him that it was an opportunity he didn’t want to miss. There is no way to know whether Scorsese would have joined the project if Blunt hadn’t been a part of the pitch meeting, but it’s safe to say that she is a much more obvious fit for a Scorsese movie than Johnson, and her presence certainly wouldn’t have hurt. Now, the question remains whether her hunch about her Jungle Cruise star is accurate.
