Benny Safdie Reflects On Working With The Rock On The Smashing Machine

Benny Safdie directs Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in The Smashing Machine, and he recently recalled working with the Final Boss on the film. The movie opens on Friday and Safdie appeared on Impaulsive to promote it, talking about is first meeting with Johnson and more. You can see the highlights below (courtesy of Fightful):

On working with Rock: “It’s interesting because you get to know them before and it’s like, you want to work with them for a specific reason. When you meet them, either that perception of who they are is what you expected or not. When it matches up, it’s the greatest thing in the world… When I first met DJ, it was like, ‘Oh my god.’ There was something behind his eyes that I connected with and it was real. Same thing with Sandler, he’s just a great guy. When that happens, you’re like, ‘Okay, we can do this.’ You know you’re going to get close on this process and that’s part of it, you want to kind of develop that relationship in a way.”

On the physicality of one of the film’s fights: “There was a moment where DJ is like — there’s a really specific fight where you just can’t fake it. From the beginning, he’s like, ‘I’m going to have to take it. I’m going to have to get punched.’ They call it laying it in. He’s like, ‘It’s just going to have to happen.’ The day of the fight, I didn’t want to be like, ‘Hey, remember what you said?’ He came in and he’s like, ‘Alright’… In that moment, he’s talking to the guy and he goes, ‘You’ve got to hit me. Don’t knock me here, don’t knock me here, but just punch me with everything you’ve got and lay it in with a knee.’ You see it in the movie.”