Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson Is Finally Going There

Summary

Cannonball with Wesley Morris
Episode: Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson Is Finally Going There
Date: October 30, 2025

---

Overview

In this episode, critic Wesley Morris speaks with writer Sam Anderson about the cultural phenomenon that is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Prompted by Johnson's first "serious" acting role in the Safdie brothers' film, The Smashing Machine, and Anderson’s recent in-depth New York Times Magazine profile, the two dive into Johnson’s mega-stardom, humanity, and the tension between pain, performance, and the persona he’s spent decades crafting. Their discussion explores not only Johnson’s wrestling and movie persona, but the vulnerabilities and existential questions that underlie his success.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Why Profile the Rock? (02:24–05:32)

• Profile Selection: Sam Anderson is known for profiling eccentric, “quirky” figures, not superstars. The idea to write about Johnson came from his editor, and Anderson admits he felt both a draw and resistance to covering such a ubiquitous figure.

  “It'd be like trying to, I don't know, write a poem about the sun or something. Like...you gotta address the thing at the center of the solar system.” – Sam Anderson (03:32)

• The New Movie: What tipped the scales was Johnson’s collaboration with director Benny Safdie on The Smashing Machine. Anderson saw a chance to witness the blending of Johnson’s super-fame with the Safdies’ signature mix of reality and fiction.

The Wrestling Roots: Charisma and Performance (06:15–11:30)

• Arrival in Wrestling: Wesley discusses The Rock’s breakout in wrestling’s “Attitude Era” among other titans, pointing out that his humor, charisma, and “chill” uniquely set him apart.

  “Of all those people, it's Dwayne Johnson, the Rock, who is the most...he's the most charismatic person and he's the person who in the mix of those other guys can start trouble.” – Wesley Morris (09:04)

• The Peoples' Elbow and Eyebrow: Classic wrestling moments illustrate his star power and the theatricality that allowed him to transition to Hollywood.

  “He became famous for his eyebrow. They called it the people's eyebrow at some point to match his signature move, which was the people's elbow.” – Wesley Morris (09:14)

• Expanding Wrestling as Theater: Johnson’s comedy and skits in wrestling foreshadowed his entertainment career—with memorable, absurd setups (e.g., fighting with a bag of popcorn).

Fame, Solitude, and Identity (11:30–16:34)

• Hyper-fame and Loneliness: Anderson describes the logistical and existential challenges of Johnson’s fame, sharing the deeply human portrait of a superstar who can’t walk down the street.

  “At a certain point when he switched over into film from professional wrestling, he became so famous that he can't go out into the world anymore. He can't walk down the street, he can't go to the grocery store. He's too distinctive.” – Sam Anderson (13:33)

• Family & Solitude: The conversation delves into whether Johnson’s isolation is loneliness or sought-after solitude. Anderson asserts it’s both: Johnson is magnetic in crowds but fundamentally solitary, shaped by a childhood of moving schools and never establishing roots.

The Private Encounter: Understanding the Real Dwayne (17:00–21:17)

• One-on-One at the Ranch: Anderson is surprised by how private the encounter is—just him, The Rock, and a Brahma bull named Soul Bully. The meeting, free from handlers, quickly becomes personal and deep.
• Shared Curiosity: A turning point comes when Anderson asks about Johnson’s wrestling technique, specifically his admiration for Razor Ramon’s punch. Johnson joyfully demonstrates—reminding both of the difference between genuine and performative expertise.

  “He just popped up. He just flew off of that couch and was like, all right, difference between a good punch and a bad punch.” – Sam Anderson (18:23)

Pain as Medium—Personal and Professional (21:17–26:27)

• Artist of Pain: Anderson shares how his preparation led him to see Johnson as an “artist of pain”—someone who embodies, inflicts, and processes pain, both physically and emotionally.

  “In watching his wrestling career, in reading about his life story, in watching his film career as an action star, and then this new movie...one way to think about this guy's career is he is really an artist of pain in many forms. That's kind of his medium.” – Sam Anderson (22:03)

• Deepest Pain: When asked about his worst pain, Johnson unflinchingly names the psychological wounds from his tumultuous relationship with his father. This admission shapes the tone of their entire day together.

  “He just launched into the story about his dad, about being a kid and getting really rejected by his dad, who he had a very...Complicated is the word that he likes to use relationship with.” – Sam Anderson (24:56)

Sincerity vs. Performance—What’s Real? (26:27–32:48)

• Is It All Campaigning?: Wesley pushes on the inherent skepticism: Is Johnson simply being promotional with Anderson because he’s on an Oscar campaign for The Smashing Machine?
• Genuine Connection: Anderson admits he can’t always know, but is moved by the extended, sincere post-interview communication from Johnson—voice memos, pictures, and conversations. He concludes:

  “If he is faking, he could have stopped so long ago and had the effect that he wanted on you. He did great. He could have stopped with me so long ago. If he's faking, then he is like a manipulative, emotional ninja.” – Sam Anderson (31:35)

• The Safdie Question: Both consider whether authenticity and performance always intermingle—especially for people in entertainment—echoing Safdie’s exploration of artifice and reality.

---

Highlighted Dwayne Johnson Moments (35:03–42:33)

Favorite Movie Roles

• Fast Five (35:37–38:22)
  Anderson chooses Johnson’s debut in Fast Five as a charismatic, by-the-book antagonist—a role that lets him play with (but not solely rely on) his persona.

  “He's the cop who believes in justice. He's just there to get his guy. He doesn't care what your excuses are.” – Sam Anderson (36:32)

• Moana (38:23–40:06)
  Both agree Johnson’s voice work as Maui is peak Rock energy: affable, larger-than-life, but still with a gentle, comedic core.

  “I think of him in his films as almost like a human cartoon...So to see him as an actual cartoon, I don't know, there's something like that doubles the energy of it.” – Sam Anderson (39:33)

Critique of Typecasting

• Morris laments Hollywood’s typecasting of Johnson as a jungle/demolition man, calling for more roles that tap into his cultural identity (as in Moana) or lesser-explored emotional registers.

---

The Smashing Machine: Dwayne’s Transformational Performance (42:34–51:42)

• Role Overview: Johnson plays Mark Kerr, a real-life MMA fighter whose imposing physique conceals a deeply gentle, emotionally tormented man.
• Transformation: The film employs makeup/prosthetics to place Johnson in the “uncanny valley” between himself and Kerr, accentuating the tension between persona and reality.

  “Heavily, probably a top five most famous face in the world...your first reaction as a viewer is like, what am I looking at?” – Sam Anderson (45:55)

• Acting Depth: Anderson applauds Johnson’s tender, uncertain presence, noting “his voice is like a pair of hands cupping a baby bird,” starkly different from most of his superstar roles.
• Emotional Resonance: The film authentically explores both violence and vulnerability, showing Johnson’s character’s gentleness in the midst of immense physicality.
• Real-life Parallels: Anderson recounts Mark Kerr’s own realization: his “secret power is his ability to be emotional,” and the movie and Johnson’s performance honor this insight. Anderson shares a touching anecdote from the Venice Film Festival about Kerr’s emotional reaction to the film and Johnson’s empathetic support.

---

Final Reflection: The Theater of Pain (51:42–52:17)

• Professional Wrestling as Vulnerability: Morris notes the unique genre fusion in wrestling—where “tough people perform vulnerability”—and sees Johnson as its perfect exemplar.

  “I just feel like Dwayne Johnson is an exemplar of the theater (of pain).” – Wesley Morris (52:15)

---

Notable Quotes

• "It’d be like trying to write a poem about the sun."
  — Sam Anderson (03:32)
• “I think that he...came to us in the mid-90s as a kid, but it was instantly clear that he had something that very few...communicates with the public has."
  — Wesley Morris (07:34)
• "He has this unstoppable energy. When we were together...I really did get a sense of him...as almost shy and introspective."
  — Sam Anderson (40:11)
• "If he is faking, then he is like a manipulative, emotional ninja."
  — Sam Anderson (31:35)
• “I just feel like Dwayne Johnson is an exemplar of the theater [of pain].”
  — Wesley Morris (52:15)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Profile setup and The Rock’s allure: 02:24–05:32
• Breakdown of wrestling persona & charisma: 06:15–11:30
• On fame, loneliness, and identity: 11:30–16:34
• Private encounter and bonding over wrestling technique: 17:00–21:17
• How pain defines Johnson’s life & career: 21:17–26:27
• Authenticity vs. performance—“the Safdie question”: 26:27–32:48
• Favorite Johnson roles (Fast Five, Moana): 35:03–42:33
• The Smashing Machine and new emotional territory: 42:34–51:42
• Wrestling as vulnerability, Johnson as exemplar: 51:42–52:17

---

Memorable Moments

• Anderson describing the giddiness of getting a “personal” demonstration of classic wrestling moves from The Rock in his living room (18:23).
• Johnson’s sincere post-interview communication with Anderson—voice memos and candid bull-feeding videos—deepening the ambiguity between promotion and real connection (31:35).
• The gentle way Johnson sets down a plate before breaking a door in The Smashing Machine—a small physical comedy detail that illustrates his layered performance (48:26).

---

Tone & Takeaways

Wesley Morris and Sam Anderson keep the conversation friendly, reflective, and skeptical—but ultimately admiring of Dwayne Johnson’s unique position in pop culture and what The Smashing Machine reveals about him. They blend playful banter, critical analysis, and heartfelt observation to offer an intimate glimpse behind the invulnerable facade of one of the world’s most recognizable celebrities.

---

For the full experience, listen to the episode.

Transcript

[Alexa Weibel]

Hi, it's Alexa Weibel from New York Times Cooking. We've got tons of easy weeknight recipes, and today I'm making my five ingredient creamy miso pasta. You just take your starchy pasta water, whisk it together with a little bit of miso and butter until it's creamy, add your noodles and a little bit of cheese.

[Sam Anderson]

Hmm.

[Alexa Weibel]

It's like a grown up box of Mac and cheese. That feels like a restaurant quality dish. New York Times Cooking has you covered with easy dishes for busy weeknights. You can find [e-mail].

[Wesley Morris]

I'm Wesley Morris, and this is Cannonball. Today, I can smell what the Rock is cooking. Finally. Now, if you were to do a Family Feud style man on the street poll, like if you just walked up to people and asked them name the biggest movie star of the last 25 years, I bet you that was a terrible Steve Harvey. By the way, I bet you'd get enough people answering Dwayne the Rock Johnson that your family wouldn't get a strike if that was your answer. In fact, I'd guess he'd wind up being the number one answer. And I'm gonna say that the man who's arguably our biggest active star has also inarguably been the most misused. He's usually a body first. That makes everything else about him, his humor and his charisma, his chill, all of those things have to compete with what a mountain range he is. But this year, Johnson's body is once again the centerpiece of a new movie. It's called the Smashing Machine. And for once, it's what's going on inside that body that's fascinating. He plays the mixed martial arts fighter Mark Kerr. This man who is built like the Pentagon paid for him. But he plays Kerr, Dwayne Johnson does in a way that might get at the real humanity and even tragedy of the actor playing him. This all made me want to talk to my friend Sam Anderson, who wrote a really revealing profile of Dwayne Johnson in a recent New York Times magazine issue. Sam, welcome to Cannonball.

[Sam Anderson]

Thank you. Glad to be back.

[Wesley Morris]

I guess I'm gonna start by asking a pretty straightforward question. You're one of my favorite writers of profiles.

[Sam Anderson]

Thank you.

[Wesley Morris]

Bar none, you have written about Laurie Anderson, Rick Steves, Weird Al Yankovic, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook. I'm curious, what is drawing you to, of all people, Dwayne Johnson? What made you say yes to wanting to spend an afternoon with him?

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, it actually was not my idea. My brand is sort of finding quirky, outside the mainstream people, I would say, and writing about them usually. I think he's by far the most famous person I've ever written about. Sure.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes.

[Sam Anderson]

So it was really. It was my editor who came to me, Sasha, and asked if I wanted to write about Dwayne the Rock Johnson. And I thought, well, I don't know. I mean, sort of. Of course. In a way. Of course. And on the other hand. No, not really.

[Wesley Morris]

So talk to me about. Of course.

[Sam Anderson]

Of course. It would be fun to try to articulate someone who is that omnipresent in the culture. It'd be like trying to, I don't know, write a poem about the sun or something. Like. Of course, you got to. You got to address the thing at the center of the solar system.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, we'll come back to this. But I mean, I made a list of all the stuff. I mean, just what his. The last 25 years of his movie life have been like, oh, my God, how many pages? This is what it looks like. Yeah, this is what it looks like. It's like some years there are four movies. So go on.

[Sam Anderson]

So, you know, that's appealing, but it's also a little bit of a turnoff. Cause it's just so obvious and everybody knows.

[Wesley Morris]

And like, he doesn't. You don't ostensibly need anything from him. You might not have any questions, like, looking at things superficially.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. Also, he's been written about so much. He's done so many interviews.

[Wesley Morris]

He's done cases well.

[Sam Anderson]

Oh, beautifully.

[Wesley Morris]

Katie Weavers.

[Sam Anderson]

Katie Weaver wrote a brilliant and hilarious profile of him.

[Wesley Morris]

And Zack Baron did another one last year for gq.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, that was great.

[Wesley Morris]

Both very good elite profile writing pieces of the Rock.

[Sam Anderson]

So. Yeah, it's ground that's been well explored. But what got me excited was his new project. And I heard that he was doing his first serious role.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, thank you for putting that in quotes.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, Right. But he was doing a movie with Benny Safdie, so. One of the Safdie brothers who have made all these fascinating projects.

[Wesley Morris]

Uncut Gems.

[Sam Anderson]

Good Time.

[Wesley Morris]

Good Time with Robert Pattinson.

[Genius Bank Announcer]

Yeah.

[Sam Anderson]

And then the Curse, the TV show the Curse with Nathan Fielder, which I loved. And so I just love their whole thing, this whole kind of intermingling, this weird, uncanny intermingling between, like, reality and fiction. So in Uncut Gems, you're, like, really in the diamond district, and they're just shooting street scenes and people are walking by, and it's like this kind of porous membrane.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes. So you don't really know. I mean, Kevin Garnett and famously in Uncut Gems is playing Kevin Garnet Y.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the curse revolves around this kind of reality show. So they're filming the filming of a reality show, and I like that aspect of it. So I was excited to see the Rock in that environment and to talk to him about that project. So that's why I said yes and got excited. Also, I was curious to be around a person who was that famous. I never have. I never. I mean, Kevin, your aunt's famous John.

[Wesley Morris]

McPhee didn't quite give you those chills. So you go down to Georgia where his ranch is.

[Sam Anderson]

Well, I mean, it was a whole thing. It was like months and months and months, as you can imagine, trying to.

[Wesley Morris]

Set up a time to find him.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, it really felt like trying to set up like an interview with Barack Obama or something. It felt like that magnitude. And then they're like a few days before, like three or four days before, like, he would love to host you. Dj. They call him dj.

[Wesley Morris]

Dj.

[Sam Anderson]

DJ would love to host you. On his farm in Georgia. He would love to introduce you to the bull, the Brahma bull that he has raised on his farm in Georgia.

[Wesley Morris]

I will pause for one second to just say he was called in his early days in professional wrestling, the Brahma bull.

[Sam Anderson]

The Brahma bull. Yeah. He's got a little tattoo. Yeah. A little logo on his shorts. But anyway, yeah, the brah has a brown bowl. And so that was the plan.

[Wesley Morris]

So I'm just curious. You and I had been talking about what this experience was going to be like.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. You gave me kind of a crash course because I haven't been paying attention to professional wrestling for a while. And you love it.

[Wesley Morris]

I do.

[Sam Anderson]

You love it.

[Wesley Morris]

I do.

[Sam Anderson]

So Wesley took me out for lunch and told me for, like, three hours about why the Rock is so amazing and his whole arc. And it was like. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, I think that he, you know, it's worth saying that, you know, professional wrestling wise, he came to us in, like, the mid-90s as a kid, but it was instantly clear that he had something that very few of anybody who, like, communicates with the public has.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

If you smell my heart, it's cold.

[Wesley Morris]

Which is a real clarity of thought in terms of how he is expressing himself. But he arrives in professional wrestling at this great moment where there are all these other charismatic people, too. They call it the attitude era.

[Sam Anderson]

Right.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

If you've got enough manhood to accept my challenge, then your bottom Line will read has been compliments of the Rock.

[Wesley Morris]

And you know, even for the Attitude era, which included Stone Cold Steve Austin, Mick Foley, the Undertaker, Kane.

[Sam Anderson]

Kurt Ky's an encyclopedia of professional wrestling.

[Wesley Morris]

And that's just the top tier.

[Sam Anderson]

Oh, yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Anyway, of all those people, it's Dwayne Johnson, the Rock, who is the most. He's the most charismatic person and he's the person who in the mix of those other guys can start trouble.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

You are three seconds away, and the Rock means three seconds away from the Rock laying the smackdown on your candy ass.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, he became famous for his eyebrow. They called it the people's eyebrow at some point to match his signature move, which was the people's elbow.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

It's bumps into table's elbow.

[Wesley Morris]

And he just was fun. He just was fun. And you can see the other wrestlers when he's on the mic, there are times when they have to turn away. They have to try to find a way to fake their way through how funny this guy is. Because sometimes you kind of break character because he's just so good at his job. I mean, you look at this guy and you're just like, when is Hollywood gonna call him? Right?

[Sam Anderson]

He had such a force of personality that almost single handedly he kind of expanded the skit portions of wrestling. Like the fighting is really secondary after a while because he's so good on the mic. And so he'll do these long, long skits and set pieces. And there's a scene in the kitchen from 1999. Come on, Rock, finish him off. Mankind can't stand the heat. So get him out of the kitchen or finish him off.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

Right hand box.

[Sam Anderson]

He's fighting kind of in the bowels of the arena in all these ridiculous places, including a kitchen, with mankind, one of his great adversaries. This is almost like an art performance. Like, it's like a piece of miming because he's getting beat up by a bag of popcorn.

[Wesley Morris]

What is that? Popcorn just being strewn everywhere.

[Sam Anderson]

Look at him thrashing around.

[Wesley Morris]

This man is just like the most painful bag of popcorn ever. Hit him in the head. I love that. I love that.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. A bag of popcorn.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, my. It's a bag of popcorn.

[Sam Anderson]

I couldn't hurt you with a bag of popcorn if I had like 10 hours.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, that is kind of why professional wrestling really works on me. Because it's just the strangest job in the world. Like, you want to be an athlete, but you also wanted to be in the school play, you know what I mean? Like, it's just such a fascinating collection of priorities that converge in the sport.

[Sam Anderson]

Right.

[Wesley Morris]

But what I can't imagine. And the time that you spent with him, what I was thinking about was just how strange it might be to be in a space with this person alone at his request. Right. To be invited down to spend time not in a ring or backstage, but in his living room.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. And it is strange. I don't know how much you've been around sort of like people who are so famous, it kind of warps space time around them, but I haven't been that much. And there is that very disorienting feeling of seeing them in person for the first time and being like your brain can't connect these two hemispheres of. That is the. Is the image guy that I've seen on screens of every size for decades. And now he's a three dimensional human being who is riding toward me on like a four wheeler to open his gate at his farm so I can go talk to him. And he's just a guy, right? Just a guy.

[Wesley Morris]

Was he prepared for you to be disoriented in some way?

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, I think he must have been. Yeah. You can kind of feel that, right? You can feel. I mean, this is how it must be for him, interacting with everyone on earth. He did tell me as we were feeding the bull later, standing at the fence and feeding his big, giant, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful creature, this bull. I loved his bull so much. His name is Soul Bully. S O U l Space Bully. I was like, what's the story behind that name? And he said something like, I just got a thing about souls. He likes souls. Of course, his father was called Soul man was one of his nicknames.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes. His father, Rocky Johnson, the great professional.

[Sam Anderson]

Wrestler, pioneering black professional wrestler. And as we fed the bull, he was kind of telling me the story of the farm and why he has this bowl and how, you know. And you could tell he was saying it in a way, he wasn't complaining, he was just saying it as a fact. He's at a certain point when he switched over into film from professional wrestling, he became so famous that he can't go out into the world anymore. He can't walk down the street, he can't go to the grocery store. He's too distinctive.

[Wesley Morris]

I wouldn't miss it.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. With the super fame, you imagine Brad Pitt could put a hat on or something and sunglasses get away with it. Dwayne the Rock Johnson can't. So he's kind of created these worlds for himself where he has on the farm, a pond he can fish in. He loves fishing. And his bull, who's his friend, who when he wakes up alone on the farm because his family's somewhere else and feels a little low. He told me he just. He remembers that he has this. This buddy out there in the field, and he'll go, just pet the bull and feel better.

[Wesley Morris]

I have a weird question.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Like, he's married.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

He's a father.

[Sam Anderson]

Yes.

[Wesley Morris]

What? And I mean, presumably he's got friends. So are we talking about loneliness or solitude?

[Sam Anderson]

Oh, that's a great question. Loneliness or solitude. And what's the difference there? Loneliness is involuntary. Solitude is.

[Wesley Morris]

I think loneliness is an experience that's a side effect of things you may or maybe can't control. Solitude is an experience you seek out and you aim to create for yourself. You seek to experience it. I don't think loneliness is a state that you pursue.

[Sam Anderson]

And I would say, based on my one day with Dwayne Johnson, long day with Dwayne Johnson. There's both. There's both. I think part of what makes him fascinating is he is, as everyone knows, just one of the most magnetic people you'll ever see coming through a screen or sitting in a room like we are right now. Like, you just feel that. You feel that charisma. You see the smile. He's, like, really connecting with you as a human being. And yet he describes himself as kind of shy. He's an only child. He grew up an only child, moving constantly because of his dad's job as a wrestler. And so this was a kid who was getting pulled out of school in the middle of a year and thrown into a new school and couldn't really hold friendships. And so he is kind of solitary, shy, introspective, very thoughtful. Very thoughtful. And at the same time, is incredibly magnetic. And you can drop him in a crowd, and suddenly you have 100 people who are best friends with him. And I think both those things are true at the same time.

[Wesley Morris]

But I guess, what is it like to then suddenly have all the crowds disappear and the experience you have with him is an experience that, like, a small handful of people are really only ever going to.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

And so you're sitting there in this living room, and in your piece, there's this great moment where you have mentioned the little bit that you know about professional wrestling is the existence of a wrestler named Razor Ramon.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. I actually had not expected to be alone with him. Like I said, it took forever to arrange this interview. You got the sense that there are just Teams of. Teams of teams that manage his teams. And I get to the gate, and I text his assistants who've told me to text them, and they say, okay, he's gonna come open the gate himself. And he does.

[Wesley Morris]

And you guys aren't gonna do it. Yeah.

[Sam Anderson]

And then I never see another person. It's just him at home. And so we are alone, and things get really deep very quickly. And at a certain point, I said, okay, let me just tell you kind of my perspective, what I hope to do, what I'm doing, the way I approach things. I confessed I'm not a fan of professional wrestling. Last wrestler I remember really liking was back in the 90s, this guy called Razor Ramon. And he was like, razor Ramone, that was your guy? I was like, yeah. He's like, scott hall, great guy. And I said, oh, you know what? I remember reading, Because I read a pile of stuff, as usual. I remember reading, you copied Razor Ramon's punch, right? You used to study that punch and copy it. And I'm telling you, Dwayne the Rock Johnson, sitting on his couch, he's got his feet up, he's barefoot, he's sipping Tequila, and he just lights up like a little kid. He's so happy. And he's like, yes.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah.

[Sam Anderson]

Wow. Yes. I did study Razor Ramon's punch. And then he starts telling me the story of his punch. When he started wrestling, he had a really. The Rock had a really obviously fake punch. And he starts telling me this story. And I've read this story in a couple different places, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I was just like, sorry, I'm going to stop you. Can you show me the difference between a bad wrestling punch and a good one? And he was a little surprised, and he was like, show you? I was like, yeah. He's like, like right now? I said, yeah. And he just popped up. He just flew off of that couch and was like, all right, difference between a good punch and a bad punch. And I was like, oh, wow, he's going to do this. And so I stand up just to kind of watch, and he is instantly, like, in my face. He just goes across the room, and he's in my face, and he's showing me what it looks like when. Do it, when? And he showed me, you know, 10 different terrible wrestling punches.

[Wesley Morris]

There are some bad ones.

[Sam Anderson]

Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want to stand up? I'll show you.

[Wesley Morris]

All right.

[Sam Anderson]

Okay. So he does this punch, and he says, this is a classic bad wrestling punch where he jumps in the air. Because what you want to do is create the thump, create the percussion as you're punching. He jumps in the air and thumps down as he's punching. So he's like, you know. And you've seen wrestlers do that. And he said, all the way to the back of the arena, you see that's fake. And then he says, but Scott Hall, Razor Ramon, he wasn't like that at all. The Rockies had traveled with a VHS player with a vcr, and he would pop on the road, and he would pop in videos of Razor Ramon and watch frame by frame to see what this guy was doing. Because all, you know, as viewers, it looks really cool. It looks special somehow, and it doesn't look fake. And he was like, what goes into that? And he broke it down motion by motion. And the Razor Ramon punch was this huge twisting motion with a couple different. So you start small body, a lot of torque, and then there's, like, a slap across the face, and there's a slap that turns into a fist at the last second. And then your other hand is hitting your thigh, and that's what's creating the percussion. And no one in the arena, all they've seen you do is some athletically twisting thing.

[Wesley Morris]

I have slowed this down my entire life to try to catch the slap on the thigh.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

The point is, you were in there getting a wrestling lesson lesson from one of the greatest wrestlers.

[Sam Anderson]

I wish I had a video of that. I wish I had said, can you do that again? I want to take a video of this. So that was the first moment where really, like, we connected over, I think, a shared sense of curiosity and appreciation of, like, real expertise.

[Wesley Morris]

I think, though, when you and I were talking about having this experience, like, before you had actually done it, and this question that you had circled around was, I'm gonna just reduce it to one word, which is pain.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

And so I'm really interested in how he thinks about the concept of pain and what that means to him. But when, you know, my literal brain, when you brought this up to me, Sam, I was just like, oh, well, you must be talking about what it might be like to suffer in the ring and to, like, get a ring injury.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

That's not where you went. Like, this wound up going to somewhere really surprising and personal that I think, in some ways is connected to this movie.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So I had seen the new film, and I had been kind of marinating in Dwayne the Rock Johnson's career for weeks, and months leading up to this encounter with him. And the word that I really started to carry around and think a lot about was pain was this concept of pain. I just. In watching his wrestling career, in reading about his life story, in watching his film career as an action star, and then this new movie, the Smashing Machine, it hit me at some point, one way to think about this guy's career is he is really an artist of pain in many forms. That's kind of his medium.

[Wesley Morris]

Inflicting it, Receiving it.

[Sam Anderson]

Receiving it, Inflicting it. Yeah. Performing it in various ways. You know, he was a football player before he became a wrestler and famously had a horrible shoulder injury that ruined his. What should have been probably a star football career and an NFL career. So this is a guy who had suffered pain on every level possible, I thought. And so, yeah, at some point, it just. Everything kind of crystallized for me in this question that I started asking everyone I know before I went out to do the interview, which is just, what is the worst pain you've ever felt? And I would ask friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, everybody. I asked you.

[Wesley Morris]

You did.

[Sam Anderson]

I can tell you your answer.

[Wesley Morris]

What was my answer?

[Sam Anderson]

You have a horrible allergy to broccoli and all that kind of stuff. That's a great answer. And it feels like you've eaten glass.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah, broccoli rabe.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, broccoli rabe.

[Wesley Morris]

Quinoa.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, quinoa. That's.

[Wesley Morris]

That is definitely my answer.

[Sam Anderson]

I'm pretty sure I told Dwayne Johnson about that, by the way. I told him about a lot of different people's pain because he was interested. He was fascinated by this question. So all along, I had planned to kind of spring this question on him. And after we settled back down after the Razor Ramon thing, which we really kind of bonded over, I think he enjoyed being able to get into that level of detail. And I gave him my little spiel, and I said, so I've been asking everybody, and I want to ask you, what's the worst pain you've ever felt? And I knew 50 different answers he could have gone with, because I had seen him in the ring take some serious hits and get really. I mean, he has torn muscles, his Achilles. He's suffered a lot. And most people, when I ask that question, tell me about some physical injury. But that's not where he went. Yeah, he sat with it for a while, and then he just launched into the story about his dad, about being a kid and getting really rejected by his dad, who he had a very. Complicated is the word that he likes to use relationship with.

[Wesley Morris]

I would say operatic.

[Sam Anderson]

Oh, yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, I. I mean, high human melodrama.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. His dad was an incredible character.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, like, famously. But then, you know, to be the child of someone who's famously a character is a different story.

[Sam Anderson]

Yep. So he told me this whole story about his dad and his mom and they're moving around the country and these kind of traumas that he went through at a really formative moment in his life. And that sort of set the tone for our whole day together. We ended up spending. I mean, it's funny, you know, they sent me this itinerary with everything scheduled down to the half hour. And the moment we sat down and started talking, that just went out the window. And he was just in it. He was just talking. And I tried to give him outs many times. I was like, you know, we would. After four hours or something. We had just finished feeding the bull. And I was like, look, I'm guessing that 90% of your team's job is keeping you from spending all day with the person in front of you, because he gets so deep into it with people, and he's like, yeah, yeah, let's go to dinner. So we went to dinner and ended up being talking for eight, eight and a half hours, something like that.

[Wesley Morris]

Well, I'm curious, you know, because, you know, I think one of the things we talked about was the reason that you were a perfect person to write about a person like this is that your interests are just. They're from some other place. Right. Like, you actually do want to get to understand this person. And I read a profile like the one you wrote, and I then understand. I feel like I understand why, you know, my theory about him or my feeling about him is that the movies have never really understood what they have.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. What I wanted to ask you, what have you always felt like was missing? What would the movies not let him do?

[Wesley Morris]

Not have to hurt people, not have to save the world? But, I mean, I think that the reason it's taken so long for him to do another thing like the Smashing Machine is that. I don't know. I mean, I read what you experienced and captured and thought. I don't think he thought he could have done a movie like this. And I guess a thing to also think about as we talk about him is it's along the lines of what you are identifying as being this, you know, Josh and Benny Safdie filmmaking priority of this permeability between artifice and reality.

[Sam Anderson]

Sure.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

And.

[Wesley Morris]

And I think a Lot of the times when smart writers go out to spend time with someone, they're going to then go spend more time writing about the experience of being with. There is this question of what just happened.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Like, did I spend time with the version of a person that is, like, the other people in his. In his immediate life know him to be?

[Sam Anderson]

Mm. Um, how much. How much was he performing in his conversation with me?

[Wesley Morris]

Well, I mean, I will. I will. I will apply a cynical layer here.

[Sam Anderson]

Mm.

[Wesley Morris]

Like, excusing, like, who this person actually is. Just say, like, it's the end of the year. This is the time when, you know, these studios start making all kinds of fascinating, talented, important, famous people available because there's some milestone professionally happening for them. And that milestone could culminate in getting to go to the Academy Awards in February.

[Sam Anderson]

Sure.

[Wesley Morris]

And the question is, you know, how much of the time that this person is allowing you to spend with him? How much of that time should be visible through the lens of a campaign for something? And did you question whether. Like, whether you got jobbed?

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that's. It's funny. That was always in the back of my mind, like, is he being real? Or, like, are we hitting it off? Are we having an honest conversation? Or is this all just a really great promotional performance? And, I mean, in the end, I don't know. I don't know. I did flip that around, too. It's like, well, I'm coming to his house. I'm asking him very personal questions. I'm sharing things about myself, and I'm coming in there and doing that also because it's part of my job. Right. I'm not going in just for an afternoon. I'm going in because I'm gonna write a big profile and I'm gonna look cool. Cause I hung out with the Rock, and I got through to him and connected with him. Right. And he's doing it to promote his new movie. And if he looks deep and pained and emotional, that's good for the promotion cycle of this movie where he plays a man who's in pain and deep and emotional. So we're both within this container. Right. We're having that. This human interaction within that container that's very artificial. At a certain point, it is just me and him sitting in that room at the same time.

[Wesley Morris]

Right, Right.

[Sam Anderson]

And something human happens within that container that, to me, is real. I mean, what I came away thinking was we spent all this time together. I wake up the next morning to a voice memo on my Phone that he's texted me. He's texting me pictures that he was secretly taking of me and the bull. And a video. Video, which is really adorable because he's taking a video of me, like really bonding with his bull and feeding it and talking, murmuring to the bull about how beautiful it is. And then I turn and look at him. I'm like, this is such a great creature. And essentially he's like, I caught him taking a video of me. And the phone drops like he got caught. Yeah, it was really cute.

[Wesley Morris]

All right, that's.

[Sam Anderson]

I mean, there's stuff like that. And then so I wake up to this voice memo that's just really sincere, emotional, thankful for our time together. Picking up on ideas that we talked about, asking me further questions. And there are weeks of this, him sending me. Us going back and forth. And what I thought in the end was like. I understand the cynical view of it all, but if he is faking, he could have stopped so long ago and had the effect that he wanted on you. He did great. He could have stopped with me so long ago. If he's faking, then he is like a manipulative, emotional ninja. Yeah, he's like Andy Kaufman. He's doing some conceptual art stuff right now because it's so deep. So I don't know. Yeah, it's like the Safdie question, like what's real and what's artificial? In what ways you and I are. Am I here because it's my job and I wanna look cool cause I'm on your podcast or am I here cause I love Wesley Mo.

[Wesley Morris]

I hope it's the latter, but I'll.

[Sam Anderson]

That's a bad example. I'm only here because I love Wesley Morris. But you know what's real.

[Wesley Morris]

What's real, indeed. Okay, wait. We're gonna take a break and when we come back, I actually want to talk about what it looks like when Dwayne Johnson gets to be at his best as an actor. When a role just basically lets him be his most charismatic self on screen. And we're gonna watch you and me, some of our favorite examples of what that looks like together.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

We'll be right back.

[Genius Bank Announcer]

Introducing Genius bank, the award winning bank that does things differently for our kind of genius, spelled with a J. Award winning can mean many things, like most locations. But who still goes to the bank for us? Award winning means best Newcomer bank of 2025 by Bank Rate. Visit geniusbank.com Genius with a J. Genius bank registered trademark is a division of smbc. Manu bank member FDIC awards are independently granted by their respective publication and are not indicative of future success or results.

[Alexa Weibel]

Hi, New York Times. I would be very interested in having separate logins for a shared subscription. I'm 35 years old. I still share my parents New York Times subscription.

[Sam Anderson]

I think if my teenagers were to have their own logins, we could share articles. It doesn't let us play the same games as each other.

[Alexa Weibel]

I play the stoku.

[Sam Anderson]

I do the crossword.

[Alexa Weibel]

I do the spelling bee.

[Sam Anderson]

I do the wordle. Please help.

[Alexa Weibel]

Having our own accounts would be amazing. My mom could save her own recipes. My friends could save their recipes. I want to get the weekly news.

[Sam Anderson]

But they seem to always go to my husband and then he doesn't forward them to me.

[Alexa Weibel]

We both love cooking. I'm a 30 minute and under dinner girly. My boyfriend is very elaborate. I think him having his own profile would be great. We love the New York Times and we would love to love it individually.

[Sam Anderson]

Listeners, we heard you introducing the New York Times family subscription. One subscription, up to four separate logins for anyone in your life. Find out [e-mail] family.

[Wesley Morris]

Okay, we're back. It's Dwayne Johnson day here on Cannonball. And I feel like it might be useful to just spend a little bit of time thinking about some, I don't know, inspired uses of him, like, or just time that we've spent with this man doing his job that we've enjoyed that are indications of, like, what it is that is lovable about him, period. So I've got a couple. You've got a couple.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. Favorite Dwayne Johnson moments.

[Wesley Morris]

You go first.

[Sam Anderson]

Okay, so the first clip that I picked, I've never. I'm the kind of like, intellectual and dork and snob who's never watched the Fast and Furious movies. Any of them. I've never seen any of them yet.

[Wesley Morris]

You're still in my life.

[Sam Anderson]

I know. Have you seen them all?

[Wesley Morris]

I still have this religion. Yes, I've seen them all.

[Sam Anderson]

Okay.

[Wesley Morris]

I've seen them all.

[Sam Anderson]

Okay.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, yes, I haven't seen any several times.

[Sam Anderson]

But I had to. Cause I was researching this piece and I was excited to. I was actually excited to. I've always meant to sit down and do like a marathon and watch all of them, but I started with Fast five Banger because that's the one that features Dwayne the Rock Johnson for the first time. For the first time down in Brazil as this sort of like super tough, but also by the book Kind of like a Javert. That's more my sphere of reference. That's great.

[Wesley Morris]

Comparing it to Les Miserables.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. Les Miserables. He's the cop who believes in justice. He's just there to get his guy. He doesn't care what your excuses are. He doesn't care the righteousness of your larger cause. You're on his list and he's gonna get you.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah. Check mark.

[Sam Anderson]

And I found him really charismatic, and I really enjoyed the film.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah. So here we go. I don't even know what scene this is, but we'll find out.

[Sam Anderson]

All right. Let's just have fun watching it. Okay, so this is at the end of the movie.

[Wesley Morris]

So this is Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Setting up what is going to be the sixth Fast and Furious movie.

[Sam Anderson]

The music is always so. So ominous and ridiculous. Yeah. He didn't even look. He just shoots, shot the guy. He didn't even look at him.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

It's a hell of a mess.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, it is.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

You know, I can't let you two go. I ain't made that way.

[Sam Anderson]

Such good dialogue. I ain't made that way.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

The way I see it, you burn.

[Sam Anderson]

Yourself 24 hours and they end up, you know, facing each other. The sort of the Jean Valjean Javert standoff. And they kind of come to terms. And Dwayne Johnson's character sort of cracks and says, I'm gonna give you a 24 hour head start.

[Wesley Morris]

I wonder who he's doing here. Cause it's not him.

[Sam Anderson]

No, that's what's so striking, is it's not just Dwayne Johnson being Dwayne Johnson.

[Wesley Morris]

It's somebody else. It's like some other wrestler or something. I can't quite put my finger on it.

[Sam Anderson]

No, he's acting.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

Cause come tomorrow, I will find you.

[Sam Anderson]

Also, the money's not in that safe. Amen. It's a trick. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, also, great use of a safe. Great use of a safe in this movie.

[Sam Anderson]

What's yours?

[Wesley Morris]

Me? I'm just gonna say the obvious thing.

[Sam Anderson]

Moana.

[Wesley Morris]

How did you know?

[Sam Anderson]

Because I love it so much.

[Wesley Morris]

You know, let's just see that you're welcome scene, which is basically him showing up in the world of Moana for the first time. Moana, the character.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

So what I believe you were trying.

[Sam Anderson]

To say is thank you.

[Alexa Weibel]

Thank you.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

You're welcome.

[Wesley Morris]

Look, I love his rubber ducky like face here.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

You're face to face with greatness.

[Wesley Morris]

And it's strange he can't sing, but he can carry a tune. Yeah, and it's very. It's very sweet, guys.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

Let's begin. Yes, it's really me. It's Maui. Breathe it in.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean. And also, he moves the way you think Dwayne Johnson actually would if this were a live action version of this.

[Sam Anderson]

Movie, which he's now making.

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, no.

[Sam Anderson]

I'm sorry.

[Wesley Morris]

Is that happening?

[Sam Anderson]

I'm sorry to break the news here. Yeah. I'm so sorry, Sam. I'm so sorry.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

Why did they.

[Sam Anderson]

I couldn't stop it.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

What the.

[Wesley Morris]

Call him right now. Tell him. No, it'll probably be great. Oh, God.

[Sam Anderson]

I think of him in his films as almost like a human cartoon, you know, like in that he's doing something in all these films where he's not quite real. Nothing can hurt him. He can jump through a glass window. He's fine. He can get his big toe shot off. And then. So to see him as an actual cartoon, I don't know, there's something like that doubles the energy of it or something, you know? I don't know. I love everything about him in Moana. What about you?

[Wesley Morris]

Oh, I think it is a perfect use of Dwayne Johnson.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. It's funny, now that Dwayne and I are best friends when I watch.

[Wesley Morris]

Then you need to call your best friend and stop him from making live action Moana.

[Sam Anderson]

When I watch Moana, the cartoon, I see more what a performance that is. I think I went in, you know, having read, like we talked about, Katie Weaver's great profile. He does come off as very cartoonish. He's very funny. He's very. He has this unstoppable energy. When we were together, and maybe, again, this was a performance, too, but I really did get a sense of him. Like, our energy kind of matched. And I'm pretty low energy and sleepy and introverted and shy and quiet. And he was like that, too. And so when I see him doing this, like, yeah, that's an aspect of his personality, but he's also this other way.

[Wesley Morris]

I think it's exciting to think about him and Moana and to, like, just sit with all of the stuff that I think it is possible that he can do. It is why I am mad at the movies for even asking him to do all of the things that have aligned him with the jungle, for instance. I mean, Jungle Cruise, those two Jumanji movies with Kevin Hart, like, it just. It's too much. The skyscraper movie that he did.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, I'm sorry. It just brought him too close to King Kong for me. By the End of that movie. And the posters were also strange. And then there was. Oh, my God, what's the movie that actually had Rampage. Rampage is him with an actual beast of the jungle, a giant gorilla. It's just too much. It's just too much. I, like. I watch Moana, and I see him exploring something that is really, like, in his bloodline as a Samoan man, like, spending time with these Polynesian in this Polynesian culture. I. I don't know. I just feel like less of the we can't think of anything better to do with this giant man scenarios.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. He is a human being, and I.

[Wesley Morris]

Think that the humanness of the comedy here is as wonderful to me as the tragedy of Mark Kerr in the Smashing Machine is kind of deep.

[Sam Anderson]

Mm.

[Wesley Morris]

Actually, I should probably ask you how you felt about the Smashing Machine, which is the movie that he's currently in.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

Well, have you ever heard of the Ultimate Fighting Championship? The ufc?

[Wesley Morris]

That's the bloody thing they're trying to ban right now. I think it's very good, but I think he is very good in the movie, and it's based on a real story of a gentleman named Mark Kerr.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

Absolutely.

[Wesley Morris]

Wrestled in mixed martial arts at, you know, before it was the. The UFC that we currently know.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

Please welcome in his Octagon debut.

[Wesley Morris]

And this guy is a very, very, very, very un. Inconceivably gentle human being in this hulking, enormous body. Is the word. Is your description. I'm just gonna look. Is it. What is their description of the.

[Sam Anderson]

I love, by the way, Wesley. When Wesley reads an article that you've written, he scribbles all over it and draws giant hearts. He's writing with a green pen. He's scribbled all these little comments, and there's a giant heart. It's very satisfying to look at.

[Wesley Morris]

I'm not gonna find it, but I know I underlined it, but basically, you describe at some point that he's got these cantaloupe. It's like his whole body is like a bag of cantaloupes or something like.

[Sam Anderson]

That sentient pile of cantaloupes with him.

[Wesley Morris]

There we go.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. Mark Kerr was just like. He had a legendary physique in addition to his legendary personality, which was, as you say, just incredibly gentle and was.

[Wesley Morris]

You know, I hate this phrase, but I mean, the way they talk about him, they called him the Smashing Machine, but really, he was a gentle giant.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. You know what phrase popped into my mind as I was watching the movie? Meaty sweetie. Sasha wouldn't let Me put that in the piece. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Gentle giant, meaty sweetie. So this meaty sweetie's got a lot of turmoil, you know, at home in his head. It's like a why me? Sort of existential. It's not a crisis, but it's an understanding of this tension between what he looks like and how he feels. And I love that about this movie, which is that this is a person trying to figure out how to just let. Why won't people let him be the person he feels he is?

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

And yet he's gotta live. And this is the way. This is. This is the way he has come to understand is how he's gonna make his living.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

I don't know. Did the movie work for you?

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, I like the movie. I've seen it multiple times, and it gets more interesting every time. I think it really does a lot of what I like about the Safdie's work, which is that kind braiding together reality and unreality in a way that's kind of uncanny. And probably the best example of that is just the way they treat Dwayne Johnson's face.

[Wesley Morris]

Yes.

[Sam Anderson]

Which is.

[Wesley Morris]

We even. Even. Yes.

[Sam Anderson]

He is heavily, probably a top five most famous face in the world.

[Wesley Morris]

Sure.

[Sam Anderson]

Top ten.

[Wesley Morris]

We just talked about how he can't leave his house.

[Sam Anderson]

Can't leave his house. He's got, like the most magnetic smile. And in this film, they have used all these prosthetics, all this makeup to make him look not exactly like Mark Kerr, but like some guy at a midpoint between this most famous face on planet Earth and this MMA fighter from the 90s who you've probably never heard of. And so your first reaction as a viewer is like, what am I looking at? Like, where am I? And that sort of that uncanny feeling is there the whole movie. And Benny Safdie told me that was on purpose. He said the makeup artist absolutely could have made him look exactly like Mark Kerr, but they wanted that kind of uncanny valley feeling of you see the super famous face shining through. You see Dwayne the Rock Johnson experiencing this turmoil, struggling with his addiction to opiates, fighting with his girlfriend, losing fights. So, yeah, I found it fascinating.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

I'm calling because I know Dr. Rob was gonna write that prescription for Voltaren for me. Yeah. But Voltaren as a pill, it's a little hard on my tummy.

[Sam Anderson]

I mean, he changed his voice. He has this kind of high voice, this high, gentle voice.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

So what I was hoping is if Dr. Rob can write a prescription that's A little better than Voltaren. That's a little stronger, too, as well.

[Sam Anderson]

This kind of gentle high voice. I think I describe it in the piece as like. His voice is like a pair of hands cupping a baby bird. You know, he's, like, trying not to hurt. He's trying to protect and not hurt everyone around him. Even though he looks like the Incredible Hulk.

[Wesley Morris]

He looks like two Incredible Hulks.

[Sam Anderson]

He does. And so he's really doing an impression. But within that performance, he's also going pretty deep and painful emotional places. I mean, he. I think he breaks down twice in the movie crying.

[Wesley Morris]

In a different movie, there would have been these other moments where he either explodes in a rage or breaks down in tears.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

But in this movie, it happens almost emotionally or rhythmically.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's this incredible moment. There's kind of one of the big explosive fights at home where out of nowhere, he just. He breaks a door in half.

[Wesley Morris]

That is a wild moment.

[Sam Anderson]

Oh, yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

The ease with which that door just. It's like a cracker.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He snaps a graham cracker in half, but it's a door. And before he breaks the door, he sets his plate down so delicately on the counter and breaks the door, smashes it up, and then picks the plate back up so delicately and brings it into the kitchen. And, yeah, it's just a really subtle performance in a lot of ways.

[Wesley Morris]

I think it really works as a kind of psychodrama for Dwayne Johnson. And what I enjoyed was being destabilized by the person at the center of the movie.

[Sam Anderson]

Right.

[Wesley Morris]

And there's two sets of baggage that you bring when you go. One is that, you know, you're seeing Dwayne Johnson in a movie. The second is you're seeing Dwayne Johnson starring in something that I think he's really struggled with, how to indulge these last 25 years, which is making a movie about a person who gets in a ring to do his job.

[Sam Anderson]

Right. I got to speak with Mark Kerr, the real guy, and he is exactly as depicted in the film and just a real sweetie. He told me he has come to realize over the years that his secret power is his ability to be emotional. And he gave a really beautiful kind of monologue about the toxicity of fighting culture, sports culture, masculine culture, and how much of life you're missing out on if you're not emotionally connecting with people for real in an authentic way.

[Wesley Morris]

That is fascinating to me because I feel like so much of Dwayne Johnson is really, you know, he can smell what Mark Kerr is cooking.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

As an actor, he told me at.

[Sam Anderson]

The Venice Film Festival, Mark Kerr, the subject of the film, the first time he had seen the film, surrounded by a bunch of strangers who had never seen it. He was sitting between Dwayne Johnson and Benny Safdie, who wrote and directed the movie. And there are all these really wrenching, difficult scenes, you know, where he's breaking down crying and where he and his girlfriend are having a huge fight. And he said it just brought back. It was so real to him. It brought back all the emotions of those moments. And he found himself really struggling emotionally. And Dwayne would reach over and just kind of rub his back or squeeze his knee, and Benny would reach over, and there's kind of a big climactic fight scene with his girlfriend, eight minutes long, and he was really struggling. And Benny reached over and held his hand, and he said, they held hands for half an hour for the whole rest of the movie. And I think that's kind of the vibe of the movie. These big meaty guys who love each other and help each other need help.

[Wesley Morris]

Right.

[Sam Anderson]

And acknowledge each other's emotions and their own emotions.

[Wesley Morris]

I mean, I don't know. I think that's right. I also think that, like, what I'm coming back to, it's just what professional wrestling really is, which is, you know, these very tough people performing vulnerability. Yeah, Right.

[Sam Anderson]

Yeah.

[Wesley Morris]

Performing the acceptance that somebody has to lose.

[Sam Anderson]

The theater of pain.

[Wesley Morris]

Yeah.

[Sam Anderson]

Yep.

[Wesley Morris]

And I don't know. I just feel like Dwayne Johnson is an exemplar of the theater.

[Sam Anderson]

Agree.

[Wesley Morris]

Sam Anderson, thank you for doing this.

[Sam Anderson]

You're welcome. Thank you for having me. Wesley and I were holding hands under the table through the whole podcast.

[Wesley Morris]

Hey, we did it again. This episode of Cannonball was produced by Elissa Dudley, John White, and Janelle Anderson. It was edited by Lisa Tobin and Austin Mitchell. This episode was engineered by Daniel Ramirez. It was recorded by Matty Masiello, Kyle Grandillo and Nick Pittman. Dan Powell and Diane Wong. You know, they did the original music. Our theme music, as always, is by Justin Ellington. Bobby Doherty, he took the photo for our show Art. Our video team is Brooke Minters and Felice Leon. This episode was filmed by Alfredo Chiarapa and Lauren Pruitt. It was edited by Jeremy Rocklin and Amy marino. We're on YouTube, y'.

[Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)]

All.

[Wesley Morris]

Watch and subscribe, please. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be back next week. And because the haters, they gonna hate, hate, hate, hate Ha.