The thing about machines is that we expect them to keep chugging on – to never break or falter. In the late 1990s, a mixed martial artist named Mark Kerr found himself struggling to shoulder the weight of that expectation. Mark was a winner – a muscular behemoth beloved by fans of a rising new fighting league, called Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC for short. His fans across the world knew little of his agonising behind-the-scenes struggle to keep up that facade, to keep entering the ring week after week, to keep The Smashing Machine as he was nicknamed chugging along – never breaking, never faltering. Addicted to powerful painkillers, the pressure to win was killing him.

Which is why The Smashing Machine, the recent biopic about Kerr, from my guest today, writer-director Benny Safdie, is a sports movie unlike most others. Think of a sports movie you love. Break it down at its core and I bet you, it’s a tale about someone learning to win, right? Starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, The Smashing Machine is about someone learning to lose. The liberation that comes with it. The power of realising that we’re not our accomplishments. What defines us is our actions out of the wrestling ring – whatever your version of that ring may be.

On today’s episode, Benny tells me about the quote, “radical empathy” that guided this story – and how it was also perhaps present in his work up till now. Films and TV shows like the hugely acclaimed Good Time and Uncut Gems, both created with his brother Josh – and The Curse, created with Nathan Fielder. We get into all the key beats and scenes from The Smashing Machine in our usual spoiler-filled detail – including that mesmerising ending in which Dwayne Johnson seems to unburden himself of the expectation that he can never falter, not just within his performance of Mark Kerr, but also kind of as himself, this megawatt blockbuster star whose recent career took an interesting path to this story, filling it with metatextual meaning. 

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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