Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is UNRECOGNIZABLE as MMA fighter Mark Kerr in first seem at biopic The Smashing Equipment

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson seemed unrecognizable in the initially even now from his impending film The Smashing Machine, which is A24’s 2025 biopic on retired combined martial artist Mark Kerr.

At 52, the 50 %-Samoan, quarter-black actor will have a harder time portraying the half-Irish, 50 %-Puerto Rican wrestler – who was in his 20s and 30s in the late nineties and early aughts when he turned a two-time UFC Heavyweight Event Winner.

Dwayne was de-aged and remodeled by two-time Oscar winner Kazu Hiro, the identical prosthetic make-up designer who transformed Bradley Cooper in Maestro (2023), Charlize Theron in Bombshell (2019), and Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour (2017).

‘Give the make up staff the award now,’ Instagram user @brandondavisbd commented on the graphic.

Instagram consumer @blizzchaiii agreed: ‘Yo the make-up group went nuts.’

‘Is that you, Rock? Good get the job done by the prosthetics and make up team,’ Instagram consumer @steve_cusumano commented.

Instagram user @caesarpf_ exclaimed: ‘WTFFFF The Rock with haiirrr!’

Mark, now 55, has been serving to Johnson – a 3rd-generation WWE wrestler – get ready to portray him much more authentically by becoming a member of him at his MMA schooling camp in which he is been ‘a full university student of the game, absorbing and mastering as considerably as I can, working day by working day.’

‘[Kerr] is still a f***ing device, that can near the distance with terrifying velocity and energy,’ the Rapidly X motion star – who boasts 559.8M social media followers – wrote on Tuesday.

‘I’ll without end be grateful to the core for our his priceless knowledge he’s been gracious more than enough to pass onto me and specifically for the brotherhood we share. Locking up with Mark, and sensation his push and power – it is really no shock he was an NCAA, UFC & VALE TUDO Heavyweight Winner.

‘That’s the A facet to achievements. The B facet tells a entire other tale. Thank you everybody for all your incredible guidance thru this intensive course of action and journey. Output starts filming this 7 days.’

Principal images officially started Tuesday and the movie will shoot in Vancouver, Los Angeles, New Mexico, and Tokyo.

Dwayne has experienced five months of coaching considering that he signed on to produce and star in The Smashing Equipment, which marks the solo function directorial debut of 3-time Unbiased Spirit Award-winning filmmaker Benny Safdie.

The new continue to also included a very first look at Oscar nominee Emily Blunt – who co-starred with Johnson in Jungle Cruise – as Dawn Staples, an Arizona-dependent recovering alcoholic who wed Mark in Las Vegas for the duration of their from time to time violent romance.

The Smashing Machine – also starring Lyndsey Gavin, Oleksandr Usyk, and Ryan Bader – is dependent on John Hyams’s 2002 HBO documentary of the similar identify, which also captured Kerr’s material abuse, 1999 hospitalization, and rehab stint on major of his total vocation.

But very first, the Younger Rock co-creator generates and stars as Callum Drift in Jake Kasdan’s $250M-funds Xmas action flick Crimson Just one – hitting US/British isles theaters November 15 – alongside Chris Evans, JK Simmons, Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Liu, Nick Kroll, and Bonnie Hunt.

Dwayne will then reprise his voiceover part as Maui in David G. Derrick Jr.’s Disney sequel Moana 2, which hits US theaters November 27.