WWE Great The Rock Opens Up About Being 'Scared' To Take On Role In The Smashing Machine

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has established himself as a top star in Hollywood over the last decade, but he revealed that he was scared to play Mark Kerr on the silver screen in "The Smashing Machine."

In a recent interview with "IMDb," Johnson was asked about what surprised him while preparing for his role in the movie about the legendary MMA star. Johnson honestly laid out how he was scared about taking on the role and stated that he had never been in this position before.

"Everything. Everything. Everything [was different]. I wanted, of course, to challenge myself and do things I'd never done before — to jump off a cliff, as we've been saying — and work with not only Benny [Safdie] — and of course he's worked with Emily [Blunt] before. Everything was different for me. This role, this part in this film, represents so much more than just the movie based on this incredible human being, and another human being, who was the love of his life. It also represents, for me, doing something I was really scared to do. And to be honest with you, I've not been in that position in ... ever, maybe, where I was scared. Like, 'Can I do this? Am I going to fail? I don't know,'" he said.

He highlighted that one aspect was the challenge of looking like Kerr, while the other was getting into character, which was equally complex.

"I'd never worn 13 or 14 prosthetics, and then there was a physical transformation, a vocal transformation — how he walked, his mentality. He OD'd twice, he's lucky to be alive. There's so much. And then there's this volatile relationship that was still an impassioned one with love that he had. So it was a lot. And everything was different."

Johnson endured a lot of pain while filming the project, even suffering a concussion during a fight scene. After putting his heart and soul into the film, he broke down in tears upon receiving a standing ovation at a screening.