Dwayne Johnson Reveals He Is Slimming Down For New Movie
Dwayne Johnson is slimming down for the big screen. The 53-year-old star revealed during the Toronto International Film Festival’s “In Conversation With…” series on Sept. 8 that he is dropping weight for his next role, one that couldn’t be more different from his action-hero image.
Dwayne is teaming up again with director Benny Safdie after the critical success of The Smashing Machine, and this time he’ll play a quirky character named the Chicken Man in Lizard Music, based on Daniel Pinkwater’s novel.
According to the actor, the role he is playing is “a very whimsical and eccentric 70-something-year-old man called the Chicken Man.”
“I’m so excited because I get a chance to hopefully transform again like I was able to do in Smashing Machine. Can’t wait,” he added.
The transformation marks a dramatic shift from the physical preparation Dwayne endured for The Smashing Machine, which premieres October 3. For that film, he spent up to four hours daily in prosthetics to become MMA fighter Mark Kerr, a role that required him to bulk up and carry the weight of Kerr’s battles in and out of the ring. The film, co-starring Emily Blunt, earned rave reviews at Venice, with Safdie taking home the directing prize.
Blunt and Safdie even surprised fans at Dwayne’s TIFF talk, where the actor also confirmed that a third Jumanji movie with Kevin Hart is on the way. Looking back at his wrestling roots as The Rock, Johnson said the biggest lesson he carried into Hollywood was remembering the audience. “Remember that they are the ones who get you where you want to go. They buy the tickets, they spend the money, they will cheer you, they will not cheer you.”
Earlier this month in Venice, the actor became emotional about the direction of his career, admitting he once questioned if he was living his dream or someone else’s. “I looked around a few years ago and I started to think … am I living my dream or am I living other people’s dreams?”
“Things are good. I don’t want to rock the boat or go, you know what? I want to live my dreams now and do what I want and tap into the stuff that I want to tap into,” he added.
