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Dwayne Johnson has opened up about his weight loss, and revealed he ‘still has a long way to go’.
Earlier this month, the 53-year-old, also known as the Rock, left Hollywood stunned with his dramatic transformation, which had fans rebranding him ‘the Pebble’.
The Fast and Furious star’s new look was down to his latest role as MMA fighter Mark Kerr in Benny Safdie’s upcoming A24 film, The Smashing Machine – which recently premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
However, promoting the flick in a new interview, he shared that he will be losing even more weight for another project with Benny – where he plays a man in his 70s who has a close friendship with a chicken.
‘Benny pitched me this after,’ he said via Variety. ‘And after about 45 minutes, this pitch ended and I said, “I am your Chicken Man.”’
According to the outlet, Dwayne dropped 30lbs of muscle that he developed for the Smashing Machine, but has a journey ahead of him to prepare for playing Chicken Man in Lizard King.
‘I still have a long ways to go,’ he added. ‘I’m so excited to get a chance to hopefully transform again like I was able to do in Smashing Machine.
‘[It means] eating less chicken.’
Lizard King serves as an adaptation of a novel by Daniel Pinkwater, and follows an eccentric man and his bond with a chicken – something the actor is hoping shows off a different side of his talents.
Dwayne’s latest efforts in the Smashing Machine were met with huge applause by critics, reducing him to tears when the movie received a 15-minute standing ovation after the screening at Venice.
He had everyone doing a double-take when he hit the red carpet looking visibly slimmer, and spoke about how excited he was to take on such a huge transformation for the project.
‘This transformation was something I was really hungry to do,’ he declared at a press conference. ‘I had been very fortunate to have the career that I’ve had over the years and to make the films that I’ve made.
‘But there was just a voice inside of me, a little voice, that said, “Well, what if I could do more – I want to do more and what does that look like?”’
Emily Blunt, who stars as Dawn Stables, had a front-row seat into Dwayne’s slim-down and described seeing him ‘completely disappear’ as ‘one of the most extraordinary things’.
‘It was spooky, spooky for all of us,’ she recalled. ‘I remember when he walked in as Mark for the first time, it changed the air in the room, it was like everyone parted, everyone went very quiet.’
‘I’m sure that sucked for you,’ she added. ‘But it was extraordinary’.
Dwayne is no stranger to switching things up for a new role, and previously shared his work-out routines ahead of his stint in Black Adam in 2023.
‘Big week for #BlackAdam shooting my “champion” scenes with my shirt off and showing my body,’ he said on Instagram at the time. ‘Been working extremely hard dieting, training and conditioning unlike any other role of my entire career.
‘Manipulating water, sodium, cardio but also having to push and pull real iron to have dense, dry, detailed muscle.
‘It’s a real science that takes months and months to dial it all in with my strength & conditioning coach @daverienzi who keeps a very watchful eye, constantly fine tuning our strategy daily.
‘Big week, grateful for the grind & support – here we go.’
This article was first published on September 3.
The Smashing Machine is released in cinemas on October 3.
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