Dwayne Johnson is everywhere right now promoting his new film The Smashing Machine, and fans will notice that his physique, famously built and muscular, is looking on the slimmer side – something The Rock has no qualms about discussing. The former wrestler and actor, 53, has opened up about purposefully losing weight after he focused on gaining weight to portray American former wrestler Mark Kerr in the new biopic about his life. "I've been dieting," he said. "Happy to not be carrying all the weight. I'm able to tuck in my shirt now…I don't look pregnant, so it's all good."
The actor, who hails from California, even revealed his fitness inspiration as he set about shedding the weight he had gained to play the mixed martial artist. "Think Clint Eastwood at 75. Sinewy muscles, he's lean. But it feels good," he added.
© Getty Images"I gained 30 pounds to play Mark Kerr and then came back down after that to my normal weight of around 250 or so. Now I'm in the process of slimming down where I play a 70-something-year-old man," Dwayne told LadBible ahead of starring in Lizard Music. "So the slimming down is happening. And we have time to do it, which is really nice. There's nothing extreme about it. I can't wait, because, again, it's the opportunity that I have where I can immerse myself into something and disappear."
Changing his appearance
© Alamy Stock Photo/BFAHe has previously spoken about how he embraced the changes to his appearance in order to play the so-called 'Smashing Machine'. "I've done it in the past, a couple of pounds here, five or ten there, [to] modulate my weight up or down, but this was massive," the star revealed to talkSPORT.
© WireImage"Benny [Safdie, the director] came to me, we had a good laugh about it, and he said, ‘I don't know how to say this, and I don’t know if you’ve ever been asked this, you’re going to have to get bigger.' I kind of laughed, but I knew he was right, because Mark Kerr was puffier. Mark was a big guy – a lot bigger than I was back then."
How did Dwayne Johnson gain weight?
© Zuffa LLC via Getty ImagesDwayne went on to discuss how difficult it was to gain weight in the right way so he would resemble the four-time ADCC World Champion. "I had to put on the weight and, at the same time, make sure that I still stayed agile. I had to move in the ring and in the cage," he explained. "It was hard and that’s a lot of weight to put on, because Mark was so big in his traps, back, and legs from all the takedowns and the movement that he would do."
© GettyIn playing Mark Kerr, Dwyane underwent a total transformation. Not only did he gain weight, but he also spent hours in the glam chair with prosthetics and false hair being applied to the point where he was unrecognisable. "I was really staggered by it. It changed the air in the room. Everyone just went very quiet…The transformation seemed like water in the desert. It was so magical," actress Emily Blunt said of her co-star's metamorphosis.
© Getty"Dwayne Johnson’s approach to diet and training shows just how tightly performance and physique are linked and adaptable. We are used to seeing him at his absolute biggest fort Hollywood Movies, fuelled by heavy lifting and his high-calorie diet. Fighters in MMA, however, have to take the opposite approach, and Dwayne has had to adopt this new style for his latest movie. The workload is still training at the same intense regimen - but includes sparring, grappling, weight lifting, and metabolic conditioning - but with the added pressure of 'cutting down' to make a set scale weight," personal trainer Nicole Chapman tells HELLO!.
"This usually means hyper focus on diet with carb cycling, cutting to low calories, and in the final stretch stripping water and sodium to make the number on the scale. I would imagine this is the principle Dwayne has applied to achieve his chiselled new physique. For martial artists, the goal isn’t a 'look' but the ability to perform at their best in power, endurance, agility, and speed after weeks of depletion. It’s not for the faint-hearted, but if Johnson ever had to adopt the same methods to 'achieve his look', there’s nothing to suggest his version of extreme discipline would be any less damaging."
