UFC Hall of Famer Mark Kerr sat down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, California to discuss his life story being told in the new biopic “The Smashing Machine,” how the movie came to be and how The Rock became involved in the project, his thoughts on the movie, fighting in UFC, how he got the nickname The Smashing Machine, the differences between the fighter and the person, battling addiction, wrestling Kurt Angle prior to the 1996 Olympics, and more!

On his first reaction to the film:

“Oh God, I cried. Just cried and cried. They brought me out in January, and the film was about 80% complete. My brother Michael met me out here, small little studio, it was Benny [Safdie – director], myself and my brother, we watched it, and some of it just hit me. They didn’t tell me, ‘Hey, listen, Dwayne’s gonna do all this prosthetics.’ I didn’t see that till I was in Vancouver, and just watching how deep they got emotionally on stuff was just unbelievable.”

On how Dwayne Johnson became involved in the project:

“That was originally when I got contacted in 2019 by Brad Slater, who is DJ’s agent. It was this conversation of who owns your rights, or who owns a screenplay. So I directed him in that place, and that was like, Dwayne wants to do this. That was the first that I was like, Huh? It was like DJ wants to do this, not that he’s gonna do this, we’re just gonna figure out maybe some options. Then Seven Bucks Production acquires the rights, and then I get a call from DJ right before the BMF belt in Madison Square Garden. He makes that announcement, and I’ve said this, it’s like back in 2019, the conversation I had with DJ was almost transactional. It was like, ‘Here’s what I’m going to do.’ He said it’s going to be this, this, this, and this, and this, and this is going to happen, and you just don’t need to do anything. Then COVID hits, writer’s strike, all this stuff, and I had his phone number. I never called or text him in four years, it wasn’t gonna change anything, right? Wasn’t gonna call him up and say, ‘You gonna make it yet? You gonna make it yet?’ I just kind of left it to, it sounds silly to say, but I left it in the universe. It’s like, if it’s gonna get made, there isn’t anything I can do about it.”

Did you think it would still get made?

“I had hope that it would, but I just lived my life like nothing was going to change. My wife would say, ‘Go call him.’ I said, ‘You know, somehow, some way, I truly believe that the universe would go hey, now’s when you need to reach out.’ So in the fall of 2023, at the end of October, I called Brad Slater, and he just was like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t even believe you’re calling me.’ This is what he said. He goes, ‘I can’t tell you. You need to talk to Dwayne.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, you can’t say a word?’ He goes, ‘Nope, I can’t, it needs to come from him.’ And I’m like, Oh my god. So it’s either ‘Hey, this thing’s scrapped forever’ or ‘Hey, we’re rolling forward with it.’ So that was Thursday, and he goes, ‘DJ will text you over the weekend.’ So he texts me the next day. He’s like, ‘Hey, I’ll call you over the weekend.’ That whole weekend goes by, the whole week goes by, and I’m like, Oh my God. Now it’s like, nine days later. I’m like, what the f*ck? So I get another text that next Friday, it’s like,’ I’ll call you over the weekend.’ It was like Saturday, and then it was like Sunday afternoon. It was like, ‘Are you available?’ I’m like, Oh my God. So I get on the phone with him, and the difference was in 2019 I said transactional. In 2023, it was just like a different person, a different space he was in. And it was this, ‘Hey, you know, we’re moving forward with this. Production has already started. When it moves, it’s going to move fast.’ Not understanding one of his assistants had moved heaven and earth to clear out 12 weeks. He’s so busy, I don’t even know how he’d find 12 minutes, let alone 12 weeks, right? So they found a place in Vancouver and all this stuff. And it was like, he wasn’t kidding. When he goes hey, I’m gonna announce it, this is what got me, he goes to the world that this thing’s going forward. Not to California, it’s to the world. And I’m like, all of a sudden it goes and it’s heading down the tracks, it’s incredible.”

On wrestling Kurt Angle:

“I think total of eight times. It ended up being four, four.”

But he won the Olympic trial?

“He did. Yeah, the two years prior to that, I had beat him from the world teams. This is just how beautiful a person he is. So my mom, who had terminal cancer in 96, I tell people, you want to know a bad month? So, 1996 January, Dave Schultz, I wrestled for Foxcatcher. So did Kurt. Dave Schultz is murdered. I’m over in Russia when they make that announcement. Just heart goes absolutely cold, we still haven’t competed yet. And so the coach is like, if you don’t want to compete tomorrow, you don’t have to. And I’m like, okay. We’re in Siberia, Russia, and I go, Okay, I’ll compete. So I competed, but my heart wasn’t into it, so I lost the first match, and I go, F*ck it, I’m done. I go home. I was supposed to actually fly from Russia to Foxcatcher to continue to train for the nationals, which were in April. So I ended up going home to Ohio. My brother asked me to come home, and he says, ‘Hey, listen, you know, the cancer is terminal. It’s metastasized outside of my mom’s colon, and they’re going to try some experimental chemo. She’ll have to have a chemo pack on to pump chemo for 24 hours a day. But it doesn’t look optimistic.’ So I go ahead and just devastated, and I gather myself up and I go, Okay, I’m living in Arizona. I continue to train. I end up going to Athens, Greece, and end up pulling my transverse abdominal and drop into my groin muscles, pulling them completely out. And so I can’t compete in the Nationals, so I have to petition to get in Olympic trials. They are in Spokane, Washington, and I wrestle Mark Coleman. I lose to Mark right off the bat. So my chance to be an Olympian, I could be an alternate, but I can’t get to Kurt, right? So I throw shoes away, literally, like, f*ck it! What’s the point? And Arthur Martori, who had the Sunkist Kids [Wrestling Club]. He comes over, says, ‘Listen, it’d be the last time your mom’s gonna watch you wrestle. Why don’t you get your shoes on?’ I’m like my God, you’re right. So I get my shoes on, and I wrestle three more, four more matches that day. And it puts me in a spot to be where I can be second alternate on the Olympic team. So I wrestled the next day. I mean, my body is just devastated, and I end up losing that match. So I gather myself up, go to Ohio and me and my mom watch Kurt win the gold medal, and then we try everything to get a hold of him afterward. And my mom dies September 3, we get a letter from him, September 5, and it’s this beautiful, beautiful letter. I can’t even talk about it. Make me bawl. In the letter, he’s basically like, because you made me Kurt’s biggest obstacle, it helped him win the gold medal, because it was an obstacle he never thought he could overcome. Now, I’ll have to show you the letter someday. It’s one of those we’re still to this day reading it, or my brother reading it, it just drops you. It’s incredible.”

Do you still keep in touch with Kurt?

“I actually bumped into him again in Philadelphia for WrestleMania, and we just had a beautiful conversation. Such a good, just a great human being, yeah, you know, just really good human being.”