Benny Safdie connected with The Rock very quickly.
Safdie is the director, writer, producer, and editor of the Mark Kerr biopic, ‘The Smashing Machine’. The film, which opens in theaters on October 3, stars Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson in the lead role.
Appearing on the latest edition of Impaulsive, Benny Safdie talked about working with a number of a-list actors throughout his career.
“It’s interesting because you get to know them before and it’s like, you want to work with them for a specific reason. When you meet them, either that perception of who they are is what you expected or not. When it matches up, it’s the greatest thing in the world.”
Safdie then touched on meeting The Rock for the first time, saying that there was something behind his eyes that he connected with.
“When I first met DJ, it was like, ‘Oh my god.’ There was something behind his eyes that I connected with and it was real. Same thing with Sandler, he’s just a great guy. When that happens, you’re like, ‘Okay, we can do this.’ You know you’re going to get close on this process and that’s part of it, you want to kind of develop that relationship in a way.”
In a separate interview, Benny Safdie recently stated that he knew The Rock “could destroy” the role of Mark Kerr after meeting him for the first time. Check out his full comments here.
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