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Dwayne Johnson on tackling a dramatic role in “The Smashing Machine”

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Dwayne Johnson on tackling a dramatic role in “The Smashing Machine”


This picturesque farm in rural Virginia is Dwayne Johnson’s very private sanctuary, with a well-stocked pond that he usually fishes alone. “Just me,” he said, “and I’ll bring the girls here, and it’s magical. Just the way the property is set up, I never have to see anybody. And I know it sounds crazy, and maybe kind of weird, but that’s fun for me.”

I asked, “What does that do for you?”

“Peace,” he replied.

Dwayne Johnson and Tracy Smith test their luck. 

CBS News


Peace has been hard to come by lately. Last month, Johnson made his first trip to the Venice Film Festival, for what is probably the most ambitious film of his career, “The Smashing Machine.” He plays the real-life mixed martial arts fighter Mark Kerr, a two-time world champion who fought drug addiction and depression.

Johnson endured three hours of makeup and prosthetics a day to look like Kerr, and he’s never played anyone quite so real before. But it’s something he says he’s been aching to do. 

“For years, I’ve been dreaming and hoping,” he said. “My desire was to play not only a dramatic role, but something that I felt like I could really sink my teeth into, and rip myself open. You hear that term. I just didn’t want to do drama. I wanted to do something that really allowed me to do that.”

To watch a trailer for “The Smashing Machine” click on the player below:


The Smashing Machine | Official Trailer HD | A24 by
A24 on
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I asked, “This is a big, raw role. Did you have any doubts that you could do it?”

“When it became real, yes,” he said.

Director Benny Safdie paired Johnson with Emily Blunt as Mark Kerr’s volatile wife, Dawn Staples. The two last worked together in Disney’s 2021 film “Jungle Cruise,” the kind of film on which Johnson built his multi-billion-dollar career. 

“I was chasing something for a lot of years, and what I was chasing was box office,” he said. “And there’s a part of me, the brain [that goes], ‘Don’t rock the boat. Stay in this zone. Everyone’s happy. You’re paying the bills.’ But the heart is like, ‘Yeah. But you’re not being fulfilled.'”

“Did you feel like that, you weren’t being fulfilled?” I asked.

“One hundred percent,” Johnson said. “But I was really nervous. And on day one, I remember Benny coming to me, and Emily as well, [they] said, ‘Are you scared?’ I went, ‘Yes.'”

“You flat out said, ‘Yes, I’m scared’?”

“Absolutely. I am.”

And Dwayne Johnson doesn’t scare easily.

His father was a professional wrestler, and with dad on the road a lot of the time, young Dwayne grew up with his share of trauma. When he was 15, Dwayne and his mom were evicted from their apartment because they couldn’t pay the rent.

He moved around a lot, and eventually started wrestling on local TV in Memphis, which he showed us in 2022.



Dwayne Johnson’s favorite role: Dad

07:43

We also saw where he stayed back then: a dilapidated trailer in nearby Mississippi.

The trailer park kid fought his way out of poverty, became the wrestling legend known as “The Rock,” and eventually moved into movies, from action (the “Fast and the Furious” series) to animation (“Moana”).

For “The Smashing Machine,” he had to find a way to transform into someone whose whole world was coming apart, like the scene where Mark Kerr loses his first fight. To conjure up the feelings of despair on camera, Johnson knew right where to go. “I went back to what it’s like being a 15-year-old kid and coming home and being evicted,” he said.

I asked, “You said it felt like you were ripping yourself open. What do you think that did for you, Dwayne Johnson, ripping yourself open like that?”

“The thing that I was running from, which was ripping myself open, is actually the thing that I needed the most,” he replied, “because it made me realize that the thing I love, which is acting and telling these stories, now I see it in a different world.”

These days, Johnson talks a lot about gratitude. At his property in Virginia, far from the trailer in Mississippi, he said, “Even more reason to be grateful.”

tracy-smith-with-dwayne-johnson-a.jpg

Actor Dwayne Johnson (“The Smashing Machine”), with correspondent Tracy Smith. 

CBS News


One thing he won’t talk about: Oscar buzz. “No, no, I can’t, I can’t,” he said. “The thought that that is even a question?  …  You know, trailer park kid.”

The married father of three will be starting work on another “Moana” film soon, and also another drama. Yes, Dwayne Johnson will always be The Rock, but as any scientist can tell you, rocks can change.

This Rock, for one, seems smaller now. “Yeah. Svelte!” he laughed. “Because I’m preparing for a role.”

“So, this really is, this is like a new era for you?”

“It’s a new, I wouldn’t say, chapter. I would say new book. A whole new book. And I love it.”

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Extended interview – Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson    



Extended interview: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

40:42

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Story produced by John D’Amelio. Editor: Steven Tyler. 



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Buckingham Palace announces new change to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s title

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Buckingham Palace announces new change to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s title


Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s title to be changed by the Palace: Update

A new title getting aligned with Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, and his name is set to be changed once more, according to Express UK.

This update comes a few days after he was stripped of his title of prince, alongside his dukedom and military honors, and came to be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.

This change is coming in light of an old order by Queen Elizabeth II for all “descendants other than descendants enjoying the style, title or attribute of Royal Highness and the titular dignity of Prince or Princess and female descendants who marry and their descendants”.

The change in question will be added between the names Mountbatten and Windsor, which was back in the 1960’s to incorporate Prince Philip’s name ‘Mountbatton’ into the ‘Windsor’ line.

Known from that point on as the line of Mountbatten-Windsor, the Queen had shared the news in a formal notice to The London Gazette and it read, “Now therefore I declare My Will and Pleasure that, while I and My children shall continue to be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor”.

This would include “My descendants other than descendants enjoying the style, title or attribute of Royal Highness and the titular dignity of Prince or Princess and female descendants who marry and their descendants shall bear the name of Mountbatten-Windsor.”





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Capitalism reborn – again

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Capitalism reborn – again


A child lines up in a queue for food. — Reuters/File

“An Unequal Future: Asia’s Battle for Life and Power”, Oxfam’s recent release reveals an entire continent in the grip of unprecedented inequality — with Pakistan at its epicentre.

The economic and political model of the country, and therefore also its response to climate change, is constructed in such a way as to make a few spectacularly rich at the top while keeping the rest in poverty, informal work and dependence.

The wealthiest 10% of South Asians own approximately 77% of income and wealth, whereas the bottom half live on a meagre amount of 12–15%. This is the Pakistan of today, in which the old-established nobility has been replaced by political dynasties, an army combine and corporate barons.

More than 80% of the workforce works in what is known as the informal economy — without contracts, without protection. The poor are massively taxed by inflation through skyrocketing prices of food and fuel, but the rich have immunity, concessions and an untouchable agricultural tax shield. The tax-to-GDP ratio is under 10%, among the lowest in Asia, and inequality is built into the system.

The hidden constitution of Pakistan is its foreign debt. By 2022, debt owed to Asian developing nations reached an estimated $443 billion, of which Pakistan’s share has led to brutal cuts in health, education, and social protection. More than 42% of Pakistanis today fall below the poverty line, and every IMF-imposed “reform” plunges millions more into suffering.

Debt servicing outstrips what is spent on schools and hospitals, mortgaging the future of the nation to creditors and local elites. Austerity, in reality, is a war against the poor.

The climate crisis is amplifying this injustice. The floods of 1998 and this year submerged the lives of 33 million Pakistanis, but assistance afterwards largely materialised in the form of fresh loans. According to Oxfam, low-income countries such as Pakistan currently spend about twice their entire allocation for climate finance on debt service. The wealthy pollute and the destitute drown.

The richest 1% of people in South Asia produce 17 times more carbon than the poorest half. In Pakistan’s fortified suburbs, energy-guzzling mansions and fleets of SUVs are the symbols of climate apartheid: Those most responsible for global warming pay more to get away scot-free; farmers lose their land while women walk farther for water; families in mountain villages liquefy as glaciers melt into rivers now too wet or too dry.

Inequality also extends to technology. In Asia, 83% of people living in urban areas are online; the figure is 49% for those residing in rural settings and Pakistan does worse. The internet is still available only in cities and select privileged schools, while slow speeds and high data prices continue to exclude millions.

The 2023 internet blackout alone cost $17 million, ruining livelihoods for freelancers and small traders. For the poor, disconnection is exclusion from education, jobs and even state welfare systems, now digitised but inaccessible.

Women are also the heaviest “price” that this order has been able to exploit.

They do as much as four times more unpaid care work than men and are 41% less likely to use mobile internet. Oxfam calculates that full female participation in the labour force could boost Asia’s gross domestic product by $4.5 trillion a year, yet patriarchy in Pakistan keeps women landless, voiceless and disposable. When the pain of an economic or climate shock needs absorbing, it is women — particularly in Sindh and Balochistan — who take up that burden.

The report warns that rising inequality is undermining democracy throughout Asia. In Pakistan, plutocracy reigns. Billionaires are served by politicians, business empires are run by uniforms and spoils are brokered by bureaucrats. Every regime, whether civilian or military, defends the same class interests. “Stability” and “investment confidence” always refer to maintaining elite control while the working poor are deprived of welfare and rights.

Elections change faces, not fortunes. Surveillance spreads as civic space closes. Even education and access to the internet have become privileges —conditional on submission.

The way forward for Oxfam should be obvious: progressive taxation, universal health and education and social protection schemes for informal workers. A 60% tax on the top 1% and a 2–5% annual wealth tax could pay for needed services and climate adaptation. But Pakistan’s ruling class would not stand for redistribution that cuts into their privileges.

A skyline of luxury towers has sprouted alongside thirsty neighbourhoods, and hundreds of thousands of bonded peasants in Sindh still toil for landlords fluent now in the language of “green growth”. This is modern slavery.

Pakistan’s misfortune isn’t scarcity but theft. Its forests, rivers and workers provide for the state but don’t have a voice at the table. If privilege is not disrupted, and public systems are not rebuilt, the nation will continue to be an economy of masters in designer suits served by slaves in rags.

Yet hope endures. Valuing education, healthcare and connectivity as public rights could begin to reverse the downward spiral. Climate justice begins at home: Stop pollution for profit and direct resources toward those rebuilding from ruin. The question is simple but determining: will Pakistan continue as a citadel of privilege or become a republic of equals?


The writer is an expert on climate change and sustainable development and the founder of the Clifton Urban Forest. He posts @masoodlohar and can be reached at: [email protected]


Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this piece are the writer’s own and don’t necessarily reflect Geo.tv’s editorial policy.




Originally published in The News





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Danielle Fishel says her son did not approve of her dancing career

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Danielle Fishel says her son did not approve of her dancing career


Danielle Fishel recalls son’s distress over her ‘DWTS’ gig

Danielle Fishel’s six-year-old son, Adler, struggled with his mom’s absence while she competed on Dancing with the Stars.

Appearing on the Pod Meets World podcast on Monday, the 44-year-old actress said that although things at home seemed fine, she soon realised her son was having a harder time than he let on.

“So my family has had to make so many adjustments to our daily life since I started season 34 of Dancing with the Stars,” said Fishel, who shares sons Adler, 6, and Keaton, 4, with husband Jensen Karp. “I’m just not able to be there as often as I used to be.”

Before joining the show, Fishel said she was always involved in her kids’ routines like school pickups, sports, and afternoon activities. But her demanding rehearsal schedule made that unlikely.

One day, she got a call from Adler’s teacher after he told classmates that his dad had lost his job and his mom had died.

“The teacher reached out because she was understandably concerned,” Fishel recalled. “I showed up at school, and when he saw me, he ran over and said, ‘Mom, what are you doing here?’”

Fishel told him she’d just come from rehearsal and wanted to see him. When she mentioned she had to go back later, Adler broke down.

“He said, ‘I hate this job. Why did you take it? All you do is dance, dance, dance. You never hang out with me and Keaton anymore. I want you to quit,’” Fishel shared.

Fishel admitted she felt heartbroken but stood firm. “I told him, ‘Mommy loves her job, and I made a commitment. It’s not forever, but I’m not going to quit.’”

Though Adler was still upset and even slammed the car door when they got home, Fishel said they’re working through it as a family.

Fishel, who starred as Topanga on Boy Meets World, was eliminated from Dancing with the Stars last week.





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