Dwayne Johnson says he was 'pigeonholed' before 'The Smashing Machine'

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson believes he has been ‘pigeonholed’ in Hollywood as a big-screen action star, before his latest venture, ‘The Smashing Machine’, the sports biopic of MMA legend Mark Kerr.

Dwayne Johnson, who essays UFC champion Mark Kerr in Benny Safdie’s biopic ‘The Smashing Machine’, co-starring Emily Blunt as his then-wife Dawn Staples, opened up on exploring new horizons with the title, as he has felt categorised in Hollywood, suitable for only a certain kind of roles.

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Ahead of the film’s premiere at the ongoing Venice Film Festival on Monday, the ‘Jumanji’ star reflected, “I just had this burning desire and this voice that was saying, ‘Well, again, what if? But what if there is more, and what if I can?’ And a lot of times it’s harder for us to, or at least for me, to know what you’re capable of when you’ve been pigeonholed into something.”

“When you’re in Hollywood, as we all know, it had become about box office, and you chase the box office,” Johnson continued. “And the box office in our business that we know is very loud, and it can be very resounding, and it could push you into a category and into a corner. And ‘This is your lane’ and ‘This is what you do’ and ‘This is what people want you to be’ and ‘This is what Hollywood wants you to be.'”

“You could either fall in line and go, ‘Well, it’s status quo. Things are good. I don’t want to rock the boat.’ Or go, ‘No, I want to live my dreams now and do what I want to do and tap into the stuff that I want to tap into.’ I have a place finally to put all this stuff that I’ve experienced in the past that I’ve shied away from, been scared to go deep and intense and raw until now, until I had this opportunity to do this,” he explained.

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