When Benny Safdie began casting for The Smashing Machine, the indie director confronted an fascinating drawback: who performs Bas Rutten? In spite of everything, it’s one factor asking an actor to painting a well-known fighter – Dwayne Johnson did exactly that with Mark Kerr. However it’s fairly one other asking that very fighter to primarily play himself, one thing Rutten himself discovered way more sophisticated than it might sound on the floor.
Bas Rutten Realized Appearing Lesson the Arduous Method – Being Your self on Digital camera Isn’t Straightforward
The UFC Corridor of Famer stepped into his youthful self on set, becoming a member of Johnson and Emily Blunt for the movie based mostly on the 2002 HBO documentary about Kerr’s turbulent rise and fall in late-’90s MMA. Rutten had initially appeared in that documentary, teaching Kerr at a pivotal second within the fighter’s career. Now, 25 years later, he was being requested to recreate these scenes, however right here’s the place issues acquired difficult.
Talking in an unique interview with Tim Wheaton, he defined:
“They at all times say, ‘Oh, you simply play your self.’ Taking part in your self is tougher than you suppose. He’s a colourful man and that’s fortunately on my habits and I can’t do this stuff however nonetheless it’s… I at all times examine it to individuals. In the event you’re a troublesome man and also you’re strolling on the seashore and there’s a gaggle of six women standing there, stunning women, all of them cease speaking, they begin you, begin strolling completely different. You begin behaving completely different, you recognize, since you now turn into self-conscious. That’s the one factor I used to be afraid of in that.”
The analogy cuts to the center of a common human expertise, self-awareness tends to destroy authenticity. When you recognize you’re being watched, when the cameras are rolling and a crew is standing by, even essentially the most pure persona finds itself second-guessing. Rutten, El Guapo, the colourful persona identified for his irreverent humor and larger-than-life presence in MMA circles, nervous he’d fall into precisely that entice, changing into nearly a caricature of himself moderately than capturing his real essence from that period.
Safdie’s method, nonetheless, differed dramatically from what Rutten might need anticipated. Slightly than locked-in scripting, the director gave his topic respiratory room. He continued:
“All of the scenes that I had, in fact, there was a script, however Benny Safdie mentioned, ‘Dude, it’s you. Simply comply with the rules, make it your personal. Do what you’d do.’ So, all these scenes that you simply noticed, there have been some extra scenes that merely weren’t used. In the event you actually educate him and he’s actually paying consideration, since I’ve been instructing my complete life, that made it a lot simpler.”
Safdie understood one thing essential, attempting to bottle lightning by having an actor recite each line exactly may work for conventional scripting, however with Rutten, authenticity demanded freedom. The script grew to become scaffolding, not scripture.
On set, Rutten described an expertise the place his teaching job primarily continued, simply with cameras rolling. “For me, it was actually like instructing DJ. I acquired goosebumps on set each time,” he recalled. Johnson’s dedication to the function meant that Rutten didn’t must act alongside a stilted efficiency. He was genuinely teaching Johnson by way of Kerr’s world – the identical manner he’d coached the true Kerr a long time earlier.
Johnson’s dedication to the function prolonged past mere efficiency. The actor had studied Kerr‘s mannerisms so totally that Rutten’s spouse instantly acknowledged the authenticity. “My spouse mentioned, ‘Oh my God, it’s him. He’s actually good,’” Rutten recounted. Johnson had integrated the true Kerr’s bodily peculiarities, his speech patterns, his facial expressions.
The tip consequence speaks for itself. The Smashing Machine premiered on the Venice International Film Festival in September 2025, the place it received the Silver Lion for Finest Director. Critics praised Johnson’s stripped-down efficiency, however Rutten’s authenticity, his very presence as the person who really lived these occasions, added a documentary-like realism that elevated your complete movie. Slightly than watching an actor play a coach, audiences have been watching the precise coach mirror on a transformative second in each males’s lives.
The movie additionally options actual fighters like Ryan Bader who performed Mark Coleman, Oleksandr Usyk as Igor Vovchanchyn, and Satoshi Ishii for Enson Inoue. However Bas Rutten acquired to play Bas Rutten, the true coach of Mark Kerr.
Bas Rutten has coached many fighters, equivalent to Kimbo Slice, Mark Kerr, and others. He lately put collectively a exercise program the place anybody can prepare alongside the UFC Corridor of Fame athlete. The www.thefightingmachine.com contains a monitoring app, movies, audio, and far more.
