When Benny Safdie began casting for The Smashing Machine, the indie director confronted an fascinating drawback: who performs Bas Rutten? In any case, it’s one factor asking an actor to painting a well-known fighter – Dwayne Johnson did exactly that with Mark Kerr. But it surely’s fairly one other asking that very fighter to primarily play himself, one thing Rutten himself discovered much more sophisticated than it might sound on the floor.
Bas Rutten Discovered Performing Lesson the Exhausting Approach – Being Your self on Digital camera Isn’t Simple
The UFC Corridor of Famer stepped into his youthful self on set, becoming a member of Johnson and Emily Blunt for the movie primarily based 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 profession. 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 more durable than you assume. He’s a colourful man and that’s fortunately on my conduct and I can’t do this stuff however nonetheless it’s… I at all times evaluate it to individuals. Should you’re a troublesome man and also you’re strolling on the seashore and there’s a bunch of six women standing there, lovely women, all of them cease speaking, they begin you, begin strolling totally different. You begin behaving totally different, you already know, since you now grow to be self-conscious. That’s the one factor I used to be afraid of in that.”
The analogy cuts to the guts of a common human expertise, self-awareness tends to destroy authenticity. When you already know you’re being watched, when the cameras are rolling and a crew is standing by, even essentially the most pure character finds itself second-guessing. Rutten, El Guapo, the colourful character identified for his irreverent humor and larger-than-life presence in MMA circles, nervous he’d fall into precisely that entice, changing into virtually a caricature of himself fairly than capturing his real essence from that period.
Safdie’s method, nonetheless, differed dramatically from what Rutten may need anticipated. Somewhat than locked-in scripting, the director gave his topic respiratory room. He continued:
“All of the scenes that I had, after all, there was a script, however Benny Safdie mentioned, ‘Dude, it’s you. Simply comply with the rules, make it your personal. Do what you’ll do.’ So, all these scenes that you just noticed, there have been some extra scenes that merely weren’t used. Should you actually train him and he’s actually paying consideration, since I’ve been educating my entire life, that made it a lot simpler.”
Safdie understood one thing essential, making an attempt to bottle lightning by having an actor recite each line exactly would possibly 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 educating 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 via Kerr’s world – the identical manner he’d coached the actual 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 actual Kerr’s bodily peculiarities, his speech patterns, his facial expressions.
The tip outcome speaks for itself. The Smashing Machine premiered on the Venice Worldwide Movie Pageant in September 2025, the place it gained the Silver Lion for Greatest 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 the whole movie. Somewhat than watching an actor play a coach, audiences had 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 actual coach of Mark Kerr.
Bas Rutten has coached many fighters, reminiscent of Kimbo Slice, Mark Kerr, and others. He not too long ago 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 way more.
