On this episode of the No Movie Faculty Podcast, GG Hawkins sits down with filmmaker and actor Benny Safdie to dig into his solo directorial characteristic, The Smashing Machine — a biopic‑adjoining portrait of UFC legend Mark Kerr starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt.
The dialog ranges from genesis tales and casting experiments to the heavy emotional labor behind staging home fights, and the way Benny’s twin id as actor-director shapes his method to reality in movie.
On this episode, we talk about:
- How the movie started as a handwritten letter and a classic sweater, and the shocking miscommunication that delayed the undertaking
- Benny’s need to make emotional scenes really feel like “digital actuality,” pushing the boundary between fiction and lived expertise
- His technique of breaking large scenes (fights, home battle) into overlapping sections for pacing, focus, and emotional veracity
- Working with first-time actors and actual athletes: adapting dialogue, rehearsal throughout casting, and honoring spontaneity
- The position of the rating (with Nala Sinefroo) as an “actor” within the movie, and the way Benny collaborates with musicians
- Enhancing whereas capturing, watching dailies, and carrying the movie in his thoughts from set to chop
- Struggles in balancing inventive work with private life, and the way pictures serves as a solitary inventive apply
- Recommendation for rising administrators: begin with one thing you intimately perceive earlier than attempting to overreach
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This episode of The No Movie Faculty Podcast was produced by GG Hawkins.
