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@nytmag Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson is basically as famous as a person can get. Scheduling an interview with him is like trying to set up a coffee date with the king of England. After months of back and forth, the writer Sam Anderson visited his farm in Georgia. They were scheduled to talk for four hours but ended up talking for more than eight. The conversation did not end there. After the interview, Anderson started to receive voice memos and videos from Johnson: thoughts, stories, further questions. Hour after hour, text after text, the topic he and Johnson returned to was pain, a central theme of his new film “The Smashing Machine,” which tells the story of Mark Kerr, a former professional wrestler who swallowed so much pain it nearly killed him. To play him, @therock knew he’d need to tap into the reservoirs of his own life. He felt desperately ready to do so. Read the full story at the link in our bio. Photographs by @jackdavisonphoto.
