How The Rock transformed his body -- and mind -

SITTING IN A Beverly Hills hotel room during one of multiple media junkets, Dwayne Johnson spent nearly three minutes explaining how he morphed his mind and body into Mark Kerr for "The Smashing Machine" when he turned to the MMA pioneer and asked: "How did I do, by the way?"

Kerr opted for an anecdote. His son, Bryce, saw the film in New York a couple of months ago. He immediately called Kerr afterward and began whispering his thoughts, almost afraid to admit what he had seen.

"'Dad, he walks like you. He looks like you. He talks like you.' It was just [this] whole narrative of the confirmation of his transformation into somebody other than Dwayne Johnson," Kerr told ESPN and other reporters during a media roundtable last month. "It was this, you know, validation of a third party going