This story is taken from the Freedom issue of LOVE magazine. Order a copy here.

I’m not a cinephile. I’m not even a casual film lover. But when I got an email asking me if I wanted to chat with director Benny Safdie about his new project, The Smashing Machine (2025), I was intrigued. The New York filmmaker has had a compelling career dating back to 2009. In collaboration with his brother Josh, the duo wrote and directed several critically acclaimed films that cemented their scrappy, frenetic, and fast-paced style. The look and feel are created using handheld cameras, close-ups, and moody scores that swell and contract at precisely the right moments. New York City is the backdrop, if not a main character, for Daddy Longlegs (2009), Heaven Knows What (2014), Good Time (2017), and Uncut Gems (2019).

He acts, too; he has played a manipulative television producer in Nathan Fielder’s The Curse (2023), Edward Teller, the “father of the hydrogen bomb” in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023), and a fictionalized version of former Los Angeles city councilman Joel Wachs in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (2021). Off camera, he is generous and upbeat, an artist who seems genuinely excited to go to work every day.

Safdie has a knack for taking well-known, recognizable actors who might be pigeon-holed by casting directors and giving them the kinds of roles they haven’t had the opportunity to play yet. That trusting tendency pays off in his newest film with Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt in The Smashing Machine, based on the real story of MMA wrestler Mark Kerr through his championship wins, struggles with addiction, and complicated marriage. Typical of a Safdie film, The Smashing Machine explores the emotional blast radius of a man’s anxious breakdown. I spoke to Safdie about balancing your life, being honest about what you want, doing what excites you, and the freedom that can come from uncertainty.

CHRIS BLACK When did you first come across Mark Kerr’s story?

BENNY SAFDIE Dwayne [ Johnson, aka “The Rock”] reached out about the documentary (The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr, 2002), and he wanted to make it into a movie. I remember watching the documentary and being so enamored with Mark as a character because he was so flawed, but he was trying hard. I just fell in love with him, and I could sense that Dwayne was attached to the same things I was. I knew there was a reason he wanted to tell this story that's deep inside of him, and I just knew we could work together.

There was something about that world, specifically early mixed martial arts—it was no man's land. And on top of that, there was this deep brotherhood and love that they had for each other, even though they were beating the crap out of one another. I had done boxing, where you get punched in the face, but at the end, you're like, thank you. That was the best. There’s a level of closeness that only the other person in the ring with you understands. It's an amazing connection. That is an element I've always wanted to explore, and I've been col - lecting all this information. All the stuff in the locker room, all the jokes and the brotherhood, but then also just being in this world where you've gone and you're trying to figure out how to balance your life while you're doing these things that take your time. Everybody can relate to that. And if your significant other doesn't do the thing that you're doing, how do you bring them into your world and make them feel part of it? Because I've failed at that myself.

CB We all have. It’s a universal theme.

BS When you start hearing some of the things that you say, you're like, oh, my God, I can't believe I said that. I remember bringing Dwayne and Emily together and saying, "We're going to talk about all of this stuff that we've said in arguments and in moments where we felt completely embarrassed afterwards, so that, when the time comes, we'll be comfortable saying this stuff around one another.

CB I was addicted to OxyContin for years, and there's a scene where Dwayne is sitting on the couch, it's in the morning, and he's gotten up be - fore her. [He has] that look on his face and the way he's touching himself. I thought: this is scarily accurate. I have been there.

BS It’s intense —that’s what I wanted to show. It's the struggle with addiction and then actually overcoming it, but also how it affects everybody around you. I didn't want it to be the classic thing. He's just kind of zoned out, and yet it bothers her. She doesn't want to see that from him, and he's trying to hide it. He doesn't think he's showing it. There's a lot that I think is important to show because it's not his fault. He was in pain, and he needed to stop it. And then it gets out of control, and it's tough to overcome that. And then, once you've overcome it, it can be tough for the other person to adjust because they've known you one way, and then they've to deal with a completely different person.

There was a line I wrote, and I felt terrible writing it: "Just because you have been better for twenty-one days doesn't make you better than me." I’ve felt that before, and that's not a nice thing to think. But people think it! You have to put that in there.

CB It sounds like you need to be, maybe honest is the wrong word, but —

BS No, that's exactly the right word. I said, “I want to make the most honest sports movie.” To understand empathy, I made a shirt for everybody at the end of the movie with Radical Empath”(2022) on it. The idea behind it is, I want to know what it feels like to be Mark Kerr. The struggles, the happiness, everything. When he steps in the ring, you not only feel the pressure to perform with the person in front of you, but the weight of everything that he's had to deal with just to get into the ring. When he gets in there with Igor for the first time after he's had that fight in the locker room, you're like, how can [he] even concentrate?

It wasn't just the fighting that I wanted to be realistic. I wanted the verbal fighting to be realistic. I wanted the things that they say to each other to be pointed and have the viewer think oh, I've said stuff like that. I've argued about that before. I realized that I had to shoot it the same way that I shot the fights. One of the things that I talked about with Dwayne was It's a Wonderful Life (1946). That was a huge inspiration for this movie, George Bailey.

His whole dream is to go see the world, but when he goes to meet his brother at the train station, the guy says, “Did you hear the good news? Your brother got this big job and he's going to leave Bedford Falls.” And George Bailey knows that means he's going to have to stay, and he gets destroyed. And then it's one shot where it follows him, Jimmy Stewart, as he goes back to the crowd, and he turns his face from being devastated to smiling and putting on the front for everybody. I said, "That's Mark Kerr. And I know, Dwayne, that you felt this before, where you've had something going on and you've had to hide it away for the benefit of other people. That's what we're going to look at in this movie."

CB It’s oddly relatable, and someone in the spotlight has to deal with it even more. If you're out in public, you have to put on a protective face no matter what.

BS You can't be upset at a certain point. Then, with addiction and struggling to overcome that, it's a shift in perspective in life. And that's what happens in It’s a Wonderful Life. Nothing changes except his outlook. That's something that I think is important to show and embolden in people.

CB You started out in New York City, where there is a particular kind of drive and savviness built into the experience.

BS If you're living in New York, you have to figure out how to get something done on your own. When I was in high school, I could do stand-up. I could work through whatever it was.

CB For better or worse, you were able to do stand-up. That sort of thing is available to everyone.

BS Exactly. Again, there are a lot of forced interactions in New York that are very important. In LA, you can create a bubble, although not everyone does. There's something about New York.

CB I want to talk about the film business at large. Though I think of you as a New York guy, I wonder if or how the broader industry shift away from Los Angeles impacts you as a filmmaker?

BS I was never really in the LA world. I've made movies out there, but only as an actor. I would go out there and attend those meetings and think oh, great meeting. Let's do that again. But that was always anchored by the fact that there was production. But then again, they call New Mexico Tamale-wood.

CB New Mexico is such a beautiful part of America. Santa Fe is one of the most special places we have. The discussion about Hollywood is interesting because now all box office data is publicly available. It's funny to me to hear people talking about openings like, "Well, it did this much in China," as though it is fantasy sports. Do those commercial pressures take away from film as an art form?

BS That’s where I've been lucky to be able to do things that I want to do. That's all that's pushing me forward—when I think, I really want to see that myself.

CB You guys came out of the gate and set a tone of "This is what we do. If you want us, you get us." It was very clear.

BS Early on, when we were doing commercials to get by, it was like, these guys know how to do it for as cheap as possible, and they're going to make it work. I recently found the budget I put together for something, and I was like, oh, my God, I could have charged an astronomical amount. We were just so excited to have the job.

CB There’s always somebody who's going to do it better and cheaper.

BS Yes. [When it comes to] the fast, cheap, good thing, I was like, we could do it all!

CB You’ve had a unique career in terms of the choices you’ve been able to make. A lot of people just aren't in that position.

BS There has to be something I want to learn from the experience. I have to think, this may not be the thing you expect me to do, but it's something that excites me.

CB This issue is about freedom, and to me, you've described it already.

BS Yeah, that is it. It's moving where you want to go, doing what it is you want to do. If you're willing to take the responsibility, then you can be freer. There's just something about relying on yourself that means I know it has to be done by this time, I'm going to make sure I get it done. And as long as I do that, great. I can mess around and do whatever I want. It's very freeing to have that kind of mindset. If I do this, [it] allows me this, and I like how this is making my life feel. You're orchestrating your life, and there's freedom there. That's why, at the very beginning, I have this period where I can be free to think of new ideas, and it's without that pressure.

CB I can tell from talking to you because I've seen things in the press that make you think oh, these motherfuckers did not have fun doing this. They do not like each other! When people make records or any kind of creative pursuit where you're locked in with a group of people, you can tell whether the experience was good or not.

BS What was cool about working with Nala Sinephro on the score was that she's a jazz musician, so we'd put scenes on that they'd play to, and they'd just play for 30 to 40 minutes. I was like, this is a whole other form of something.

CB I’ve been in a lot of recording studios, and sometimes, I'm just blown away. And I think, I can't believe that a person I know can do this.

BS Exactly, and I also went in knowing that she's never made a score before, so I'm going to be okay with things not being exactly what I wanted, and that's a type of freedom. I'm not going to be able to micromanage this. I'm going to give vibes and ideas, but whatever happens happens. That's a scary kind of freedom, but that freedom is the greatest because there are things she did where I was like, oh, my God, I could never have thought of that in a million years.

CB That’s the trust part of it. Knowing that I don't understand what someone is going to do, but I have to trust it's going to a place that serves the film.

BS Yeah, sometimes I don't know... And that's great!

Hair NERO at MA+GROUP, Makeup JEZZ HILL at CLM, Set Design ERIC MESTMAN at MHS, Photography Assistants MATT BAFFA, and BRANDON JONES, Fashion Assistant MERVE ELTEMUR, Hair Assistant OLIVIA MAIRÉAD, Post Production IMAGINE, Production NORTH SIX

Video

Post Production AVENUES, Edit THOMAS GOLDSER, Colour JOHN LAYTON