Nominations for the 98th Academy Awards celebrating the best in film, makeup, and special effects are here. But Dwayne Johnson is nowhere to be found for A24’s The Smashing Machine.
Johnson pivoted away from his usual role (that many joke is just The Rock). For The Smashing Machine, he was stripped back, raw, real. It’s a far cry from what anyone is used to seeing from him. Early reviews praised the actor’s Oscar-worthy performance. He tested his limits, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to earn him a Best Actor nomination.
The category is stacked this year, with Timothée Chalamet clutching his second consecutive Best Actor nomination, this time for Marty Supreme. Leonardo DiCaprio is nominated for One Battle After Another, Michael B. Jordan for Sinners, Ethan Hawke for Blue Moon and Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent.
The Smashing Machine Earns a single Oscar nomination
Despite Johnson and his screen partner Emily Blunt not earning nominations for their performances, the film did earn a single nomination: Best Makeup and Hairstyling. This of course includes Johnson’s transformation into the MMA legend Mark Kerr. The film is up against Frankenstein, Sinners and The Ugly Stepsister.
The snub follows the film bombing at the box office, which The Rock addressed after its opening weekend. The Smashing Machine earned about $21 million in the worldwide box office against a budget of $40-$50 million.
“In our storytelling world, you can’t control box office results,” he wrote on Instagram. “But what I realized you can control is your performance, and your commitment to completely disappear and go elsewhere.”
“I will always run to that opportunity,” he continued. “It was my honor to transform in this role for my director Benny Safdie.”
Catch the live broadcast on Sunday, March 15 at 7 p.m. ET on ABC.
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