When Benny Safdie started casting The crushing machinethe indie director faced an interesting problem: who plays Bas Rutten? After all, it’s one thing to ask an actor to play a famous fighter – Dwayne Johnson did just that with Mark Kerr. But it’s another thing entirely to ask that same fighter to essentially play himself, something Rutten himself found far more complicated than it might seem at first glance.
Bas Rutten learned the acting lesson the hard way: being yourself in front of the camera is not easy
The UFC Hall of Famer stepped into his younger self on set and competed Johnson and Emily Blunt for the film based on the 2002 HBO documentary about Kerr’s turbulent rise and fall in MMA in the late 1990s. Rutten originally appeared in that documentary, coaching Kerr at a pivotal moment in the fighter’s career career. Now, 25 years later, he was asked to re-enact those scenes, but this is where things got tricky.
Exclusive speaking interview with Tim Wheaton he explained:
“They always say, ‘Oh, just play yourself.’ Playing yourself is harder than you think. He is a colorful man and fortunately that is due to my behavior. I can’t do these things, but still it’s… I always compare it to people. If you are a tough guy and you are walking on the beach and there is a group of six girls, beautiful girls, they all stop talking, they look at you and they start walking differently. You start behaving differently, you know, because you become self-conscious now. That’s the only thing I was afraid of.”
The analogy goes to the heart of a universal human experience; self-consciousness tends to ruin authenticity. When you know you’re being watched, when the cameras are rolling and a crew is ready, even the most natural personality hesitates. Rutten, El Guapo, the colorful personality known for his irreverent humor and larger-than-life presence in MMA circles, was afraid he would fall into that exact trap and almost become a caricature of himself instead of capturing his true essence from that era.
However, Safdie’s approach differed dramatically from what Rutten had expected. Instead of stuck scripting, the director gave his subject breathing space. He continued:
“For all the scenes I had, there was obviously a script, but Benny Safdie said, ‘Dude, it’s you. Just follow the guidelines, make it your own. Do what you would do.’ So with all these scenes that you saw, there were still some scenes that just weren’t used. When you actually teach him and he really pays attention, since I’ve been teaching all my life, it made it so much easier.”
Safdie understood something crucial: Trying to quell the lightning by having an actor recite each line precisely might work for traditional scripts, but with Rutten, authenticity required freedom. The script became scaffolding, not scripture.
On set, Rutten described an experience where his coaching job essentially continued, only with the cameras rolling. “For me, it was literally like teaching DJing. I got goosebumps every time I was on set,” he recalls. Johnson’s dedication to the role meant that Rutten did not have to perform alongside a stilted performance. He sincerely coached Johnson through the world of Kerr – the same way he had coached the real Kerr decades earlier.
Johnson’s dedication to the role went beyond performance. The actor had studied Kerr’s mannerisms so thoroughly that Rutten’s wife immediately recognized the authenticity. “My wife said, ‘Oh my God, it’s him. He’s really good,'” Rutten said. Johnson had incorporated the real Kerr’s physical quirks, his speech patterns and his facial expressions.
The end result speaks for itself. The crushing machine premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in September 2025, where it won the Silver Lion for Best Director. Critics praised Johnson’s stripped-down performance, but Rutten’s authenticity, and his very presence as the man who actually lived through these events, added a documentary-like realism that elevated the entire film. Instead of watching an actor play a coach, the audience watched the actual coach reflect on a transformative moment in both men’s lives.
The film also features real fighters such as Ryan Bader who played Mark Coleman, Oleksandr Usyk as Igor Vovchanchyn and Satoshi Ishii for Enson Inoue. But Bas Rutten was allowed to play against Bas Rutten, the real coach of Mark Kerr.
Bas Rutten has coached many fighters, such as Kimbo Slice, Mark Kerr and others. He recently put together a training program where anyone can train alongside the UFC Hall of Fame athlete. The www.thefightingmachine.com features a tracking app, videos, audio and much more.
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