The Secret Behind Dwayne Johnson's Massive Weight Loss Transformation

Dwayne Johnson's transformation caught everyone off guard. The "Fast Five" star arrived at the Venice Film Festival to honor his film "The Smashing Machine," which he made with filmmaker Benny Safdie, rocking a considerably thinner physique than fans were used to seeing. The dramatic change generated as much buzz as it did theories, with a good chunk of netizens wondering if he slimmed down his frame for a movie role. It turned out that was exactly the case. Johnson confided that he was losing weight for a new film, "Lizard Music," where he'd be working with Safdie again, playing another character that was a strong departure from his action-hero persona.

As far as how he was shedding all of his pounds? The secret was actually pretty simple. Although nowadays many stars look different after taking Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs, Johnson seems to be getting skinnier in an old-fashioned way. "[It means] eating less chicken," he said at 2025's Toronto Film Festival (via Variety) about his weight loss journey. However, given everything Johnson eats in a day, other changes in his diet most likely needed to happen for him to downsize himself. But Johnson's embraced all of the changes that came with this new chapter in his career either way. When speaking about his role in "The Smashing Machine" to The Hollywood Reporter in 2025, the actor said, "This transformation was something I was really hungry to do." 

It's safe to say he must feel the same way about his and Sadfie's next project. And with his weight loss journey still far from over, Johnson might've meant he was hungry in the most literal sense.

It's not exactly the first time Dwayne Johnson sported a skinnier build. In fact, he abandoned a good chunk of muscle in an attempt to fit better on the big screen earlier in his career. At the time, he was following advice from voices that he trusted in the film industry while still trying to find himself as an actor. "I was told that I had to conform to a standard in Hollywood that would beget me more work, better roles," Johnson said in a 2014 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "Which meant I had to stop going to the gym, which meant I couldn't be as big, which meant you had to distance yourself from wrestling. You essentially had to deconstruct yourself." However, realizing this advice didn't work for him, Johnson went in another direction.

But the irony is that he might be getting even smaller than he was back in the mid-to-late 2000s. In the pic from the Venice International Film Festival's red carpet in 2025, it's clear he'd already lost a great deal of mass, even with the grey suit he was wearing. A blazer has never quite engulfed the "Faster" star quite like it did in the photo. At the same time, Johnson still retained muscle; it was just more compact. The size marked another attempt by Johnson to reinvent his career and reject expectations. "A lot of times, it's harder for us, or at least for me, sometimes to know what you're capable of when you've been pigeon-holed into something," he'd said in 2025 per CNN. It seems by getting smaller, Johnson planned on becoming even more larger-than-life.