Best Of: Dwayne Johnson / Comic Cristela Alonzo

Fresh Air

NPR

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.4 • 34.4K Ratings

🗓️ 11 October 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

WWE superstar Dwayne Johnson plays MMA fighter Mark Kerr in Benny Safdie's The Smashing Machine. "The Rock" spoke with Terry Gross about the role, his many injuries, and his wrestling personas.

For the first seven years of her life, Cristela Alonzo lived in an abandoned diner in a south Texas border town. She spoke with Terry Gross about the culture shock of having money after growing up so poor and the recent ICE raids in L.A. Her new Netflix stand-up special is called Upper Classy.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
0:05.4	RWJF is a national philanthropy, working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right.
0:12.1	Learn more at RWJF.org.
0:16.2	From W.H.Y.Y. in Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with Fresh Air Weekend. Today, Dwayne Johnson,
0:23.8	a.k.a. The Rock. At one time, he thought of leaving wrestling for mixed martial arts.
0:29.2	He decided against it, but in the new movie, The Smashing Machine, he plays a pioneer of M.MA.
0:35.5	Wrestling may be choreographed, but...
0:37.9	In professional wrestling, it is always and only real blood, and that's the truth.
0:43.8	Also, comic and actor Christella Alonzo, she grew up poor in a Texas border town.
0:49.2	Until she was seven, her family squatted in an abandoned diner.
0:53.1	Until she was 10, her mother, a Mexican immigrant, was undocumented.
0:57.8	I grew up in a mixed status family.
0:59.6	If you guys don't know what that is, that means that half of us were documented.
1:03.4	Half of us were undocumented, and we're not telling you which one's which.
1:08.9	Alonzo has a new Netflix comedy special.
1:12.8	Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
1:17.8	RWJF is a national philanthropy, working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege,
1:23.6	but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org.
1:28.3	This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Dwayne Johnson, is a wrestling star,
1:34.0	known in the ring as The Rock. He's won eight WWE championships, and he's a movie star.
1:41.0	His new movie, which he produced and stars in, is a perfect fit in which he gets
1:45.2	to use his muscles, his fighting ability, and to show what a good and nuanced actor he can be,
	...

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