Dwayne Johnson, 30 Pounds Lighter, Becomes the 70-Year-Old 'Chicken Man'

Dwayne Johnson has shed 30 pounds of muscle to play a 70-year-old known as the Chicken Man in "Lizard Music," and the first set photos from Brooklyn show just how far that transformation goes.

The images, taken Tuesday, show Johnson in a tan bucket hat and coat, holding a slice of pizza and walking alongside young co-star Theo Clark Leber, who carries an oversized lizard plush. The film is directed by Benny Safdie, the "Uncut Gems" co-director who previously steered Johnson through 2025's "The Smashing Machine."

That earlier collaboration required Johnson to bulk into MMA fighter Mark Kerr under heavy prosthetics. This time the mechanism runs the other way: instead of adding mass, he stripped it off. At a career retrospective talk at the 2025 Toronto Film Festival, Johnson said the role took some sacrifice: "[It means] eating less chicken."

Who built the look?

Prosthetics artist Kazu Hiro designed Johnson's elderly features. Hiro just turned Tom Cruise into a geriatric oil baron for the project "Digger," making him the current go-to for de-aging in reverse — aging stars decades beyond their real appearance.

Johnson made clear the physical toll was part of the appeal. "I'm so excited to get a chance to hopefully transform again like I was able to do in 'Smashing Machine,'" he said at Toronto.

What is 'Lizard Music' about?

The film adapts Daniel Pinkwater's children's book of the same name. According to the official logline, it follows a young boy who "stumbles upon strange lizard musicians on late-night TV, leading him to befriend a peculiar man with an elderly chicken."

The cast stacks up beyond Johnson and Leber:

• Rachel McAdams
• Colman Domingo
• David Krumholtz
• Jeff Goldblum
• Alicia Silverstone
• Regina Hall

What does this change for Johnson's career path?

It confirms his pivot toward director-driven, transformation-heavy projects rather than franchise action. Johnson said Safdie needed only "about 45 minutes" of convincing to get his yes — a striking turnaround for a star who has spent two decades headlining blockbusters on his own physique.

Amazon MGM Studios will release "Lizard Music" on Christmas Day 2027, giving Hiro's prosthetics and Safdie's family-story oddity a prime holiday slot.