J.K. Simmons is a ripped Santa Claus in Dwayne Johnson’s Red One

When it was first announced that Dwayne Johnson would be starring in a Christmas action movie, some believed that the actor might be playing the one and only Santa Claus, but that wasn’t the case. It was later revealed that J.K. Simmons would be playing Santa in Red One, and it looks like he got absolutely jacked to play the role.

Dwayne Johnson shared a handful of images of J.K. Simmons as Santa Claus in Red One on his Instagram, and the actor is looking ripped. Check those images out below.

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“Ladies, gentlemen & children of all ages.. the coolest, strongest, kindest, most bad ass, most loving & most OG Santa Claus of all time,” Dwayne Johnson wrote in the caption. “Brought to life by Academy Award winner, J.K. Simmons who worked his ass off for months to step into this iconic role in AMAZING SHAPE for our Christmas franchise film,
RED ONE. We’re having a BLAST and so will you and your families when you see our movie!!” We still don’t know exactly what Red One is all about, but Johnson has previously teased that it’s “Jumanji meets Miracle on 34th St. meets Hobbs & Shaw, with a dash of Harry Potter and sprinkled on top with my all time favorite Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life.” Make of that what you will.

In addition to Dwayne Johnson and J.K. Simmons, Red One also stars Chris Evans, Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Liu, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Nick Kroll, Kristofer Hibvju, and Bonnie Hunt. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle director Jake Kasdan is helming Red One from a script by Chris Morgan based on an original story from Hiram Garcia. The film has previously been described as “a globe-trotting, four-quadrant action-adventure comedy, imagining a whole new universe to explore within the holiday genre.” J.K. Simmons has typically always been in pretty good shape, but he does hit the gym pretty hard from time to time. He got notably ripped prior to filming his role of Commissioner James Gordon in Justice League, which damn near blew up the internet.

Red One doesn’t have an official release date yet, but it’s expected to be released exclusively as an Amazon Prime Video original movie during the 2023 holiday season.