For actor Dwayne Johnson, movie franchise Moana runs in his blood

SEOUL – Some parts end when the cameras stop. Maui – the role Dwayne Johnson plays in Disney’s Moana – is, the American actor will tell you, something closer to an inheritance.

“I don’t even consider him a character,” the 54-year-old said of the seafaring epic’s shape-shifting demigod, a part he first voiced a decade ago and now plays in the flesh. “I consider him just part of the culture and lore of Polynesian culture, so it just becomes very natural.”

Johnson, a former professional wrestling star known as The Rock, joined co-star Catherine Laga’aia and director Thomas Kail in fielding questions via live stream on June 29. The live-action remake lands a decade after the 2016 animated original, with Johnson reprising Maui and newcomer Laga’aia stepping into the title role.

Johnson is of Samoan descent and has long treated the role as a tribute to his late grandfather, Samoan high chief Peter Maivia – a man he lost at 10 years old and still counts among his heroes.

What he wanted to protect in the live-action version, Johnson said, was more than just the character’s bravado.

“I wanted the live-action version to embody his vulnerability,” he said. Just like in the animation, Maui is cheeky, full of ego, charming – his magical tattoos literally dance across his skin. But with real actors and real stakes, that swagger needed something to push against.

He pointed to Maui’s backstory – abandoned in the ocean as a baby – and the moment he finally lets that wound show.

“The one time he does show his vulnerability is by the influence of Moana,” Johnson said, “this young woman who has this uncanny ability to think so empathetically.”

Laga’aia, a 19-year-old Sydney native, shares Johnson’s Samoan roots. For her, though, the connection ran the other way. She grew up watching Moana and credits the character with shaping who she became.

“Getting to see and have that representation so young was definitely part of the reason I’ve grown up to be so much like her,” the Australian actress said. The ambition, the courage, the curiosity – “those are definitely traits that I see in myself and I see in her”.

The search for the lead took some digging. More than 32,000 candidates submitted tapes, American film-maker Kail said. Laga’aia’s was the one that made him sit up.

“She was singing How Far I’ll Go,” the 49-year-old recalled. “I just thought, oh, she understands. She understands that feeling of yearning, of being in one place and wanting to be somewhere else.”

This is the first feature for the Tony-winning director behind the Broadway musical Hamilton and the 2019 drama series Fosse/Verdon, and he did not pretend to have all the answers.

“(Catherine), this is my first movie,” he recalled telling Laga’aia. “And if there’s something that you don’t know, say you don’t know it. I’m going to say I don’t know it.”

That dynamic – a newcomer setting out on an uncharted course – mirrored a thread running through the film itself. Johnson, who has three daughters, said he found himself pulling for Laga’aia the same way.

“We felt like, let this young woman step on this set and do the scared thing,” he said. “The thing that’s really scary is to act in this film as a 17-year-old, and the film is called Moana. But do it completely, and we got your back.”

The message they hope lands, Kail said, comes from a line Gramma Tala gives Moana: There is nowhere you can go that I won’t be with you.

“We’re trying to honour the ancestors of those films, those who came before us,” he said. “We can go forth and we’re not alone, even in the moments when we feel that everybody has fled.” THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK