Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson reprises his role as Maui in Disney’s live-action Moana remake, which required yet another drastic change to his physique.
Johnson, 53, caused a stir in September when he appeared on the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival, looking slimmer than the former pro wrestler-turned-action star had ever looked in public. On Monday morning, Johnson looked drastically different yet again when Disney released the new Moana trailer. Johnson told Entertainment Weekly that maintaining his Maui body—and the body suit the portrayal required—was “grueling.”
In the film franchise, Johnson voices and will next play on-screen the muscular “demigod” who helps Moana restore the heart of Te Fiti and save her family and island home. The character’s oversized body posed a complication for the star, who is between films that require very different looks.
Last year, he’d bulked up for his first dramatic starring role in The Smashing Machine, a biopic about UFC fighter Mark Kerr, and then slimmed down again to star as a much thinner septuagenarian character in Lizard Music.
“I couldn’t have a big bodysuit and then a small little skinny neck,” Johnson told the site. His demigod Disney character required him to look particularly buff once again, just four weeks after filming Smashing Machine, for which he gained 40 pounds, and during prep for Lizard Music, for which he must lose 50 pounds. “Forty, 50 pounds is a lot to put on,” he explained. “Then it’s a lot to maintain for months.”
Filming Moana “was grueling because of the suit and how hot it was. Wait till you see pictures. In between takes, there’s literally five, six people” holding fans, “opening me up, pulling my hair back.” Johnson said the production opted for a bodysuit over effects for the “tactile, emotional resonance.”
“It moves and breathes with you,” he added. “So we thought the best iteration of this was, let’s go for it.”
Johnson was asked about his slimmed-down look last year in an interview with CBS Mornings, where he joked that he looked “svelte” to prepare for a role.
“I had to transform my body, which was a massive challenge for me,” he also said, discussing his role in Smashing Machine. “I like working out and just being physical and sweating every morning.”
As for Moana, it’s the first time Disney has released a live-action version of an animated film only ten years after the original. The film’s animated sequel, Moana 2, broke Disney’s box office record for an animated film, grossing $389 million for the company. The first film broke streaming records years after its 2019 box-office run, becoming the #1 most-streamed movie in the U.S. in both 2022 and 2023, according to Nielsen.
Johnson discussed the pressure of “honoring” the first film with Entertainment Weekly on Monday: “How do you say ‘We love it too,’ and make it something that can be a companion and not try to be the same thing, but also trust what works?”
He explained, “The opportunity to have flesh and blood and have human beings tell the story and sing these songs and be in this world, there’s something so fundamentally different about that experience of watching and feeling that.”
The film is set to release on July 10, 2026.
