Our parents give us a lot, but sometimes we pick up the wrong lessons too. From his father, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson got his work ethic and showmanship, but he also learnt to close himself off – a lesson he has spent decades trying to unlearn.
“My father never said the words: ‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out,’” Johnson tells The National.
Maybe his father was afraid to show weakness. Johnson does not know for sure. They never had that kind of heart-to-heart. He was raised modestly, he says, and even though his father was the great professional wrestler Rocky Johnson, the fame didn’t match the image.
“I was an only child – a trailer park kid. And I did not grow up in an environment where my dad said: ‘Hey, if something’s on your heart, tell me about it. I got you now,’” says Johnson.
Following in his father’s footsteps, he became perhaps one of the most famous wrestlers and one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. But there’s always been a guardedness that’s held him back as both a man and an actor, and it’s something he’s worked hard to change.
“I’m a different man than I was a decade ago – a different father, a different husband and a different kind of actor as well,” says Johnson.
A big part of that has been admitting his failures, both personal and professional. He’s spent a lot of time thinking back to the man he was in his 20s and 30s, when he drove away the person closest to him.
“My lead foot has been being defensive,” he says. When he was in an argument, he couldn’t admit fault. Instead, all he could think was: “I’m trying to make my point to you.”
Johnson adds: “Eventually, what happens is you realise: ‘Wait a second. Let’s be real. I need some help. And I come to you with open arms, saying I don’t have the answer to this. Can you help me? Can you help me change my life?’”
That last entreaty – “can you help me?” – is the part he could never reach before.
“I never said that when I was a kid, or growing up, or in my 20s and 30s,” says Johnson, his voice catching. “And it eventually led to a divorce.”
Johnson split from Dany Garcia, the mother of his daughter Simone, in 2007. His career has only continued to rise since, in no small part because of Garcia herself, who remained by his side professionally and helped shape the next era of his film career.
This month, the two reunite again for Disney’s live-action remake of Moana. Garcia is a lead producer, while Johnson reprises his role as Maui, the demigod he first voiced in the 2016 animated film.
Maui’s trademark bravado is still on display, but his emotional scenes hit harder – particularly when Maui has to show weakness and admit he’s wrong. When performing those scenes, Johnson placed himself back emotionally in some of his hardest moments.
It’s a technique he also used on last year’s The Smashing Machine, a biopic of MMA fighter Mark Kerr. In one scene, Kerr is confronted by a friend after an overdose, which Kerr denies. According to Matt Damon, Johnson said his father’s alcoholism helped him understand the defensive, bargaining quality of Kerr’s denial.
But in Moana, he’s mining his own failures. When Maui can’t ask for help, he’s thinking back to those final moments, when he could still call Garcia his wife – when he couldn’t bring himself to admit fault and ask for help to get better.
He says it’s particularly important to him to show that honesty in a family film, where he can be a role model to young children, and give them the lesson he never received.
“My version of masculinity is that you can still be strong, but you should also be comfortable with being open and vulnerable, and asking for help,” he says.
In life, it’s a lesson he’s still learning. He quotes the lyrics to one of his favourite songs by country singer Allison Moorer: “I’m just looking for a soft place to fall,” he says. And even now, he’s still looking.
“I have a few folks around me – although I could count them on one hand and still have a few fingers left over – with whom I know that I’m protected. I can just open up and fall into a soft place.
“And even getting there – that’s where I’ve made the most growth in my life,” he adds.
His father died in 2020, so some conversations will never happen. With his second wife, Lauren Hashian, he's learnt to work through things rather than just argue, as he told Esquire.
With his young daughters, Jasmine, 10, and Tiana, eight, Johnson still has time to say the things he once needed to hear. And part of that has been letting the arms of his daughter Simone, now 24, become a soft place for him to fall.
“I’ve started coming to her more. I’ll say: ‘Hey, I’m nervous about this thing, and I don’t know how it’s going to shake out, and maybe I’m a little scared. Can you help me? Can we talk about this?’
“And man, things change just like that. It’s a powerful thing when men learn to ask for help.”
Moana is being released in cinemas across the Middle East on Thursday
