It’s no secret that the Moana films are close to the heart of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The movies from Disney have allowed the multi-hyphenate to be loud and proud about his Polynesian culture in a big way. But I just learned more about how the live-action Moana allowed The Rock to connect to the “complicated relationship” he had with his late father, Rocky Johnson, as well.
For the live-action Moana movie, Johnson had the opportunity to co-write and sing a sweet song called “Your Dad” for the Moana: Voices of the Ocean album. It’s a sweet track that shows the warmth of being a father. Here’s what The Rock said about the song to SiriusXM:
I had a complicated relationship with my dad, and what you find is you work hard to — I don’t want to make my dad’s decisions…. I want to learn from those mistakes. But then you also realize just as a dude, as a man, as you get older and you have kids of your own, it’s like, ‘Man, there are just some things in my dad’s DNA that I can’t escape.’ And you know what? Maybe that’s a good thing, because he did teach me these things about hard work and he raised me with a hard hand and a tough hand and all these things.
The Rock’s dad was a pioneering Canadian professional wrestler who won multiple championships in his heyday. The movie star looked up to his dad growing up, and clearly was inspired by him when it came to his own career. But at the same time, as Dwayne Johnson has detailed in the past, he was also very tough on him.
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“Your Dad” offers a supportive message to Johnson’s three daughters that perhaps he never heard from his own father, who died in 2020 at the age of 75. As he added:
But when you had mentioned that to me about how moved you were by the song that I sang but you wish your dad had said those things to you, but you said, ‘But I know he feels it.’ Oh, that was just moving that he feels it, because like my dad of those generations — my dad didn’t know how to say, ‘Hey, come here. I want you to know how much I love you. I love you, and I’m so proud of you.’ I never got that, you know.
It sounds like writing and performing the song was cathartic for Dwayne Johnson, who’s trying to learn from his late father now that he’s a dad himself. Johnson has a 25-year-old named Simone, a 10-year-old named Jasmine and an 8-year-old named Tiana. You can check out the song “Your Dad” below:
The Moana-inspired album isn’t the first time The Rock has confronted his relationship with his dad. Joseph Lee Anderson also played Rocky Johnson in his autobiographical sitcom on NBC, Young Rock, which was on for three seasons. Johnson’s relationship with his father has clearly been an important aspect of his life that he’s felt compelled to explore through his work, and knowing how it’s connected to Moana is something I didn’t realize.
The live-action Moana hit theaters last month to tons of reactions calling it “unnecessary”, and the movie made just $293.7 million worldwide against a reported $250 million budget. Despite the flop, The Rock has stood by the live-action movie because it allowed a Polynesian cast to be front-and-center on the big screen. And, without it, “Your Dad” may have never had a reason to come to fruition.
What sweet, vulnerable words from Johnson! Next, he has the new Jumanji movie coming out on Christmas Day among other upcoming The Rock movies.