Dwayne Johnson on Maui Wig Memes & His Daughters Appearing in ‘Moana’ (Exclusive)

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Catherine “Katie” Laga’aia sat down with “Extra’s” Terri Seymour in Hawaii to dish on the new live-action “Moana.” 

Katie reacted to the honor of landing the role out of staggering 32,000 submissions. 

“That’s incredible that there are that many people who felt that powerful and that passionate about Moana… I think it’s such an honor to not only get to represent all of my culture, but those girls specifically who put themselves out there,” she said. “Unfortunately for them, they didn’t get the opportunity, but we kind of hope that ‘Moana’ will open doors for the rest of them in the hopes that they could come through and get their chance in the light.”

Johnson got to call Katie to give her the good news that she landed the role.

He shared, “I was honored to make that. I was so excited because, like, what an opportunity this is for Katie. The film is called ‘Moana’ and you take this massive film and everything that it encompasses and it’s going to go on these shoulders. And at that time, she was 17 when we were shooting. I know what I was doing at 17. I wasn’t being productive like Katie is.”

Dwayne also talked about the Maui wig and admitted the memes made him laugh! 

“Part of the legend of Maui, his hair is one of his superpowers and he’s proud of it,” Johnson said. “He’ll tell you how beautiful it is… He has beautiful stunning hair in the film. I was laughing, you know, when our first looks were coming out. The Internet does the Internet and they have a blast with it and they made me laugh with a lot of the memes and I appreciate it, but I knew. I was like, just give it time. The movie’s gonna come out. Everything will be okay.”

He added with a laugh, “The Internet Interneted on us.”

He also dished on how “beautiful” it was to have his daughters and mom appear in the movie. 

“I talked to [director] Tommy [Kail] about that just to think, ‘Hey, maybe is there somewhere where we could put them because this is this film is more than a movie. It’s culture. It’s representation. It’s our blood. It’s our pride. We share it with you and the world shares it together… It made me emotional because it’s my mom and it’s her granddaughters and it’s clearly generational… It was beautiful because, you know, life lifes, and our loved ones move on and they walk in the clouds and it was a beautiful moment, I think, to capture.”

“Moana” is in theaters July 10.