It has been a year since a highly popular Disney movie Moana came out, but, nonetheless, it seems that there are still some details we haven’t known about this film. Namely, only a couple of days ago, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, who plays one of the main roles in the movie, decided to share with fans who was the inspiration for his character, Maui, a legendary demigod.
In case you haven’t watched this one, or you happen to have forgotten what it is about, here’s a quick reminder. The movie revolves around a young and brave girl Moana who tries to save her people and to reunite a mystical relic with a goddess, with the help of the previously mentioned demigod Maui.
Moana’s Maui VS @TheRock‘s literal actual grandfather pic.twitter.com/di1Hf4GlzF
— Anthony Oliveira (@meakoopa) October 3, 2017
Even though Johnson was the one to give his voice to this character, there is no physical resemblance between the two. In fact, there seems to be nothing in particular that connects the actor and the character, at least not at first sight. Nonetheless, we have just found out that Maui is closer to The Rock than any one of us could have imagined – Dwayne Johnson replied in a tweet that Maui was inspired no less but by his own grandfather. “a lil’ @Disney gem of a secret, my character Maui was partly inspired by my late grandfather, High Chief Peter Maivia of Samoa. #grateful,” the actor explained.
a lil’ @Disney gem of a secret, my character Maui was partly inspired by my late grandfather, High Chief Peter Maivia of Samoa. #grateful https://t.co/VQgj8hJIcS
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) October 3, 2017
Just like actor himself, Johnson’s grandfather was also a wrestler, and he even won championships in the South Pacific and Hawaii before coming to the United States in 1970. He started his wrestling career back in the early 1960s. According to WWE, Peter Maivia “was very popular, and well-known partially because of the tribal tattoos that adorned his body; the ink was indicative of his status as a Samoan High Chief, a tradition that would later be carried on by his grandson, The Rock.”
