Accompanying the live-action Moana trailer’s, er, mixed reception, Dwayne Johnson has talked about the wig he shares the screen with. When nothing quite looks real, there’s a tendency to assume that everything is fake. That’s our excuse, anyway, for assuming that Dwayne Johnson’s performance in the live-action Moana remake is almost entirely CGI. In the ... Moana | Dwayne Johnson says it took two hours to apply his Maui wig and prosthetics
Accompanying the live-action Moana trailer’s, er, mixed reception, Dwayne Johnson has talked about the wig he shares the screen with.
When nothing quite looks real, there’s a tendency to assume that everything is fake. That’s our excuse, anyway, for assuming that Dwayne Johnson’s performance in the live-action Moana remake is almost entirely CGI.
In the trailer that Disney uploaded to the internet yesterday, Johnson’s appearance as the hulking demigod Maui was so jarring that your humble writer initially thought that it looked like the actor’s face pasted onto a computer-generated body.
Instead, Johnson and Moana director Thomas Kail have explained, Maui’s look was achieved with a physical wig and a huge, prosthetic muscle suit, complete with tattoos.
(Interestingly, there was a rumour last year that Disney had experimented with AI to put Johnson’s face on the body of another actor. Thankfully, those plans appear to have been dropped.)
You might be wondering why Johnson, already an imposing figure, would even need to wear a muscle suit. According to his interview with Entertainment Weekly, it’s because of the work he was doing on Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, which asked him to gain weight, and Safdie’s next film, Lizard Music, which required him to lose it.
“Maui was a big guy, and I couldn’t lose the weight because when you lose weight, you lose it here,” Johnson told EW, pointing to his throat. “I couldn’t have a big bodysuit and then a small little skinny neck. Forty, 50 pounds is a lot to put on. Then it’s a lot to maintain for months… It was gruelling because of the suit and how hot it was.”
According to Johnson, it took two hours to put on the body suit – not to mention that huge, luxuriant wig, which has already generated a number of memes online. More on those shortly.
Of that wig, director Thomas Kail said that the wig needed to “have real lift to it” because of the amount of filming on water that took place.
“Because you’re doing this on the water, ‘what does it look like wet?’ is a real conversation when you’re making Moana,” Kail said. “That one weighs seven pounds more with all the water in it for all those hours a day.”
We don’t quite understand why filming on water meant that Maui has to look like TV star and interior designer Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen when he’s standing on dry land, but then we’re not Hollywood filmmakers.
Elsewhere, Johnson said that it was initially assumed that the hair and tattooed muscles would be achieved with visual effects; instead, makeup designer Joel Harlow was drafted in to create the bodysuit, which weighed 40 pounds and took two hours to apply.
“There was an idea that maybe we were gonna do this whole thing with visual effects, body and everything,” Johnson said, “but then there’s also a tactile, emotional resonance when it’s a real bodysuit. It moves and breathes with you. So we thought the best iteration of this was, let’s go for it, let’s challenge Joel, and he rose to the occasion.”
Presumably, a bit of CGI touch-up was done to hide the joins around the neck and wrists, as there are definitely moments in the trailer that look rather digital.
Johnson’s wig has become a major topic of conversation since the trailer launched yesterday. King Charles I’s name has been mentioned more than once. Some have compared the live-action Moana to a Saturday Night Live sketch.
Over on YouTube, the trailer has been watched over two million times. Beneath, there are repeated questions as to why an animated classic needs to be subjected to yet another eerily pristine-looking remake.
“Surprised I don’t see the Sora AI watermark anywhere” reads one comment.
“This makes me want to sit on my TV and look at my couch,” reads another.
Despite mixed reviews, these remakes are big business for Disney; Lilo & Stitch made a billion dollars last year. Despite the grousing about wigs, Moana will likely do similar numbers.
Moana is in cinemas from the 10th July 2026. Dwayne Johnson’s wig declined to comment.
