The latest trailer of disney live action moana It arrived yesterday, bringing our best look yet at David Johnson like the demigod Maui. To no one’s surprise, the character is very similar to how he appears in the animated films: muscular, tattooed and with long, flowing hair. But achieving that transformation was a surprisingly complicated process.
talking to Entertainment WeeklyThe actor talked about what it took to get into character. First, although Johnson is a former professional wrestler known for his muscular physique, being as big as he needed to be to play Maui required prosthetic assistance. That came in the form of a 40-pound jumpsuit, which Johnson described as “exhausting” to wear because of “how hot it was.”
“There was this idea that maybe we were going to do this whole thing with visual effects and body and everything,” Johnson told EW. “But there’s also a tactile and emotional resonance when it’s a real suit. It moves and breathes with you. So we thought the best version of this was, let’s go for it, let’s challenge Joel (Harlow, moana‘s makeup designer), and rose to the occasion.”
But it wasn’t just the muscles that had to be carefully adapted. They were also Maui’s signature locks. For this a special wig was needed.
“As a guide, you can see it on the back of the canoe with the wind blowing.” moana director Thomas Kail told EW. “We knew it had to be something that could have real momentum. Since you’re doing this in the water, ‘How does it look wet?’ It’s a real conversation when you’re doing moana. That one is seven pounds heavier with all the water in it during all those hours of the day.”
Johnson told the outlet that it took him about two and a half hours to prepare Maui for filming. “What became a challenge, that I had to solve very quickly, that I didn’t anticipate, was the prosthetics and the hair and then the body… There’s freedom when you act, whether it’s acting or singing. So that was an adjustment to how to really work my emotions through the 40 pounds of prosthetics and hair and body that I had on me.”
That wig is certainly memorable, isn’t it? We’ll see more of this in action when moana hits theaters July 10.
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