Dwayne Johnson opens up about “really going through it” amid divorce from ex-wife Dany Garcia and how the experience influenced him to pursue lighter acting roles.
Divorce was not part of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's strategy. But after 16 years of marriage, he and Dany Garcia split up in 2007, and everything changed. The actor from Smashing Machine also found it hard to watch his relationship collapse and the way his daughter Simone, now 24, would impact the dynamics of the family.
"When you guys get married, as a few of you may know, you sign up for the long haul, but then it doesn’t always work out like that," on the November 6th episode of The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast, Dwayne revealed. "And then it rocks you like it rocked me. And we had a baby, and what kind of father was I going to be?"
He started to have mental health issues as he dealt with these developments.
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"At that time, I was really going through it," he thought. "That was another bout of depression."
The Fast Five star, who married Lauren Hashian in 2019 and had two daughters, Jasmine, age 9, and Tiana, age 6, sought out nicer parts, such as in family films like Tooth Fairy and The Game Plan, as a result of the difficulties in his personal life.
"I was trying to figure my stuff out, and that was the only thing that I really wanted to do artistically," he clarified. "I didn’t want anything that was going to challenge me to rip my guts out, I wanted stuff that has a happy ending, and so that’s what that was."
However, Dwayne still loved those lighter roles, even if his divorce was the reason for his pursuit of them.
"I loved making those movies," he underlined. "I also think I manifested those because I don’t think I was ready for anything other than easy, light, family films that made me feel good."
Even though ending his marriage was challenging, it ended well in the end. In the end, Dwayne and Dany, who later married Dave Rienzi in 2014, maintained their effective working partnership and cooperative parenting style. After all, they have been producing together for almost ten years through their production firm Seven Bucks Productions, even outside of her role as his manager.
"While marriage wasn’t in our cards, we did realize, ‘Well, wait a second, we’re building something that’s pretty cool,'" the 53-year-old added. "'Marriage may not be in our cards but building business can be.' And that took time."
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