‘The Rock’ wax statue in France is fixed: museum
A wax statue of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson at a Parisian museum criticized for its skin colour has been fixed, a museum spokesperson said.
The Musée Grévin fixed the statue “during the night,” a spokesperson told CTVNews.ca in an email, after fans and Johnson commented on the wax figure’s skin colour not matching his actual complexion.
“I’m going to have my team reach out to our friends at Grévin Museum, in Paris, France so we can work at ‘updating’ my wax figure here with some important details and improvements — starting with my skin color,” Johnson wrote on Monday in a reply to an Instagram post from comedian James Andre Jefferson Jr. commenting on the situation.
Johnson’s father, who was also a wrestler, is of Black Nova Scotian descent and his mother is of Samoan background, a mini bio from IMDB reads.
“It doesn’t even look like him anymore,” Jefferson Jr. said in the video posted to Instagram.
The wrestler-turned-actor’s figure, which was unveiled over the weekend, is six-foot-five and weighs 262 pounds, according to the museum’s press release.
Despite the outcry from fans, ‘The Rock’ appears to be taking the situation in good stride, saying on Instagram, “And next time I’m in Paris, I’ll stop in and have a drink with myself.”
According to the museum’s press release, sculptor Stephane Barret relied on photos and videos of the celebrity to create the statue “as close to reality as possible” without seeing ‘The Rock’ in person.
“The star’s Samoan tattoos took the painters 10 days of painstaking work and a lot of research,” the press release said. “The eyes of Dwayne Johnson’s waxwork had to be redone three times to avoid too dark a tint making the star’s face too hard and erasing its warm aspect.”
The sculptor team went to gyms to find a man who matched Johnson’s physicality. Barret said the team was “lucky” to find someone who matched the star’s build.
“That really allowed us to get it right,” she said in the press release.” What was a little harder for me was the sample photo that was chosen, where he just had a very slight smile on his face, an expression that’s quite difficult to achieve.”
Johnson is known for starring roles in “Moana,” “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” “Jungle Cruise” and many of the “Fast & Furious” franchise, among others.
