A voice note from Dwayne Johnson

DWAYNE JOHNSON IS sitting in his trailer after a long day filming the upcoming movie, The Smashing Machine, directed by Benny Safdie and co-starring Emily Blunt. You might have seen some of the clips for the A24 movie that have done the rounds on social media. In them, Johnson looks almost unrecognisable as wrestler and mixed martial artist, Mark Kerr. For one, he has hair and sideburns. It looks like Oscar-bait – UFC president Dana White believes Johnson will receive a nomination for the role – distinguishing it from the multiplex fare that characterises the actor’s canon.

I wonder if Johnson is still in make-up as he talks, or rather, dictates pearls of hard-won wisdom, down the line. This interview has been recorded on a voice note that is rich with Johnson’s rare combination of humility, graciousness and larger than life, profanity-laden brio. He’s sent us this inimitable monologue, ostensibly to spruik his world-beating spirit brand, Teremana Tequila. But in the days since receiving it, the voice note has, for me, taken on a life of its own.

Johnson’s booming baritone accompanies me on my commute, hounds me at my desk, even flanks me in the gym. There I hope – forlornly as it turns out – that some of Johnson’s grinding work ethic might push me through a stubborn bench press plateau.

From the top it’s an astonishing piece of audio, one that could, in the right hands, live on as a cultural artefact or be shot into space to demonstrate to aliens what we, as a species, are capable of when we free ourselves from doubt and uncertainty. Could it be a TED Talk, I wonder, finding myself gripped by a hitherto dormant sense off industriousness and a surprising urge to turn Johnson’s commercial dictums into dosh.

Such thoughts are quickly forgotten as Johnson begins the note by doing something truly mind blowing – he thanks the writer. I want to respond, to beam telepathic gratitude rays back across the Pacific, where I’m imagining him sitting on a private jet sipping his beloved spirit – this isn’t purely the work of my imagination; Johnson tells me that after he’s finished recording this note, “I am getting on a plane with my Smashing Machine team and flying out of here. The Teremana will be waiting.”

Does the world need another celebrity tequila brand, I idly ponder, before the voice note disabuses me of such unedifying thoughts. The answer, if the success of Johnson’s brand is anything to go by, is a resounding yes. Launched in March 2020, Teremana Tequila became the fastest premium spirit to sell one million nine-litre cases within a 12-month period in US history.

What distinguishes it from other celebrity tequila brands, Johnson argues, is legacy. How do you achieve that, I ask, again largely through cosmic neural rays. You create a product in which production is painstaking, attention to detail is minute and creativity is underwritten by artisanal craftsmanship, Johnson says.

“I wanted to create a tequila brand that I took my time making, and I wanted to also create a tequila brand that was a legacy brand,” Johnson says. “Our ambitions were big when we launched Teremana. They were [also] humble. We were grateful, but also in the spirit of making something that you believed in, that you felt you did the right way.”

He cites copper pot stills, brick ovens and sourcing only the most mature of agave, as key components in the production process. At the time of launch, he adds, the brand was one of the few to have its own distillery. “At Destilería Teremana De Agave, only Teremana is produced, and that really becomes invaluable to taste,” Johnson explains.

Some of that ambition is clear from the name. Terra means “of the earth” while “Mana” is a Polynesian word that loosely translates to spirit, or spiritual energy. The press notes for the product state that this “carries the connotation of being a discernible force for good or ill that is influenced by doing the right thing, showing up for others and contributing positivity”. If that doesn’t describe Johnson himself, it’s perhaps an apt description of Maui, his character from the animated Disney film Moana. You’re welcome.

What Johnson’s really saying here, is that he wanted to create a brand that would outlive him. “When I’m walking in the clouds, the brand will still have the spirit of Mana and have the spirit of my name, and it would then go to my family,” he says.

While it’s tempting to take all this talk of legacy and future-reaching heritage with a grain or even a pinch of salt – not that you need to ‘lick, sip, suck’ a tequila as pure as Teremana, of course – Johnson makes a compelling case as to why his brand is not a brazen cash grab. And why it belongs on a higher figurative shelf than other celeb tequila brands.

“A lot of times, with entrepreneurial efforts from celebrities, the idea is to build the brand and then ultimately sell the brand,” says Johnson, casting his fellow Hollywood booze moguls as venal capitalist bull sharks. “That is the way of the entrepreneur, and I understand that. I apply that to a lot of the businesses that we start and the brands that I’ve founded, but Teremana was a little different.”

But how Dwayne, I want to shout at the voice recording. He duly explains that on the bottom of every bottle of his exquisite elixir, is an embossed word: Tijasi. “T-I-J-A-S-I,” he booms into his phone. What the fuck is TIJASI, you might ask, as I did (if Johnson’s going to swear, then so am I), rather plaintively, as I sat at my desk. “That is the first two letters of my three daughters’ first names: Tiana, Jasmine, Simone,” he says. “That just gives you a little Easter egg idea of what legacy means.”

Australia, where the brand was launched last month, is just the third market in the world to stock Teremana Tequila, after the US and UK. Does Johnson recognise that we’re a nation of pissheads? He has spent some time here, after all. Here, Johnson attempts to ingratiate himself with our wide brown land. “I love Australia,” he says. “I’ve shot movies in Australia, television shows in Australia. I’ve wrestled. I’ve spilled blood in Australia in front of 50,000 screaming fans, which was awesome. So, my affinity and my love for Australia goes way, way back. It’s pretty deep. I felt like, you know what? My Aussie brothers and sisters, they’re going to love the fuck out of Teremana.”

If that sounds like we don’t have a choice, that Johnson is going to force the stuff down our throats, that’s just his irrepressible nature talking.

The truth is, tequila represents another frontier – Johnson, who deals strictly in elemental metaphors (hence ‘The Rock’) prefers to call it a mountain – in his veritable Andes of endeavours that includes wrestling, movies, TV, social media, fitness, sportswear and philanthropy. Where does the motivation lie, at 52, to keep growing, keep branching into new fields and keep taking on new challenges?

Johnson’s answer is rousing, almost akin to a political stump speech in its slightly hokey message of inclusiveness and inspiration. I did ask Johnson about his political ambitions but alas the voice note reveals nothing, a calculating move that, of itself, perhaps reveals Machiavellian instincts – although what did I expect, it’s a freakin’ voice note about his tequila.

“The motivation lies in just the desire to do more and to create opportunities,” he says. “I want to underscore that word, opportunities. Create opportunities for myself, everybody around me, and create opportunities for people to, hopefully, enjoy the thing that I’ve built for them. I’ve been a lucky son of a bitch to be able to climb a few mountains in my career. So, I’m at this point in my life where I run towards, and I am extremely motivated to build a new mountain and bring everyone with me, so we’re all building the mountain at the same time.”

I’m up there on the mountain top with him. I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid (okay, the Teremana). But just as we’re in danger of toppling into a pit of earnestness from which we might never emerge, Johnson manages to prick his own helium-powered hype balloon with a dose of the secret sauce of his global appeal: his authenticity. 

“I hope that makes sense,” he says, before signing off, and I imagine, getting on that plane where the crystal-clear nectar awaits. “If not, just fucking blame it on the Teremana.”

Find out more about Teremana Tequila here.

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