Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia have a dynamic that doesn’t fit the usual Hollywood storyline. They divorced in 2007, but instead of going their separate ways, they built a long-standing business partnership.
According to E! News, Garcia continues to manage Johnson, and together they co-founded Seven Bucks Productions, which has backed many of Johnson’s major film and TV projects.
But that stability didn’t arrive overnight. During an interview on Awards Chatter from The Hollywood Reporter, Johnson looked back on the period right after the marriage ended and made it clear that navigating the shift was difficult. The separation challenged him personally and mentally as he faced a new version of fatherhood and career direction.
“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,” Johnson said. “And then it rocks you like it rocked me. And we had a baby, and what kind of father was I going to be?”
Their daughter, Simone, now 24, was at the center of that transition. Johnson shared that the changes brought on another bout of depression, something he has spoken about openly in the past. The internal pressure to remain strong publicly while dealing with private turmoil shaped his mindset and, eventually, the roles he chose to take on.
“At that time, I was really going through it,” he recalled. The emotional weight pushed him away from darker or more intense scripts. Instead, he leaned into lighter, family-driven roles — films like The Game Plan and Tooth Fairy, which marked a noticeable shift in his on-screen persona.
“I didn’t want anything that was going to challenge me to rip my guts out,” he explained. “I wanted stuff that has a happy ending.”
Looking back, Johnson says those choices were as much about coping as they were about career strategy. He enjoyed those films for what they offered him in that moment — stability, comfort, something uncomplicated.
And as time passed, Johnson and Garcia redefined what their relationship could be. “Marriage may not be in our cards, but building a business can be,” he said.