Spinoff sees Rock change track

For this film, Johnson has managed to shape the role with his personal cultural background.

The location of the final battle is set in Samoa, an island in the southern Pacific Ocean where his mother was born. Johnson himself was born in California but grew up in Hawaii.

This prompted him to cast many of his Polynesian friends in the film, including his cousin, Roman Reigns, a famous World Wrestling Entertainment star and a friend of Johnson since his wrestling days.

Johnson reveals that Reigns was battling leukemia during the shoot, but he still came to the set in Kauai, Hawaii, and completed his first film surrounded by family and friends.

"We are all inspired by Reigns' strength, and luckily, he is currently recovering and back in the WWE, kicking ass," Johnson says, smiling.

Morgan describes a story he developed for the movie based on a true Johnson family story. In one scene, when Hobbs discovers he only has garden tools-a hoe and a pickax-to use as weapons at his home, his mother tells him to forget about guns and fight like a real man. The scene was actually based on a real life conversation that Johnson's grandmother had with his father decades previously. The moment Morgan heard the story, he knew he had to put it in film.

"I would say that Johnson and frankly all of us have been very collaborative over the years and have been active in shaping the character Hobbs in every single scene. The best idea always wins with all of us," Morgan says.

While the villains in the Fast and Furious films are always dramatic, the villain introduced in the spinoff is perhaps the baddest of them all.