Momoa chased Batman role

Actor Jason Momoa was cast as superhero Aquaman after impressing filmmaker Zack Snyder with a gritty audition to play Batman.

The former Game of Thrones star revealed he had originally tried out for the role of the Caped Crusader when Snyder was developing 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and although Momoa wasn’t too enthusiastic about the audition, he did his best with the scene given, taken from Christian Bale’s second Batman outing in 2008’s The Dark Knight.

“It was a big casting call so I knew a lot of people were going to be doing it, and I just felt like it was a booby trap and I just didn’t want to do it,” he said.

“We did it and I just pretended like Batman got killed in an alleyway, and I picked it up and tried to play him like I was just down and out, poor, over it, just done wrong and he wasn’t afraid to punch even good people in the face.

“And just go like, unforgivable about certain things but also flawed, like the kind of person who would jump off a cliff and figure out on the way down what we’re going to do.”

The part of Batman/Bruce Wayne went to Ben Affleck, but Momoa’s unique tryout actually helped him land another big gig.

“I got called in about, probably two to three weeks later and that’s when (Snyder) laid it down and said, ‘I want you to play Aquaman,’ which was completely like, ‘Excuse me?’” he recalled.

Momoa made his debut as the King of Atlantis in a cameo in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and reprised the role for 2017’s Justice League and the new standalone, Aquaman, out Dec. 21.

The movie turned out to be one of the most physical shoots Momoa had ever faced, and although he prefers to perform as much stunt work as possible himself, the 39-year-old reluctantly accepted that his body wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure of the job if he did it all alone.

“I needed help,” he admitted. “I’m almost 40 and it’s starting to hurt! “There’s just so much stuff. I’ve never done this many stunts in my life.”