Jason Momoa
Jason Momoa is over the moon. Not because he’s Aquaman but because his Kiwi hero plays his dad, writes James Croot.
From Dothraki to superhero,
His co-stars include Nicole Kidman, Amber Heard and Willem Dafoe, but Jason Momoa admits it was another Aquaman actor that he was most excited to meet. The 39-year-old Hollywood action star, who plays the halfAtlantean hero in the upcoming festive season blockbuster, confesses that he ‘‘totally geeked out’’ when he finally clapped eyes on Temuera Morrison. The veteran Kiwi actor plays Momoa’s human father in this latest instalment of the DC Extended Universe series of movies.
‘‘Once Were Warriors was a huge movie for me,’’ the imposing-looking but sweetly charming Momoa says during a break shooting scenes on the Gold Coast.
‘‘What he did in that movie was just so complex and unbelievable and it’s what I channelled in Game of Thrones [as Dothraki leader Khal Drogo].’’
Momoa says it was Morrison’s creation of a character (Jake ‘‘the Muss’’ Heke) who could inspire hate, love and devotion in equal measure that really impacted him.
‘‘It was great to have a brown-skinned actor you could really look up to,’’ the Hawaiian-born Momoa says, before adding that he was the one who really wanted Morrison to play his father in Aquaman.
The whole project is one that clearly has Momoa – who has spent time in the South Island rock-climbing around Canterbury’s Castle Hill in the past – enthused and eager to chat.
Part of that is quite likely down to the fact that he had to keep quiet about his role for a number of years.
‘‘That was brutal for me,’’ he says. ‘‘I can’t keep a secret to save my soul. I’m horrible at it. I’ll, like, buy my wife [former The Cosby Show star Lisa Bonet] a present two months before her birthday and I’ll be wanting her to open it as soon as I get home,’’ he says.
‘‘So to be told I couldn’t say anything as to why I had to turn down another job – when I had to put food on the table – that was a struggle.’’
Momoa recalls how his original audition for DC Universe producer Zack Snyder wasn’t actually for Aquaman.
‘‘Yeah, I actually went for Batman,’’ he says. ‘‘And I don’t even look like I have money!
‘‘I did it completely the opposite of how you should do it – basically if Batman were to be murdered by a thug in an alleyway and I just happened to pick it up [the cape and cowl] and put it on. I did it that way because I thought everyone else would do it another way.’’
Still Momoa was surprised to get a call from Snyder asking him to come into the office for a meeting.
‘‘He said, ‘you know who I want you to play?’, and I went, ‘I’ve no idea’. ‘Aquaman’. ‘Come again?’
‘‘I can’t tell you the things that were flashing in my mind. I’m brown and I have a beard [since his comic-book debut in 1941 Aquaman has always been blond and white]. But when he told me he wanted him to be this Outlaw Josey Wales [a farmer turned US Civil War fighter portrayed by Clint Eastwood in a 1976 movie] kind of thing, I was like, ‘wow, OK, I’m in’.’’
Still, he admits to being relieved when Snyder finally released an image of Momoa as Aquaman in February 2015. ‘‘I was tired of people bothering me about it – I really was at the stage of saying, ‘don’t ask me any more [if he was going to play Aquaman]’.’’
Even more exciting was turning up on the set of Justice League the following year and sharing the experience with his children Lola and Wolf.
‘‘It was a dream come true for a dad, to be able to put your kid in the Batmobile. Then Batman and Wonder Woman walked in, Lola just looked at her [Gal Gadot] in awe and Gal took off her tiara and put it on her and Wolf got to put Batman’s cowl on. I don’t even know how to top that.’’
But despite admitting that Batman is also his own favourite comic-book superhero, Momoa says he bore no ill feelings towards the man who got the role for Justice League – Ben Affleck.
‘‘I think I do look at things like a child sometimes, but you also get over things pretty quick. We’re all in 40-pound [18kg] suits and sweating in these roles. I took great pleasure in watching Ben suffer, because he has to put the cowl on as well. I moved a little quicker when I saw that because I was able to think – ‘at least I’m not in that’.’’
Momoa is also delighted he’s not only found similarities between Aquaman and himself – ‘‘he’s an outsider in the human and Atlantean world, just as I was as a kid from Hawaii growing up in Iowa’’ – but also found a way to mould the character to play on sides of his personality film and TV fans may not have seen before.
‘‘He’s nothing like Drogo. James [Wan, Aquaman’s director] wanted a lot more comedy and charm and no one really knows I smile sometimes, so that will be nice. I also get to do the doofus thing – fall flat on my face – and romance, which I’m really good at,’’ Momoa laughs. ‘‘It’s the most kind of diverse and fun venture that I’ve done.’’
And rather than a traditional superhero movie, he says it reminds him of films like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Romancing the Stone and ‘‘even Star Wars’’.
‘‘I just think it is something that hasn’t been seen yet. We’ve had 10 Batmans, a couple of Supermans and Wonder Woman was great, but we’ve never been under water before and here’s this guy. He’s gruff, he’s hardass, he’s a brawler and he’s got this humanity about him.’’
Aquaman (M) opens in cinemas on Boxing Day.