JASON MOMOA

Cover Model Muscle Jason Momoa Whether embodying the rippling King of Atlantis or “relaxing” by holding 100kg with his fingertips, Jason Momoa doesn’t do things by halves. His story is a salutary lesson in how to upsize your life. But first, he needs to g

How the star of Aquaman built his legendary physique with climbing, pasta… and Guinness

Jason Momoa doesn’t like going to the gym. In fact, he hates it. For a man whose major roles have been synonymous with brute strength and physicality, this may be somewhat surprising. As Conan the Barbarian, his two-handed broad sword and single-digit body fat did the talking. His perma-topless turn as Game of Thrones warlord Khal Drogo was all brawn and no brain. (He once extracted a human larynx with his bare hands rather than debate the limitations of his leadership.) But now, almost 10 years since he donned Conan’s loincloth, and as he prepares to be splashed across billboards and cinema screens in the title role of Aquaman, he admits he’s not that big on lifting weights. “I just have a really hard time training for vanity,” he says. “These roles kill me because I’m not into that shit. But it’s my job to become the character I’m playing. You want to look good, sure, but you have to do so much for the part that you get injured. You have to protect yourself. Train for function rather than how you look, man.” He looks massive, regardless, sporting the sort of athletic heft usually found in the All Blacks back row. Yet, at 39, 6ft 3in, about 110kg and seemingly more suited to running through walls than climbing them, Momoa’s preferred methods of training are pinch holds and overhangs. You could say that he loves climbing. In fact, he says so himself at every opportunity.

“For Aquaman we incorporated things I love. I love rock climbing. When you’re training for a rock-climbing problem, you want to diet right and get in your best shape because it’s something you’re passionate about. It was something I could set a goal for. Not just, ‘Oh, let’s get a six-pack.’ We built a rock climbing gym on the Aquaman set in Australia. It kept my mind in a beautiful place.”

Rock- Solid Passion

In Momoa’s first run-out as the King of Atlantis in 2017’s Justice League, he worked out with legendary Gym Jones founder Mark Twight. An experienced climber himself, Twight was more than happy to accommodate his eager charge’s passion. This time around, Mada Abdelhamid, a former WWE wrestler from Egypt who was Momoa’s trainer on set for the duration of the six-month shoot on the Gold Coast, also indulged the leading man’s love of getting vertical. “If you’re passionate about something, you don’t need pushing,” he tells MH. “You can push yourself.”

Abdelhamid is certainly capable of pushing anyone. At 6ft 6in and 120kg with a 320kg deadlift, he was more than a match for Momoa athletically. Ultimately, it was his fervour for working out, plus a little healthy competition, that infected our unlikely gym-phobe with an interest in lifting heavy things, then putting them down before repeating. And repeat they did. “We were doing hundreds and hundreds of reps, pushing each other almost to exhaustion,” says Abdelhamid. “It wasn’t about who was bigger, or faster, or stronger. It was: who can work harder?”

Momoa approached the task with characteristic zeal. “I love being around people who are stoked about what they do,” he says. “And if we’re going to get in there and beat each other up, then I love that. It’s very much a soldier mentality. We’re going to war!”

The extent to which he adhered to this all-or-nothing maxim was just as evident

in the diet he followed during filming: protein, vegetables and Guinness. A few pints a day were apparently crucial to sustaining Momoa’s equilibrium and motivation. “It all comes down to calorie intake, so when we were looking to lean out, we chose to cut the Guinness back to a certain number per day,” says Abdelhamid of ensuring the black stuff didn’t hamper their goals. “But if I’d made him cut it out completely, then he wouldn’t have performed as well.”

It was the challenge of attacking a problem on the climbing wall that became Momoa’s greatest incentive for sticking to both a cleaner eating plan and increasingly dirty workouts. “My mindset is such that I need to set myself a goal in something that I love,” says Momoa. “I target a certain level of climb, so I have to train hard for it. I may have to do some cardio, get my weight down and cut back on the Guinness. It doesn’t matter what gets you there – as long as you get there.”

If the Aquaman set is starting to sound like a testosterone-fuelled bro-sesh, that’s because Momoa doesn’t really do downtime – at least, not in the traditional sense. Alongside state- of-the-art gym equipment, the relentless thrill-seeker had set up a drum kit, a Fender Precision Bass and a 1959 Gibson Les Paul guitar once played by Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page. Looming overhead was his custombuilt climbing wall. While the challenges presented by his physique are part of the reason Momoa might gravitate towards this most elemental of physical pursuits, the rest is less predictable.

“I’m actually scared of heights, so it’s about overcoming those fears,” he says, before launching into an impassioned

testimony to the purity of the sport. “It’s like a dance or a martial art – you’re in this flow. The way your body moves feels comfortable, and it feels alive,” he says. “You’re holding on to literally nothing, using every toe, every fingernail – everything is being activated. I mean, I’m pushing 110kg. I’m fucking heavy. To be that weight and hold onto something that small just feels really beautiful. You have to be there 100%, or you fall.”

It’s fair to say that Momoa has taken a tumble or two in his personal life since landing his first role in Baywatch at 19. The scar on his left eyebrow resulted from a glassing in a Hollywood bar in 2008 that required 140 stitches, at once guaranteeing his bad-boy image and causing him to reflect on his ways. He has been saved, he says, by the women in his life – his mother; his wife, the actress Lisa Bonet; and his daughter Lola, aged 11 – as well as his son Nakoa-wolf, nine. He is also stepfather to acclaimed actress Zoë Kravitz, the offspring of Lisa and Lenny. “I’d be dead right now if it wasn’t for women,” he says quietly. “Female power is the ultimate power. I don’t think there’s anything stronger than a woman.” If his family has saved him from himself, whether indulging his appetites or pushing too far in his riskier pastimes, his instinct as a father is to save them. “My biggest fear is my babies getting hurt,” he says, almost murmuring. “You find yourself saying, ‘Don’t do this, or that.’ But you have to let them go and do those things.”

With his family life grounded and career on the up, Momoa’s ascent has an air of inevitability. But he is as far from the fame-grabbing Hollywood cliché as you can imagine. Like many who lay their bodies on the line, he wants to go hard and then go home – only, in his case, to have a good night with friends and family. It’s an ethos to which we can all relate, whether you’re at work, in the gym, or happen to be a Hawaiian-born man mountain about to become the largest non- CGI cinematic superhero to date.

“I’m all about having the best goddamn day I can,” says Momoa. “If my wife tells me we’re having spaghetti bolognese for dinner, I will work harder because I know we’re going to have a great night. I can train hard if I know there’s a reward – as long as I know there’s going to be some fun at the end of the day and we’re going to have a couple of beers to celebrate. I don’t like going to bed not having celebrated something. Life is too short.”

“I’d be dead right now if it wasn’t for the women in my life”