‘Sea’ the real me
MOMOA OPENS UP ABOUT ‘AQUAMAN’
Nobody needed to convince Jason Momoa that Aquaman is cool.
Sure, the comic-book character may have once been considered a punchline in the superhero world due to his fishy capabilities, but the Hawaii-born Momoa — star of the new “Aquaman” movie — doesn’t see it that way.
“In Hawaii, all our water gods are amazing and powerful, and to be able to control the ocean is something that’s amazing. From our mythology, it is cool,” Momoa told the Daily News.
“Sometimes ‘cool’ isn’t being just, like, dressing cool or being this attitude,” he explained. “I think in this movie you get to learn about him and see his vulnerability . ... You get to see all his flaws, and that’s fun to me, his imperfections, and that’s cool to me, seeing him learn from those things, and also be a bit of a goofball.”
Momoa, who previously suited up as Aquaman in “Batman v Superman” and “Justice League,” puts his own watery spin on the classic character in the standalone film hitting theaters Friday.
Strong and imposing, the 6-foot-4 — and very ripped — Momoa gives his reluctant hero a lightness and relatability as he grapples with his identity as the son of a land-dwelling father and a mother who was queen of the underwater kingdom Atlantis.
“He brings such a strong personality to this character,” James Wan, the film’s director, told The News. “That is a good thing to have. Someone who comes to this character that’s never been done before and makes a statement. Basically, he’s coming to this film and saying, ‘This is me, this is who I am,’ and he basically plants his trident.
“When I first met Jason, I was actually kind of blown away by how charming and likable he is, and actually how funny the guy is in person. … People are used to seeing the tough-guy side of Jason, but I wanted people to see that this guy can be a funny, cute, romantic lead as well.”
In “Aquaman,” the title hero’s half-brother Orm, played by Patrick Wilson, wants to wage war with the surface world in retaliation for the pollution of their underwater home.
It’s up to Momoa’s character, whose given name is Arthur Curry, to stop his sibling, but he first has to embrace his ties to both the land and ocean.
Momoa, 39, says it’s inspiring to be a mixed-race superhero who can appeal to a new demographic of viewers. The actor’s father is Native Hawaiian, and his mother comes from a German, Irish and Native American heritage.
“All the Polynesian kids and Islanders going, ‘That’s who I’m going to look up to,’ it’s a really cool place to be,” Momoa said.
Although much of “Aquaman” is set beneath the ocean’s surface, the actors didn’t shoot a single take underwater. Instead, those scenes were filmed in front of a blue screen, with rigs used to make it look like Momoa, Amber Heard and the rest of the cast were floating.
Indeed, the actors often had to be doused with water for land-set scenes to make it look like they’d just emerged from the sea — and were completely dry for their underwater scenes.
“You’re definitely hosed down,” Momoa said. “We’re wet. You can’t really cry about that. You know what I mean? You’re freaking Aquaman.”
The movie features a lighter tone than other recent movies released by DC Comics, such as 2016’s “Batman v Superman.”
Wan — whose other directorial credits include “Furious 7” and horror flicks “Saw,” “Insidious” and “The Conjuring” — says he aimed to make the superhero movie “big and fun.”