Cover Model Muscle
The newly single Aquaman lead and Fast X villain gets real about his greatest challenge yet: fighting for change and finding a new path
Jason Momoa is a hard man to pin down.
He’s currently a little more than halfway through an eight-month shoot in New Zealand for an Apple TV+ show called Chief Of War. As co-writer, co-director and star of the nine-episode series, Momoa tells the quasi-historical story, from an indigenous perspective, of a Hawaiian chief in the late 1700s, who tries to unite the warring islands in order to save them from the threat of colonisation. When we finally connect by Zoom after some serious wrangling, it’s midnight in New York and 5pm Kiwi time; his assistant hands him an iPad as he walks off the set after wrapping an epic scene, which explains why he’s wearing only a malo (a traditional Hawaiian loincloth) and a self-satisfied grin with a swollen top lip. He uses a wipe to clean his sweaty face; dabs different members of the crew; and, after lots of ‘Love you, bros’ and ‘Love you, dudes’, is ushered into a car that will whizz him back to his base camp in Auckland while we talk.
Even from 9,000 miles away, his energy slams like a chest bump. He leans forwards and starts talking about the day’s shoot, his green eyes blazing and his new head tattoo giving texture to his dome. He’s both a fast talker and a serial mumbler, and his words and sentences sputter, then gush out, forming fast-moving stories. ‘I’m trying to figure out what I can and can’t say, but my character, a chief called Ka’iana, travelled to a foreign land to rescue a friend. It’s like a prison riot: people hanging, people falling from the ceiling. There’s musket shots and fires everywhere, just burning chaos.’ He sounds a little like an excited kid, improvising the plot of the world’s hottest action movie. ‘It’s a beautiful wonder we pulled it off and no one got hurt. I’m pretty high off that. All I got was a bruised lip. Ka’iana is helping free people who have been enslaved, and he’s witnessing for the first time poverty, drugs; and it’s the first time he’s seen a dog, a rabbit, a peacock. He’s experiencing with new eyes the whole world.’
Momoa, too, is experiencing the whole world with new eyes. Now 43, he’s in a different place – professionally, emotionally and literally – than he was when MH last caught up with him, in 2020. Careerwise, he’s conquered the blockbuster with the billion-dollargrossing Aquaman, the brightest star in the DC Extended Universe; held his own among an A-list ensemble in Dune; and carried three successful seasons of See on Apple TV+. This month, he plays the villain in Fast X, the much-hyped final ride for the Vin Diesel-powered franchise, an
