Jason Momoa

• 1. Introduction

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  In his audition for the role of Khal Drogo on HBO's Game of Thrones, Jason Momoa performed a haka. A haka is one of the intimidating Māori dances traditionally used to challenge an opponent or to welcome a visitor. Momoa is an American actor and film producer, and that audition choice hints at how he approaches his work. His career stretches from a syndicated action series set in Hawaii to superhero franchises and to shows he helped create. How does a boy raised in Iowa reach that point? What happened between his first television job and his biggest film roles? And what shapes him away from the screen, from heavy metal to a violent night that changed his face?

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• 2. Roots in Hawaii and Iowa

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  Joseph Jason Namakaeha Momoa was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on the 1st of August 1979. His mother, Coni, worked as a photographer, and his father, Joseph Momoa, was a painter. Jason is an only child. His father is Native Hawaiian, while his mother has German, Irish, and Pawnee ancestry.

  Soon after his birth, his parents divorced. He and his mother then moved to Norwalk, Iowa, where he was raised. He graduated from Norwalk High School, and on the school's soccer team one of his teammates was Brandon Routh.

  During his early teens, his mother took him to Custer State Park in South Dakota, where Sylvan Lake and the Needles are found. The trip turned him into a rock climber and boulderer. Later he enrolled at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, which brought him back to the islands.

  At 19, he was living and working in Honolulu when he decided to audition for a television series.

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• 3. Breakout Roles

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  Baywatch Hawaii gave Momoa his acting debut, in the part of Jason Ioane. He played the character from 1999 to 2001, in seasons ten and eleven, across 38 episodes.

  Fox cast him next in the drama North Shore, where he played Frankie Seau in 21 episodes between 2004 and 2005. In 2004 he also appeared in the road comedy film Johnson Family Vacation.

  From 2005 to 2009, the Syfy series Stargate Atlantis kept him busy as Ronon Dex, in 73 episodes across seasons two to five. He learned martial arts for the part. In 2009 he turned up in four episodes of the comedy-drama The Game, playing Roman.

  The role that made him famous came in 2011 and 2012, when he played Khal Drogo in 11 episodes of Game of Thrones. He was a recurring cast member in the first season and a guest in the second.

  The year 2011 also brought a film lead. Momoa played the title character in Conan the Barbarian, a reimagining of the 1982 film. Arnold Schwarzenegger had made the role famous.

  His next big role came by way of an audition for Bruce Wayne, the man behind Batman.

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• 4. Aquaman and Beyond

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  Arthur Curry, better known as Aquaman, reached live-action film in a cameo in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2016. That appearance marked the character's first time in a live-action movie. Momoa then led the ensemble film Justice League in 2017, and he returned for its director's cut, Zack Snyder's Justice League.

  The solo film Aquaman followed in 2018. He also reprised the role in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part and in an episode of Peacemaker titled "It's Cow or Never." In 2023 he made his final outings as the character. First came an uncredited post-credits cameo in The Flash. Then he led Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, for which he also shared a story credit.

  Denis Villeneuve's Dune in 2021 gave Momoa the part of Duncan Idaho. He is set to return in Dune: Part Three, due in 2026, as Hayt. Hayt is a ghola, a being created in the image of Duncan Idaho.

  In 2022 Momoa joined the tenth Fast & Furious film, Fast X, as the main villain, Dante Reyes. Dante is the son of Hernan Reyes, played by Joaquim de Almeida. Luke Hobbs, played by Dwayne Johnson, had killed Hernan in Fast Five. Vin Diesel produced Fast X and stars in it.

  A Minecraft Movie arrived in 2025 with Momoa as Garrett "The Garbage Man" Garrison, a part he also produced. The same character appeared in a live event inside the Minecraft game. Momoa's likeness also appears in Fortnite Battle Royale as Aquaman, since 2020.

  Not every appearance was a film. He appeared in a Rocket Mortgage commercial during the halftime of Super Bowl LIV in 2020. Between 2018 and 2026 he hosted Saturday Night Live twice and returned twice as a special guest. In 2019 he voiced a role in The Simpsons episode "The Fat Blue Line."

  In 2026 he plays Lobo in the DC Universe film Supergirl. He is also slated to play Blanka in a Street Fighter reboot. Another project on his list is a Helldivers film for Sony Pictures and PlayStation Productions, with Justin Lin directing.

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• 5. Indies and Passion Projects

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  Road to Paloma, released in 2014, was a drama thriller that Momoa directed and co-wrote. His co-writers were Jonathan Hirschbein and Robert Homer Mollohan. Momoa stars alongside Sarah Shahi, Lisa Bonet, Michael Raymond-James, and Wes Studi. The film premiered at the Sarasota Film Festival and then had a limited theatrical run and a VOD release.

  Smaller genre films filled the gaps around his bigger jobs. In 2014 he played Connor in the Canadian horror action film Wolves. He also starred in the science fiction horror film Debug, written and directed by David Hewlett, his former Stargate Atlantis co-star. Hewlett is a British-born Canadian actor. Sugar Mountain, a dark comedy thriller from 2016 with Cary Elwes and Haley Webb, shot its principal photography in Alaska. In 2017 he played a cannibal in the drama thriller The Bad Batch, and in 2018 he appeared in the Canadian action film Braven, which he also produced. A role as Rico Rodriguez in a film series based on the game Just Cause was announced, but no such film has materialized.

  On television, SundanceTV's The Red Road cast him as Phillip Kopus, a Ramapough Mountain Indian, in 12 episodes between 2014 and 2015.

  Frontier brought him a producer's chair as well. From 2016 to 2018 he played Declan Harp in all three seasons and served as an executive producer. The series follows the North American fur trade in the late 1700s. Harp is a part-Irish, part-Cree outlaw who campaigns against the monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada. The company has grown corrupt and engages in illegal activities to enrich itself.

  Apple's post-apocalyptic drama See debuted in 2019 and ran through 2022. Momoa played Baba Voss across 24 episodes. In 2023 he appeared as himself in the eight-episode docuseries The Climb. In 2024 he hosted the eight-episode series On the Roam and directed five of its episodes.

  Chief of War, released in 2025, is the project closest to his heart as a creator. Momoa plays Kaʻiana in the nine-episode historical drama, and he is also its co-creator, writer, and executive producer. He directed the episode titled "The Black Desert."

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• 6. Heavy Metal

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  Momoa has said that he "builds his characters off of metal songs." The genre is a long-running passion, and it has found its way into his work.

  For the first episode of See, he invited members of the band Archspire to make cameo appearances. He also practiced proper screaming technique with Archspire's vocalist, Oli Peters, for a significant scene. In 2020 the black metal band Scour featured him on their song "Doom." That year he also appeared in the teaser for "Scary Little Green Men," a song by Ozzy Osbourne from the album Ordinary Man.

  He is a hobby musician who plays bass guitar, mandolin, ukulele, and guitar in his spare time. He picked up the bass after listening to the song "Sober" by Tool.

  In 2024 Momoa formed a power trio called ÖOF TATATÁ with longtime friends Kenny Dale Borill and Mike Hayes. They performed at Cannery Hall in Nashville in May, and they played a one-off show in Auckland, New Zealand, in August.

  In July 2025 he hosted the farewell concert of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne, titled "Back to the Beginning," in Birmingham, England.

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• 7. Family, Scars, and Causes

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  On the 15th of November 2008, a man slashed Momoa across the face with a broken beer glass during an altercation at the Birds Cafe, a tavern in Los Angeles, California. Reconstructive surgery took about 140 stitches. The scar through his left eyebrow is visible in his later work. The attacker was sentenced to five years in prison.

  His love life had already shifted years earlier. Momoa met his first fiancée, the actress Simmone Jade Mackinnon, on the set of Baywatch in 1999. They were together for six years and became engaged in 2004. They called off the engagement after he began a relationship with the actress Lisa Bonet in 2005.

  His daughter, Lola Iolani, was born in July 2007. His son, Nakoa-Wolf Manakauapo Namakaeha, was born in December 2008, a month after the attack. It was long believed that Momoa and Bonet married on the 15th of November 2007, but they did not marry until October 2017. They announced their split in January 2022. In January 2024 Bonet filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences and giving the 7th of October 2020 as their date of separation. The divorce was finalized on the 9th of July 2024. As of 2024, he is in a relationship with the actress Adria Arjona.

  In 2017 he began practicing Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He carries numerous tattoos, including a half sleeve on his left forearm that pays tribute to his family god. In 2019 he joined the protests against building the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea, a holy spiritual site for native Hawaiians.

  He is also an advocate for UNEP, the United Nations Environment Programme, dedicated to protecting the world's oceans and coral reefs.

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