Jason Momoa Isn't a Regular Bro. He's a Spiritual Bro.
ONE MORNING IN LATE JULY, in the Year of Whatever Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong And/Or Might Actually Kill You otherwise known as 2020, Los Angeles drivers westbound on the 118 were treated to a surreal sight even by California standards. There, in the slow lane of the freeway, a giant man was sputtering along in a 1929 Ford Model A hot rod with no roof and no windshield. His long, sandy-blond hair whipped across his face in the wind, and the red blanket he had placed over the busted car seat to cushion it was now flying like a cape behind his neck. Those who pulled up close to get a better look at a potential real-life Superman weren’t too far off the mark. It was Jason Momoa—Aquaman himself—behind the wheel, drumming on his knees to the Tom Waits song playing in his head while his car slowly broke down beneath him. Then, just as he neared his exit in the San Fernando Valley, radiator fluid began spraying all over his face. He was due at a photo shoot for this magazine in ten minutes.
“My wife makes fun of me all the time because everything I have breaks down,” he tells me when he arrives at the shoot only a few minutes behind schedule, freshly delivered to the set with a huge smile after hitching a ride with a buddy. He needs all of two minutes to peel off his stained shirt for a clean one and splash some water on his beard before he’s ready for the first shot, and one quickly surmises that Momoa is the type of guy to whom this kind of shit happens all the time. “I like old, beautiful things,” he says, shrugging off the roadside havoc. “It feels like you’re in a time capsule when you’re riding an old bike.”
But for all the old-man affection for classic racers and vintage Harleys, and for all the brick-house physicality that would’ve made him an outstanding ’80s action hero, Momoa has spent the past few years slowly revealing himself to be the most singular and surprising—the most modern, really—male movie star we’ve got. “I don’t do incognito,” he explains. “Here’s this flamboyant Cadillac I’ve had since I was 22, because I love Elvis. Here’s my top-hat collection, because I love top hats. Here’s my ridiculous pink fur coat. I have a lot of weird things.” Perhaps it’s because he used to go antiquing “all the time” with his mom that he appreciates well-made items and durable designs. “I can look at a rusty spoon,” he tells me, “and it defines who I am.”
Go ahead and think of another action star, much less one who stands six-foot-four with broad shoulders and a barrel chest that make him seem much, much bigger, who speaks of spiritual communion with cutlery. Or who likes to reminisce about the last time he cried. (Just a few months back, when his daughter, Lola, turned 13.) Or who’s in regular touch with his aumakua (Hawaiian for ancestral spirits). Or who likes to throw his tousled mane into a man bun using a pink scrunchie. (“It’s mine, not Lola’s,” he says as a point of fact.) Or who hates going to the gym and says yoga is too hard. Go ahead and think, really. We’ll wait. And while we wait, consider that Momoa would be the first to tell you that all of the tough-guy vibes you picked up from his Walk of Fame performances in Game of Thrones (as Khal Drogo) and Conan the Barbarian and Aquaman were just an act. Which makes sense, because he was acting. “I may look big and tough, but I’m not,” he explains. “I’m nothing like Khal Drogo. I’m not even the king of my own house! I’m absolutely terrified of my wife.” (His wife is actress Lisa Bonet, and if it’s still possible in these hard, cynical times for a man to worship his wife, Momoa surely tries. He is a proud Wife Guy.)
With Momoa, we’ve got ourselves an altogether different type of star from all the Chrises and Ryans who serve up their own spins on wholesome, well-groomed, on-script masculinity. Spontaneous, humble, earnest, and actually, honest-to-goodness-ly authentic, he’s more like the charismatic spawn of the Rock and wee Timothée Chalamet, bulldozing outdated and restrictive modes of manliness and showing the rest of us how to embrace our full non-incognito selves. Now, at 41, after two decades of playing buff guys without a lot of brains, Momoa is getting his first taste of working on a prestige film with an acclaimed director and a metric ton of Academy Award–winning and –nominated actors. The man is not done surprising us yet.
THE FILM IS DUNE, and it’s the first installment of the long-awaited adaptation of Frank Herbert’s best-selling sci-fi novel. It’s the type of film whose teaser trailer breaks the Internet, and it would’ve been the biggest movie in America this holiday if COVID-19 hadn’t pushed its release date to October 1, 2021. Momoa plays Duncan Idaho, a swordmaster and mentor to the young protagonist Paul Atreides, played by none other than Chalamet. As Momoa and I talk over a large meat-and-cheese platter in a small, wood-paneled trailer on the set of the photo shoot, he struggles to contain his excitement for the movie. He’s wearing tattered and greased cargo work pants that look 15 years old because they are 15 years old, and he requests that any swear words he accidentally uses to demonstrate his enthusiasm about Dune be scrubbed from the record because he’s working hard to cut back on f-bombs. He stands while I sit, bouncing on the toes of his boots while telling me all about his costars, from Chalamet (“as beautiful on the inside as he is on the outside”) to Oscar Isaac (“my new man crush”) to Josh Brolin (“who I look up to so much”) to Javier Bardem (“like a god to me, the roof”). He’s like a college freshman on fall break telling his parents all about his awesome new friends, each one cooler than the last.
Director Denis Villenueve, best known for bringing Blade Runner 2049 to the screen in 2017, read the Dune series as a kid and considers making the film a lifelong dream. In an email to Men’s Health, Villeneuve calls casting Momoa in the role a no-brainer. “Duncan Idaho is a true heroic knight figure, a proud, courageous, righteous, and ruthless man, famous for his unmatchable fighting skills. He’s also a bit of a bohemian. I thought that Jason would be perfect to embody him. Like Duncan Idaho, Jason has an insane charisma that makes people gravitate around him. Jason is a force of nature. He’s bigger than life.”
Momoa says that signing up to portray Idaho in 2019 was such an honor—he was working on See, his series for Apple TV+, and was looking for something big—but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t scared shitless. “Knowing Denis picked me to play this role,” Momoa says between mouthfuls of salami and cheddar, “I’ve never been this nervous.” Not that he really had to be. He recalls that one of the first scenes he shot required him to share the screen with Oscar winner Bardem, aka the “god.”
“We were sitting at this table, and the scene is all about Javier walking into the room. I’ve never seen someone strut into a room like such a boss. He just comes right up to this table and stares everybody down. He’s glaring at everyone else but giving me a little bit of a twinkle, and I’m just giggling inside because I can’t believe I’m at this table right now. So then he delivers his lines and just kills it. And right after that, Denis goes up to him and starts giving him notes. I’m shocked, like, What the hell could you possibly be giving him notes on? So I’m standing there absolutely terrified because I had to deliver all this sci-fi exposition, which is not my bag at all. And then I did it and I did not get any notes at all. I was so unbelievably happy I could have cried.”