Jason Momoa

Jason Momoa (birthname: Joseph Jason Namakaeha Momoa) is a rising action star most associated with the DC Comics superhero, Aquaman, and one of the biggest Polynesian-ethnic movie stars since the rise of Dwayne Johnson.

Having broken into show business with a running role in the TV series, Baywatch Hawaii (1999-2001), Momoa broke into movies with a supporting role in the road comedy, Johnson Family Vacation (2004), starring Cedric the Entertainer, Steve Harvey, and Vanessa Williams.

Momoa’s first starring title role was as Conan in the commercial and critical bomb, Conan the Barbarian (2011), with Rachel Nichols, Stephen Lang, Rose McGowan, and Ron Perlman, followed by a main supporting role in another bomb, the Walter Hill-directed Bullet to the Head (2012, and not related to John Woo’s 1990 action masterpiece, Bullet in the Head) and starring Sylvester Stallone, Sung Kang, and Sarah Shahi.

Jason Momoa stepped up as star/co-writer/director of the thriller, Road to Paloma (2014), with Shahi, Lisa Bonet, and Wes Studi, then continued with his first role in a sci-fi movie with Debug (2014), from Canadian writer-director David Hewlett and co-starring Jeananne Goossen, Adrian Holmes, and Adam Butcher.

Momoa stayed with Canadian filmmakers for the horror movie, Wolves (2014), with Lucas Till, and was dismissed by critics and audiences. After a cameo in director Zack Snyder’s DC Comics movie, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)—which marked Momoa’s debut as his Aquaman character—Momoa appeared in a supporting role in the Alaska-set action movie, Sugar Mountain (2014), with Cary Elwes.

Jason Momoa matched forces with Bruce Willis in one of Willis’s least-seen movies, Once Upon a Time in Venice (2017), from writer-producers Robb and Mark Cullen (with Mark directing), and co-starring John Goodman and Famke Janssen. Unfortunately for Momoa, he was then co-star in yet another bomb, writer-director Ana Lily Amirpour’s The Bad Batch (2016), winner of the Special Jury Lion Prize at the Venice Film Festival, and with Suki Waterhouse, Giovanni Ribisi, and Keanu Reeves.

Jason Momoa’s next movie was another commercial disappointment—and his first full performance as Aquaman/Arthur Curry—writer-director Zack Snyder’s DC Extended Universe all-star epic, Justice League (2017), co-starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, and J.K. Simmons. The bad commercial run for Momoa continued with the little-seen Canadian-U.S. action movie, Braven (2018), in which Momoa played the title character opposite Garret Dillahunt and Stephen Lang.

Momoa finally had his global blockbuster success with his own DCEU movie, Aquaman (2018), with Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe, Patrick Wilson, Dolph Lundgren, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Nicole Kidman under James Wan’s direction, and grossing $1.15 billion on a $200 million budget, making it the highest-grossing DCEU movie, spawning an animated series and a long-delayed sequel (whose idea was pitched by Momoa, who receives a story credit), Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023), reuniting the original’s director and cast.

Momoa also performed his Aquaman character on two other platforms—in a voice performance in Phil Lord’s and Christopher Miller’s The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019), and in Zack Snyder’s expanded, director’s cut titled Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021), which was favorably compared to the widely derided and troubled 2017 movie.

Jason Momoa joined another, more prestigious series as part of the ensemble of Denis Villeneuve’s spectacular, Oscar-winning (six) version of Frank Herbert’s Dune, made and released in two separate features, with Part One released in 2021 and Part Two in 2023, but with Momoa’s Duncan Idaho character appearing only in Part One, opposite Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem.

As producer and actor, Momoa took on a re-telling of the notorious pursuit of a Paiute man in Southern California’s Mojave desert (previously told in Abraham Polonsky’s Tell Them Willie Boy is Here (1969)), The Last Manhunt (2022), cast with indigenous actors and directed by Christian Camargo.

Jason Momoa took a turn with his next project–the colorful role of the chief bad guy in Fast X (2023), the tenth entry in the Fast & Furious franchise starring Vin Diesel. By April 2023, Momoa was reported to be the star of the long-delayed big-screen version of the massively popular computer game, Minecraft, directed by Jared Hess and for release in 2025.