Jason Momoa's road to Hollywood success has not been any sort of easy overnight journey. The actor now known to mainstream audiences for his gig as Aquaman has had to put in more than his fair share of work to make a living as an actor. Despite being cast in some major roles which now are looked back on as parts of big franchises, Momoa struggled to find a stride with acting work along the way. The actor recently opened up in an interview where he revealed that landing a gig on Game of Thrones and other shows before it was not necessarily the ticket some would suspect.
“I mean, we were starving after Game of Thrones,” Momoa told InStyle. “I couldn’t get work. It’s very challenging when you have babies and you’re completely in debt.” The actor is known to put himself and his career second only to his family, being a dad and husband above all. Still, life after Game of Thrones where he had a role which came and went before the series was a mega-hit was not the first time the actor ran into droughts in work.
After playing a role in the Baywatch series, a TV show which wrapped in 2001 but showed Momoa he wanted to pursue acting, a move to LA for additional work was not what he expected. “I couldn’t even get an agent for three or four years,” he says.
Of course, as the story goes, Momoa stuck with and brought his family along for quite a ride. He was cast by Zack Snyder in Justice League as Arthur Curry before going on with his own DC Comics film in the form of Aquaman. Aquaman was a massive success and a sequel is on the way, along with additional roles for Momoa in films like Dune.
Momoa's journey is not unlike that of his Aquaman role. Raised by a single mother in Iowa, he would regularly journey to Hawaii to see his father Hawaiian father. “I’m definitely a product of two very opposite worlds,” Momoa said. Momoa says being a mixed kid in high school made him a target for bullies. “I got beat up a lot,” he says. “Just for being slightly different—it was gnarly. I mean, I wore Birkenstocks in middle school, and it was like, ‘You are a freak!’" After all of the hard work, though, who got the last laugh?
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