Jason Momoa is making headlines everywhere nowadays. Between his debut as the director of his first film, Road to Paloma, and the constant rumors of him joining the ranks of the Justice League as Aquaman, his hands have been full. Last week, Momoa was gracious enough to sit down with Point of Geeks' Braxter Timberlake to discuss his love of films, Prometheus, hanging out with Michael Fassbender, his training regime and well...he didn't want to speak about one thing in particular...
PoG: Yesterday you mentioned that you named your dogs Tebow and Obi-Wan growing up. Who were some of your cinematic heroes growing up?
JM: Cinematic heroes...I mean growing up, the whole Star Wars was amazing. I love Star Wars. Han-Solo was awesome. Um.. I think when I got into movies. Like really got into movies. Like geek got into movies. Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune was like my... I love Toshiro Mifune. Even to this day he's like, him and Brando are my ultimate. I think also the first time...my mom was a big fan of watching old movies and the first time I saw Marlon Brando in A Street Car Named Desire, I was like...who is that guy? What is that? I was really young and my mom was like, "That's Marlon Brando." I was like "He looks awesome. He looks big." My mom was a big fan of Vivian Leigh so we watched Gone With the Wind and A Street Car Named Desire and tons of Hitchcock films so, I grew up with a real artsy mom. It's funny because I never really watched... I didn't see Conan. I didn't get to watch those kinds of things. Because my mom wouldn't let me.
PoG: That was going to be my next question. As an example I was going to use Conan, are there any other remakes that you'd be interested in doing ideally? If the next Terminator comes up or whatever...
JM: I mean. There are so many great movies. Some of the old movies maybe. I really love westerns. I would love to be in a western. They are all great questions man. You have to think a little bit. Gosh. I'd love to make a samarai movie man. LOVE to be in a samarai movie. Um. I love comedy. I never done anything in comedy recently. Love to be in something like that.
PoG: You do a lot of sci-fi. What's the last good sci-fi film you've seen?
JM: A lot of people didn't like Prometheus. I liked Prometheus. I think that would be the last one. Michael Fassbender is a friend of mine and he's a phenomenal, phenomenal actor and I was there when I was on Game of Thrones. He was, like, learning how to spin the basketball in his hand. (for the scene in Prometheus) We were just sitting in the pub and he was spinning this basketball trying to... You know he's just going like "Yea, I gotta do this thing with Ridley (Scott) tomorrow." He's so non-chalant about it. And his hair is dyed all these weird colors and we are just drinking Guiness and hanging out. Like two good ole chaps. So when I watched he was so interesting. Without trying he is just interesting.
PoG: I wanna ask you about your movie so I don't keep you here forever. Where did the story idea come from?
JM: My friend Robert Mollohon who plays Cash in it, he brought up the subject matter. I wanted to do a road movie and he brought up this topic of what was happening on the Native American reservations. Because he went to a Democratic convention and he ended up talking to some people and he found out the information and he relayed it to us. I just thought it was really interesting, being a father and a husband, and a son and grandson. What would I do if someone hurt the women in my life and the law didn't take care of it. What the *** do you do? I'm going to kill this person who hurt my mother, without a doubt. Um, if the law didn't take care of it. And um...with that...you know. You're going to lose your life. So I wanted to make a movie, not about the revenge, I wanted to make it more of a redemption and about a man confronted with these...with a problem and he takes it into his own hands and then he has to pay the repercussions. So it's really just about him kinda saying good-bye to his life. Instead of like a chase movie and stuff. So it's more artsy that way...
PoG: So what phase of production did you like the most, being behind the camera? So you got pre-production, production, the actual shooting, post and editing? What do you think you found the most satisfying?
JM: I would say... I love shooting, but I also love making the music. Editing is challenging. Really, really challenging. It's great because you can change your whole movie. But it's so much more frustrating. I know what I want when I shoot. I know how to get what I want. With editing, it's such another craft and art to it and you can change it for the better. But I would rather go into it, like, this is my vision. This is what I want to shoot. I really like seeing the dailies and shooting and then I love the music. I love putting music to it.
PoG: You seem pretty grounded. How has your recent success changed you and how do you feel your future success is going to change you?
JM: Um... I think it just becomes a little bit harder on your family. I think just balancing home and work, because right now is the time to work. And ah, making sure I'm completely there for my family. I have a wife and beautiful children that need me as much as we need to put food on the table. You know? Just making sure to keep that real tight.
PoG: How do you keep it up? Most of your roles are really physical roles. How do you go about preparing for shoots where you know you role is going to by more physical than most peoples?
JM: It's hard. I worked out twice today. While doing this. I get up early before a show. Get on treadmill for about an hour. Do some kind of cardio for an hour. Then workout for normally two hours, three hours, but workout all the time. Got to get ready.
PoG: There you go. Last quick question. Aquaman vs Namor... who wins?
JM: ...
And Momoa turned off my recording device at that point. We thought the last question was a soft underhand pitch. Clearly he felt he may have just given away too much at the preceding panel discussion. Regardless , the aversion to the question clearly says it all.
Thanks again to Jason Momoa for taking out the time. It will be interesting to see what he has to talk about next year around this time...
Road to Paloma is available now on Video on Demand. It opens to a limited theatrical release on July 11th and will be availble on video July 15th, 2014. It stars Jason Momoa, Lisa Bonet, Sarah Shahi and was directed by Jason Momoa.
Sources: Point of Geeks