Jason Momoa is done being Hollywood's hired muscle — and he said so himself
Fifteen years of warlords, superheroes and brutes for hire, and Jason Momoa has just admitted the day job was never really the plan.
Jason Momoa has admitted that acting is "probably not my cup of tea". Speaking on the At The Bar podcast, released on 13 October, the Aquaman star said he "kind of fell into" acting and would rather be writing, directing and producing.
He said it two days before his new film, Street Fighter, opens on 16 October, in which he plays a growling green monster from the video game. For a man who has spent fifteen years as the biggest body in the room on screen, it is quite a thing to say out loud.
"I think the acting's probably not my cup of tea. I kind of fell into it."
— Jason Momoa, on the At The Bar podcast
Look at what Hollywood has actually paid him to do, and it is hard to argue with him. Hardly anyone has ever hired Jason Momoa for his line readings.
The roles Hollywood keeps handing him
Look at the parts that made Momoa famous and the pattern is hard to miss. Hollywood has mostly hired him for the shoulders, the hair and the roar:
- Game of Thrones (2011): Khal Drogo, a warlord with a handful of lines, most of them in Dothraki.
- Aquaman (2018): the DC superhero, in a film that made more than $1.1 billion worldwide.
- Dune (2021): Duncan Idaho, the swordsman who dies protecting the hero.
- A Minecraft Movie (2025): a washed-up gaming champion, in a film that made around $958 million.
- Supergirl (2026): Lobo, an intergalactic bounty hunter.
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That is a career most actors would sell their mothers for. It is also a career in which nobody has ever really asked Momoa to carry a quiet scene.
Hollywood hired the muscle. The man inside it has just told us he would rather be behind the camera.
What he actually wants to do
Momoa did not stop at "not my cup of tea". What he enjoys, he said, is "writing and directing and producing, putting things together". That is not idle talk. He directed and co-wrote Road to Paloma back in 2014, and last year he co-created and starred in Chief of War for Apple TV+, a historical epic about the unification of Hawaii.
Read the podcast line next to that CV and I don't see a star being modest before a premiere. I see a man telling us which half of his job he intends to keep. The franchises have had the muscle for fifteen years. The projects he builds himself are where his heart has gone.
So what happens to the hired muscle?
He is not vanishing tomorrow. Street Fighter is out this week, and he is DC's Lobo now. Nothing in the interview says he is turning parts down, and I am not claiming he is.
But my bet is that the era of Momoa as Hollywood's go-to brute for hire is winding down, and that he is the one winding it. His Aquaman run already ended in 2023 along with the old DC film universe. Expect fewer "big man in a franchise" castings, and more Momoa projects with Momoa's name in the producer credits.
If that sounds like bad news for blockbuster fans, it might be. It is also the most honest thing a movie star has said about his own job in quite a while.
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