With a height of 6’4″ and an intimidatingly ripped upper body that he proudly displays in several of his roles, Aquaman star Jason Momoa can be a pretty frightening figure when he so chooses, making it the Justice League’s own good fortune that the actor joined the DCEU as a friend rather than foe. In fact, in a recent interview with This Morning, Momoa admitted that he thought Warner Bros. was eyeing him to play a villain when they brought him in to audition.
Years before Arthur Curry made his big screen debut in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Momoa was ostensibly called in by director Zack Snyder to read for the part of the Caped Crusader himself, though the Game of Thrones star quickly saw through this spoiler-conscious ruse.
“No, Zack called me in to do a kind of generic, general audition for Batman, but I knew I would not be playing Batman. So, I kind of just said, ‘No,’ I wasn’t going to go in. My agents called me again, like, ‘You need to go in, Zack wants to see you.’ So, I went in and I just played that audition completely opposite of what you’re supposed to play [as Batman]. I pretended like Batman was killed in an alleyway and I just picked up the suit and played it however I wanted to. Which is kinda like Aquaman.”
After presenting this knowingly inappropriate take on Bruce Wayne, Momoa figured that he was in the running to play one of the bad guys, and when Snyder told him what part he’d really auditioned for, the actor needed a moment to process it.
“So, then he called me back in his office and said, ‘Do you know why you’re here. I’m like, ‘I got no idea.’ Because by then Ben had been casted… I kind of figured I was going to play the bad guy. He was like, ‘I want you to play Aquaman.’ I’m like, ‘Come again?’ Then I had to keep it a secret for almost two years”
After making a brief cameo in Batman V Superman and serving as part of an ensemble in Justice League, Arthur Curry is finally getting the spotlight to himself with James Wan’s upcoming flick, and if the early audience reactions and box office projections are anything to go by, then the film should be getting the hero’s cinematic solo career off to a strong start.
While Momoa could well have made for a fine DC villain, it sounds like the star’s doing a pretty good job at wearing the hero persona instead, but we can judge for ourselves when Aquaman hits theaters on December 21st.
