Business realities aside, it does seem like the time is right for Chief of War, or something like it. Maybe overdue. The Polynesians famously colonized 10 million square miles across the open Pacific while European sailors were still hugging the coasts, hundreds of years before Copernicus was even born. We still don’t entirely understand how they did it. And yet, we still don’t have many Polynesian-centric stories on screen (Moana being a notable exception), and even fewer Hawaiian ones (at least, specifically Kanaka Maoli ones, focusing on and/or told from the point of view of Native Hawaiians). That’s where Chief of War comes in, telling the surprisingly action-packed story of how Hawaii became Hawaii, instead of a collection of warring islands.
Perhaps only at the height of Momoa’s fame would a streaming network let him make a Hawaiian historical epic with a nearly all-Polynesian cast staged almost entirely in the Hawaiian language. And that’s where Momoa, for all his most-positive-guy-you-could-ever-meet-at-the-bar energy, also deserves credit for doggedness, single-minded focus, and commitment to his community. Momoa co-writes and co-executive produces alongside his old friend Sibbett, a previous collaborator on Braven, The Last Manhunt, and Aquaman 2, who wrote every episode of Chief of War.
Where someone else in his place could’ve just opened a chain of bar and grills (not that there’s anything wrong with that), Momoa is using his clout to tell the story of his people. And if running around in a loincloth cracking skulls sounds more like fun than work, try reading just a few names from Hawaiian history yourself, and then imagine spending months or years immersed in the language. According to Momoa, wrapping his tongue around Olelo Hawai’i’s complexities made his Dothraki dialogue on Game of Thrones seem like a cakewalk.
And yet he says it was worth it–not only because of the story’s cultural significance, but because it’s just a hell of a yarn. “There’s someone that I worked with on Game of Thrones who’s very, extremely important,” Momoa says. “And he’s like, ‘This is bigger than Game of Thrones could ever be. Fuck dragons, dude. This thing is insane.’”
When Momoa’s character ropes a shark like he’s lassoing a steer and rides it around the ocean in Chief of War’s first scenes, you know you’re not watching a dry PBS documentary. These are two guys thrilled to be telling stories, and even more thrilled to be telling this story.
GQ: So what did you grow up learning about your heritage and how much did you have to seek it out later in life?
Jason Momoa: I mean, I had to seek out a lot later in life. I do credit my mother. I was raised mostly by her, and I was raised in Iowa. I spent my summers with my father [in Hawaii]. My dad was pretty good with it, but my mom really, she kept it around for me. But what we had to do on this is next level. I would still say, this is the hardest thing I’ve done in my life. I thought, like, “Oh, the ancestors are going to come down, and they’re going to just be like, ‘You’re great with languages, Momoa! Dothraki this, fucking that. You’re an actor. So go act, motherfucker!’”