Jason Momoa goes "bigger than Game Of Thrones" in Chief Of War teaser

Speaking with GQ earlier this year, Momoa described the difficulty of learning Olelo Hawaiian for the series and how much effort went into making this dream come true with Sibbett. “This has been my everything. This is my Braveheart, this is my Last of the Mohicans—when I was a little kid, I looked at all these Native American movies and I love samurai movies and I love all these cultures, and so this is it for us. This is our chance,” he said, adding that “[saving] cinema” with the Minecraft movie is one of the many ways he built credibility for Chief Of War. He shared that someone “extremely important” from Game Of Thrones came in to help with the series and got “lost” in the fascinating history of the islands. “They came back to us and they were like, did you know this? Did you know that? Did you know this? And I’m like, bro. Yeah. We know this. And he’s like, ‘This is bigger than Game Of Thrones could ever be. Fuck dragons, dude—this thing is insane.’ These are real stories. We have so many stories.”

In the Chief Of War teaser, Momoa is introduced as one of those heroes burdened with great destiny: “You will see the prophecy fulfilled, Ka’iana,” a voiceover proclaims. The brief clip features glorious landscapes and tense standoffs as Ka’iana warns that he is not, currently, the chief who desires peace. (Duh, he’s the Chief Of War!) The epic action sequences prove that learning a language wasn’t the only difficulty of the shoot—it required plenty of grueling physical labor, as well. But as Momoa told GQ, being toned, tanned, and bearing his bum in authentic costuming came a lot more naturally than speaking a new tongue. “Well, the good news is I’m Hawaiian, so we got ass,” he said. “I don’t really have to do much for that. That’s one thing we got. Let’s print that.”