Secrecy is important on movie productions. Spoilers have the potential to really damage a film's success, and so major blockbuster productions especially like to keep things close to the vest. Things were apparently so secret when Jason Momoa went to audition for Zack Snyder before Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice that the actor had no idea what role he was auditioning for. Momoa says he'd been told he was auditioning to play Batman, but even he knew that wasn't true, leading him to believe he was probably auditioning to play a bad guy. According to Momoa...
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.
It seems that the secrecy involved in casting Aquaman almost cost DC its Aquaman, as Jason Momoa says he initially wasn't even going to bother auditioning because he knew he wouldn't get the role he was being told he was auditioning for. Of course, that fact also may have given Momoa the freedom to do the audition in a way that made it even more clear that he was the right choice to play Aquaman.
It seems that after playing his "not really Batman" version of Batman, Momoa figured he was actually being looked at to play a villain, but then, as he tells This Morning, Zack Snyder called him into the office to reveal the truth behind the secretive audition.
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
Jason Momoa would make his official debut as Aquaman in a brief clip during Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, before taking on a larger role in the follow-up Justice League. Now, Momoa is getting ready for his first starring role in the first ever big screen Aquaman movie.
For what it's worth, Jason Momoa probably would have been a great DC movie villain, but if he'd been cast in a role like that there's a good chance he never would have made more than one movie. Based on the early word about Aquaman, it's a very good thing that he was cast in that role, as the movie is quite good. We'll find out in December.
