It’s no secret that acting is a tough business. Every year, countless young actors travel to Hollywood with hopes of being the next Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Jason Momoa, etc. Well, it turns out that the struggle continues long after you have “made it”. Just ask actor Jason Momoa, made famous for his portrayal of Khal Drogo on Game of Thrones, who was having trouble securing work… well, because he was famous for Game of Thrones. Chatting on The Jimmy Fallon Show, the always-eccentric Momoa recalled the long — and franky ridiculous — shadow that Khal Drogo cast over his career:
“Yeah, not a lot of people thought I spoke English. It was very challenging. It’s like, ‘What do you do with Drogo?’ You’re not gonna put him in a comedy, you’re not gonna put him in a romantic…you know what I mean? It’s pigeonholed… Actually, the first person that made me, I guess I was bummed out a bit, was Fred, your buddy. Fred Armisen. I met him, and my stepdaughter Zoe did Portlandia. And he was so excited to meet me, he was amazing. And then he was like, ‘ I didn’t even know you spoke English.’ It was heartbreaking. I was like, ‘That’s why I’m not getting any jobs.'”
While it’s frustrating to hear that Jason Momoa — who, by all accounts, seems like a righteous dude — was having trouble securing work for silly reasons, we can all take solace in the fact that Warner Bros. scooped him up, and cast him as Aquaman in the DC Extended Universe.
With Game of Thrones approaching its eighth, and final season, Jason Momoa won’t be the only cast member out of a job. Unfortunately, we have a while to wait: we won’t be seeing Game of Thrones Season 8 until 2019.
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Originally published January 26, 2018. Updated December 19, 2019.
