Most moviegoers are familiar with actor Jason Momoa because of his dramatic onscreen presence. But director Eamon O’Rourke, who had the opportunity to work with Momoa in the 2016 film The Bad Batch, noted that it was the actor’s down-to-earth personality and compassion for other people that set him apart. With an all-star cast including Keanu Reeves, Jim Carrey, and Diego Luna, Momoa stood out by bringing the cast and crew together through fun and games. O’Rourke’s tales from the set simply reinforce this warm-hearted A-lister’s dynamic personality.
Noting that Jason Momoa is a wonderful person inside and out, both on and off the set, Eamon O’Rourke met Momoa while working as a production assistant for The Bad Batch. O’Rourke worked hard to bring the cast and crew together and to ensure everyone had what they needed during the first week of production. Initially, O’Rourke was a bit intimidated but was soon won over by Momoa’s warm personality.
“You cannot find a bigger honey pie in the world,” mentioned Eamon O’Rourke, “The cast was absolutely stacked. I was running background but helping out with first team with another [production assistant] who I worked with forever. I was mainly running background, but I was also helping, a few of the bigger actors were sort of under my care. And one of the people who I was really helping out with was Jason Momoa, who is the nicest guy in the whole world.”
With a strong presence that brings people together, O’Rourke was happy to have such a friendly personality to work with. Of Momoa, O’Rourke mentioned, “[He is] just this wonderful, wonderful, superwarm guy who has no sense of superiority. He’s part of the whole thing. Everyone is part of it too. It’s beautiful. Anyway, something that I have learned over the course of working on first team is that in the beginning, you’ve got to win the actors over in that first week. You don’t want to get too, too close, but you want them to like you. That can look a lot of different ways depending on the actors.”
O’Rourke was not at all surprised when Momoa invited him and several cast members over to his hotel room to hang out near the end of the first week of filming. “Jason Momoa was having some of the crew and people who were staying in that hotel to his room, [to] drink some beers [and] hang out,” O’Rourke stated in an interview. But he also noted Momoa’s kindness during filming as well. “Momoa is just such a nice guy who was great to me and took care of me over the course of that shoot,” he said. “It was a long shoot. It was a hard shoot. We were in the desert. I was his guy. I was his guy from that point on because I had never quit on him. I find it to be one of the most entertaining moments of my career as a [production assistant].”
For this reason, director Eamon O’Rourke isn’t at all surprised that Momoa continues to make headlines as a kind person. In 2020, Momoa made a special visit to a Pittsburgh children’s hospital, taking the time to pose for photos with children and their families and arm wrestle some of the patients, as reported by CTV News. Momoa has also spent time with kids through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The Aquaman star later posted that meeting with children who were critically ill and working with the Foundation is something he has great plans for in the future, as noted in his Tweet: “My first @makeawishamerica I will do this for life.”
O’Rourke noted that Momoa is the type of celebrity Hollywood should strive to produce. In a world full of short sound bites, snappy attitudes, and greater-than-thou behaviors, Momoa’s kindness stands out as one of many reasons why the A-lister is so popular among colleagues and fans alike.
