While it’s been reported that Jason Momoa started out as a model, he later admitted those credentials were something he made up in order to get his first acting job.
As the story goes, he was 19 years old and working in a surf shop when he heard about the open casting call for “Baywatch: Hawaii.” The casting directors asked if he had any experience, so he just started to make stuff up. “We just kind of bulls***ted our way in and then I met some managers down there: they kind of made up some stuff for me like, ‘Hawaii Model of the Year,'” he explained to square mile.
Luckily for him, he was offered the role of one of the main characters for the last two seasons of “Baywatch: Hawaii,” portraying the character of Jason Ioane from 1999-2001. “I went from folding T-shirts in Hawaii to walking around half naked with really beautiful women, which wasn’t bad at 19,” he told the Des Moines Register.
While the role led him to change the course of his life and pursue acting (he was studying to be a marine biologist before he landed the gig), he had trouble finding work after the show ended. “I fell in love with the art of acting,” he explained in an interview with Esquire. “But no one took me seriously. ‘Baywatch’ isn’t known for its … quality of acting. I couldn’t get an agent to save my life.”
