Dune: Part Three is going to be a big movie for actors named Momoa. Not only will the film mark the return of Jason Momoa’s character, Duncan Idaho from the first film, but it'll also include Nakoa-Wolf Momoa, Jason Momoa’s son. The elder Momoa has talked about how he really didn't want his son to become an actor. However, Jason has now revealed a bit more about just how it happened anyway, and I love how he was beaming with pride.
To be fair, it seems Nakoa-Wolf Momoa's casting can be greatly attributed to his famous dad. Jason recently shared on the Smartless podcast that despite not wanting his son to get into acting, he took his kid, who goes by Wolf, to watch him on the set of Dune. The purpose of that was so that Wolf could start to learn how acting worked. Momoa said…
I asked the mother, and we’re like, ‘Yeah if Wolfie can come with me, I would like him to come to Dune.’ Because if he really wants to learn acting, ‘We’re gonna be with [Timothée] Chalamet. We’re gonna be with Denis [Villeneuve]. We’re going to be with Zendaya. He should be watching his father day in and day out. I want his work ethic to be like mine of the midwest.
Jason Momoa did indeed make a great point in that the set of Dune would be an ideal place for his son to get his feet wet, so to speak. Despite the older Momoa's reservations, it seems that Nakoa-Wolf really pushed his father to let it him give a try. While the younger Momoa had done acting before, he is an accomplished martial artist and, eventually, Momoa relented and helped his son put together a tape and sent it to a producer they knew:
So he’s begging me to learn all this stuff. [I’m like,] ‘Alright, fine. Well, let’s send uncle Cale [Boyter]…’ Cale, I did Minecraft with, I did Dune with. He’s a producer… So we tape something for Wolf, we send it in and Cale is like, ‘What the fuck, dude?’... Cale’s like, ‘Wow, he does this?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, he’s pretty good at it. Do you think we can give him like a Fremen role, and he can do some fight scenes and let him be on set?’ And he goes, ‘Dude, we’re casting for the kids, Chalamet and Zendaya’s.’
And so, from maybe angling to get his son a role as an extra, it was instead suggested that Nakoa-Wolf Momoa should audition for a more significant role in Dune: Part Three -- for the role of Leto Atreides II, the son of Paul Atreides and Chani, as played by Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya. Momoa says his son spoke with actor Cliff Curtis about acting before making a taped audition, and the producers were interested after he sent in said tape.
From there, Jason Momoa flew from where he was working in New Zealand to London to be with his son when he auditioned in person. While recalling all of this during his interview, the Minecraft Movie actor then went into full dad mode, and his praising of his son's abilities is just too sweet to ignore:
I guess he was beautiful. [Producer] Mary Parent was texting me and was like, ‘He’s killing. He’s doing great.’ But he had to do like a really hard scene that even if I had to do that scene, there’s no way I could pull that off, and to do that for the first time, and this kid killed it. And he did it on his own, I didn’t help him at all, and I’m doing fucking Dune with my son right now.
Nakoa-Wolf Momoa has clearly made a giant leap, from doing community theater in Southern California to appearing opposite some of Hollywood’s biggest stars in the next Dune movie. Momoa admits to being a “wreck” watching his son’s first scene in the movie, but he’s also incredibly proud. He concluded his comments saying…
His first goddamn scene, I’m sitting there, shitting my pants. Going like, ‘He’s with Zendaya, he’s in it. My baby, 16 years old.’ And he just killed it. I was crying, I was a fucking wreck. I was so proud of him.
Dune 3 is currently set for release in December 2026, so one imagines it’s going to be a pretty wild Christmas at the Momoa house. If dad is this happy to see his son filming, one can only imagine how proud he’ll be when he sees the final product. Ultimately, I also wouldn't be surprised if Jason Momoa shared some sweet tributes for his son upon the film's eventual release. And I'd be so down for that.
While waiting for the upcoming Dune film, grab an HBO Max subscription and stream the first two installments.
