Like father, like kids? In the case of Jason Momoa, he’s hoping the apple falls very far from the tree!
Momoa recently sat down with ET’s Lauren Zima while promoting his upcoming Netflix thriller Sweet Girl — alongside his co-star Isabela Merced — and opened up about his kids’ possible futures in Hollywood.
“Aw man, one of them wants to do it and I’m not a fan,” Momoa, 42, said of his two kids — 14-year-old daughter Lola and 12-year-old son Nakoa-Wolf — whom he shares with his wife, actress Lisa Bonet. “I don’t want them to.”
Momoa, who also serves as a producer on the new Netflix thriller, explained that he’s hesitant to encourage that particular ambition.
“I don’t know. I’ll try my damnedest to keep ’em out of it,” Momoa said. “I love storytelling, I love theatrical things, I like directing and filmmaking, but I just want them to, you know, really to go for other things.”
“If they [really] want to, maybe,” he added. “But I don’t want them to get into acting. It’s very hard on people and I don’t want them to have that pressure. I’m tough, I can handle it, but I wouldn’t want to put someone I love [through] that.”
Merced, 20, who plays Momoa’s onscreen daughter in Sweet Girl, explained that there’s more to the job of acting that many young performers don’t realize when they first dream of getting in front of a camera.
“There’s a lot of, like, extra stuff that comes with acting that you’re like, ‘I didn’t sign up for this!’ But you love it, so you gotta do it,” Merced shared.
As for his own growing ambitions in Hollywood, Momoa explained that he’s been working hard to branch out from simply acting and is taking on other creative roles behind the camera to feel satisfied.
“I’ve been directing for a while now, so it’s been a passion,” he said. “I love to see the full project, not just be in the one piece of it. But it’s nice also to just do the actor stuff. I’m happy I can do both.”
