Jason Momoa Shut Down An "Icky" Question About Whether He Regrets The Depiction Of Sexual Violence On "Game Of Thrones"

"We'll put it this way: I already did it. Not doing it again."

By
Ellie Bate
by Ellie Bate

BuzzFeed Staff

An interviewer got on the wrong side of Jason Momoa last week when he asked the actor if he had any regrets over playing Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones.

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During an interview with the New York Times published on Friday, the 42-year-old was asked whether he now "thinks differently" about the show's treatment of women and its depictions of sexual assault.

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The pilot episode of the show includes a scene where Khal Drogo — Momoa's character — rapes Daenerys Targaryen on their wedding night.

In the interview, the reporter asked: "Do you think differently today about those scenes? Would you do one now? Do you have any regrets? Those types of scenes can seem as if they belong to an older cultural moment."

Momoa's response was that it was "important to depict Drogo and his style."

"It was a really, really, really hard thing to do," Momoa acknowledged. "But my job was to play something like that, and it's not a nice thing, and it's what that character was."

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"It’s not my job to go, 'Would I not do it?'" Momoa went on. "I've never really been questioned about, 'Do you regret playing a role?' We'll put it this way: I already did it. Not doing it again."

Towards the end of the interview, however, Momoa brought up the question again, calling it "icky" and admitting it had left "a bad feeling in [his] stomach."

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"When you brought up Game of Thrones, you brought up stuff about what's happening with my character and would I do it again," he told the interviewer. "I was bummed when you asked me that."

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"It just feels icky — putting it upon me to remove something," Momoa explained. "As if an actor even had the choice to do that."

He went on to say that decisions over what to include in the show come from people behind the scenes — not actors.

"We're not really allowed to do anything," he said. "There are producers, there are writers, there are directors, and you don't get to come in and be like, 'I'm not going do that because this isn't kosher right now and not right in the political climate.' That never happens. It's a question that feels icky. I just wanted you to know that."

In a 2019 interview on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast, Emilia Clarke — who played Daenerys on the show — opened up about how Momoa "took care of her" during her nude scenes.

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"He took care of me, he really did, in an environment where I didn't know I needed to be taken care of," the 34-year-old said. "It's only now that I realize how fortunate I was with that, because that could have gone many, many, many different ways."

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"Jason had experience," she explained. "He had done a bunch of stuff before coming on to this. He was like, 'Sweetie, this is how it's meant to be and this is how it's not meant to be, and I'm going to make sure that's the way it goes.' He was so kind and considerate, and cared about me as a human being."

You can read Jason Momoa's full interview with the New York Times here.

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