(audience cheering) Hello.
Thank you so much for,
you're the first
show ever to embrace
Mananalu.
So I just want to say thank you.
It means a lot to me
It's the only thing we've drank here on the show.
Thanks to being able to work with your company.
They've been so amazing to deal with and work with.
And we had just truckloads come to the set.
And this is how we roll over here at the show.
Like you're such a daily staple that we talk about.
It's weird to finally be meeting you
because we feel like you've been this huge mascot
of
advocacy and change.
And it's something that
I've talked about on the show
because I wish that I had been more awake
20 years ago.
It took me having kids.
One of my daughters is born on Earth Day,
but
this is a very different state, a very different era.
There's so much to unpack here.
You wanted to be,
did you have fantasies of being a marine biologist
when you were a kid?
Yeah, it's funny because I went to school.
I was born in Hawaii,
but I was raised in Iowa with a single mother
and we were,
I was very environmentally conscious when I was younger
and I always wanted to help the rainforest.
And I was just extremely
into wildlife biology, marine biology.
And what ended up happening is that
there was a place that I could go to in Iowa,
a space called Central Campus.
And you could go and study with scientists.
And then in your summer, your spring break,
you got to go down to Florida.
And so I did that for two years
and that gave me college credits,
but I always wanted to,
there's just,
my calling was with environmental studies
and marine biology.
And so when I ended up getting in acting,
it was a complete fluke,
and I happen to be at the right place in the wrong time.
Just kind of
in Hawaii meeting my dad,
and that's when I got into acting
but I never went back to school.
And so it's the one thing that it's really,
it's exciting being Aquaman now
because it's something that's so dear to me
being native Hawaiian,
being able to bring something back,
and being able to shout from my platform
about the things that I want to change.
And
when you have kids,
your kids, my kids looking at you as Aquaman,
I wanna make a dent
and I want to
really stop the single-use plastics.
'Cause I kind of feel like the way I've traveled,
the way we, well before the pandemic,
traveling around,
you're constantly seeing,
you're on a plane, you got plastic water bottle,
but everything else is aluminum.
You got the Cokes in aluminum, beer, sparkling water,
but why is this little plastic bottle that's this big,
three different types of plastic on it,
is why are we still doing this?
And so I just wanted to be able to make that change
'cause we can, it's infinitely recyclable
and that's the most important thing.
This can will be another can in 60 days.
And so I just,
if we can eliminate that,
if not, you just bring your own jug of water.
You know what else is
there left to do? Oh, there you go.
Now
everyone is very eager
and excited about Aquaman 2.
Any things to look forward to? Any details?
Well,
I think, after we ended the first one,
I went in with my writing partner
and we kind of dreamed up the second one,
and we went in and we pitched the idea.
And so it's really, I mean, the best thing I can give you is
that I love it so much that I participated
in the writing of it.
And so we did the first treatment,
and then James
and our original writer, David, finished it off
and all of our hearts are in it,
instead of just getting a script and doing that.
Like you're 100% being encouraged
by your director and
co-writers and
so that's exciting for me and excited to go over there.
I leave in July
and we start start filming so.
Maybe you really are Aquaman.
(audience laughing) Thank you.
It was good casting.
It really was.
I'm pretty happy with it too, yeah.
I mean, you're in Marine biology,
you go to Hawaii to visit your dad,
you get spotted,
you get pulled from your focus,
and eventually you get to Aquaman.
So maybe it was all meant to be,
but in the beginning, did you fake it until you made it?
Is this true that you lied occasionally?
Yeah, I mean, when I,
there's my first job was "Baywatch Hawaii"
and that's when they were kind of steering away
from the whole hassle, whole thing,
and he was leaving and they came to Hawaii.
I was working in a family surf shop.
And
it was on the radio.
It's just this is massive casting call
and so you can be an extra,
and as long as you're Hawaiian, you're an extra,
and you get like a hundred dollars a day.
You're not folding t-shirts for 60,
I was like, "Ah, I'll go down there."
So I go down there with my cousins and this is big lineup.
And really, we just went down there to meet ladies,
and I'm 19 years old and that's just how it was.
And we went down there,
and then sure enough, I got the lead role.
(Drew giggles)
But I had to, you had to have a resume.
And so when we came in, they're like,
"Well, do you have any modeling or acting experience?"
And I was like, "Oh yeah, I did Louis Vuitton.
And I did some of the Gucci."
And so basically I just made up a bunch of stuff
and wrote down that I was, that I'm old
because I didn't act before.
So now I'm here.
Back then, you couldn't really look it up.
You know what I mean?
Just go like, "Ah yeah, this is it."
I love that.
Listen, you credit some of your toughness
to
your
single mom.
Is it true that you attribute
a lot of your best qualities to your mom?
Yeah, I mean, she's my original best friend.
It was just her and I against the world.
So
she worked
three, four jobs
and
it baffles me how,
how hard it is to be
a single parent.
So those are really the superheroes.
I remember there'd be moments where
she'd have this thing with the cheesecake.
I'm not a big dessert fan, but I love cheesecake.
And my mom would come home from work
and she would say, "Get in the car."
And we're gonna go to this place called Say Cheese!
And the moment we would go get cheesecake,
it'd be the moment that I knew that
it was power that could get turned off,
or the phone wasn't gonna work,
or basically, we didn't have money,
and she'd spend the last bit on just one cheesecake
and we'd eat it.
So she always,
we always kind of celebrate
even if it was ship was going down for a little bit.
And so I always try to,
she
just,
a parent having to hold on to all those things inside
and not having anyone to, you know,
another partner to talk about it with.
So growing up like that,
it just makes you kind of go appreciate the small things
and
work hard, and
through her eyes,
I do believe I got my mother's eyes
in a sense of how she views
and how she sees certain things in situations.
So it's definitely gets passed on your kids.
I just have to stop there for a second
and say, I've never heard anyone say it like that.
I have my mother's eyes in the way
that I see the world or my perspective.
I've never heard it put that way.
That is the most soulful poetic thing.
I have my mother's eyes because of her.
You're, wow.
Thank you for saying that.
It's so beautiful to me.
So thank you for sharing that story.
Absolutely.
(brassy outro music)