Jason Momoa truly is a legend to his fans, and it's not hard to see why: he's an undeniable badass. First of all, he amazed us all by appearing as the barbaric Dothraki warlord Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones (where he made it pretty hard to take your eyes off his pecs), and then he managed to pull off the seemingly impossible task of actually making Aquaman cool - a bit of an uphill struggle when you're playing a character whose main mode of transport is a giant seahorse.

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Getty]]

But it seems as though Momoa is a superhero in real-life, as well as on the silver screen. This week he's decided to combat the deadliest threat facing our planet. Not Lex Luthor. Not Black Manta. Not even the formidable Ocean Master himself. Instead, he's decided to fight climate change and pollution, by making an impressive symbolic gesture: shaving off his iconic beard.

Check out the footage of Jason shaving his beard off below: 

[[jwplayerwidget||https://content.jwplatform.com/videos/9y3mlQQ2-sKUnNGKf.mp4||9y3mlQQ2]]

In a new video released on his official Instagram account and YouTube channel, Momoa shaved off his facial hair to promote the use of recyclable aluminium cans for water over plastic water bottles, in a bid to raise environmental awareness. The video appears to have been filmed in Jordan, where Momoa is currently on the production for the upcoming "Dune" remake of Frank Herbert's classic science fiction novel Dune.

When uploading the video to Instagram, Jason captioned the footage: "I’m SHAVING this beast off, It’s time to make a change. A change for the better ... for my kids, your kids, the world. Let’s make a positive change for the health of our planet. Let’s clean up our oceans, our land. Join me on this journey. Let’s make the switch to infinitely recyclable aluminium."

The actor is set to portray the handsome House Atreides swordmaster Duncan Idaho in the Denis Villeneuve-directed movie and appears to be going clean-shaven for the role. To all of you who are mourning the loss of Jason's glorious beard: don't worry. I'm sure it'll grow back in no time!

It seems that not a day goes by on social media without internet users body-shaming celebrities. Online, non-events are often considered borderline unforgivable by trolls.

Some of the most glamorous, good-looking, fashionable people are commonly slated for their sense of style or their physical appearance. If you're famous, there's no such thing as a rest day.

Check out this video of Jason flexing his muscles for charity below:

[[jwplayerwidget||https://content.jwplatform.com/videos/WejNUXpR-Q0L14jDU.mp4||WejNUXpR]]

And it would seem that no-one is immune to this kind of criticism. Case in point: Aquaman and Game of Thrones star Jason Momoa.

The shirtless hunk has always attracted plenty of attention with his bulging muscles, but this week a certain segment of his hatedom has actually accused him of having a dad bod!

The trouble began when the magazine US Weekly shared an image of Jason on their official Instagram account, which was taken while the actor was shirtless on vacation.  Some people in the comments began to accuse Momoa of letting himself go.

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BzdAHY3luzZ/]]

However, Jason's many fans were on-hand to leap to his defence and deliver some stinging rebuttals to the haters. For example, one person commented: "He's gorgeous on and off camera!!! His body, face, heart and personality are beautiful! STOP HATING! YOU ARE EITHER JEALOUS OR HAVE NO TASTE! [sic]"

Meanwhile, someone else wrote: "He looks DAMN FINE! Y’all being mean and I bet most of you don’t have a six pack either. I sure as hell don’t. [sic]"

Really, it's no-one else's business what Momoa does with his body, but he looks pretty damn good to me, regardless of what some had to say on the subject.

There's no denying that Jason Momoa is big – not just in terms of the growing list of roles to his acting resume, but also in body mass. He played the barbaric (but ultimately sweet) Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones and now is in full swing working with DC to play superhero Aquaman, both characters with brute strength clearly made visible by the fact that they're both usually shirtless. The Hawaiian-born actor has to be in top shape to do the characters justice, meaning he's had to work out hard to gain a lot of muscle. In fact, he put on an astounding 25 pounds of pure muscle in a short amount of time for the role of Aquaman, who featured in the recently released Justice League and is set to star in a solo effort in 2018. [[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/Bbm092zH7Jf/?hl=en&taken-by=prideofgypsies]] So did he swim thousands of kilometers in order to get the heir of Atlantis physique? Of course not. No way can you get guns like those simply by paddling in the pool a few hours each day. Plus, the 38-year-old told Men's Health magazine “swimming can be boring. To me, it’s like going on a treadmill.”

According to Muscle and Strength magazine, Momoa has followed the Accelerated Results 7 (AR-7) routine for a while now. The full-body plan is unique in how it can get anyone in top shape in a short amount of time.

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BVdcW0Un9Ij/?hl=en&taken-by=prideofgypsies]]

The key is in using low reps, low weight, and little rest between exercises. Low weights without many reps? Sounds weird right? It comes down to the high tempo and fast pace, meaning you'll start to feel the burn much sooner, with the aim of reaching muscular failure.

This also means you'll be able to do the workout a few times a day, as Momoa did. Training for Aquaman, he was in the gym two hours a day for about five-to-six days a week. This level of dedication and having to work through the pain of deliberate muscle failure clearly paid off. [[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/Bbc9DJJnU30/?hl=en&taken-by=prideofgypsies]]

The AR-7 routine was developed by personal trainer Eric Laciste, who Momoa's been training with since his role as Conan the Barbarian in 2010. The gym where Momoa trains with Laciste is LA-based is one that's seen other actors and stuntmen get ripped for films like 300 and Fight Club.

"It’s this huge warehouse and just a bunch of f**king bad-asses crushing weights," Momoa said, describing the gym. But it seems also before he started doing the Aquaman workouts, Momoa wasn't all that interested in hitting the weights.

"It's very hard sometimes to just work out. It's monotonous and you can get stuck in a rut," Momoa told Men's Health. "I get bored, so I do a lot more boxing, surfing, climbing – I do the things I love to do when I'm not training for a role."

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BZVbPOdHfn0/?hl=en&taken-by=prideofgypsies]]

"When I have to change my body type, then we just switch it up. Doing a lot more weights for size; a lot more cardio for definition."

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BY7WR7Fne6q/?hl=en&taken-by=prideofgypsies]] Whatever he's doing, it's working.

Jason Momoa is in pretty good shape, isn't he?

Regardless of whether you know him as Khal Drogo on Game of Thrones or even on Stargate Atlantis (now there's a blast from the past), Momoa is emerging as one of the more bankable movie stars around at the moment, and he owes no small part of that to his star turn as Aquaman, not to mention the bod he shows off in that movie.

Once Momoa whipped his shirt off in the early stages of Justice League, women (and some men too) were in awe of the incredible physique shown off by the actor. But as you might imagine, it was pretty hard work, and now that Aquaman's out in cinemas and he doesn't have to film anymore, he's going on one heck of a cheat binge.

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Getty]]

Speaking to E!, Momoa revealed the hard work he had to do to get into shape for Aquaman, and also explained that because of his body type, keeping himself that well-defined required a lot of starving. "I had to not really eat as much to stay lean," he explained.

"I'm Hawaiian—if we eat, we just get big. So, genetically, it's hard for me to get trim. You deplete yourself of carbs, so I had a harder time getting lean. I'd rather just get big. I'm not a fan of doing abs. It’s tough...You can't drink beer!"

That sounds... not fun, does it? Momoa's trainer, Stuart Walton, went into a little more detail about his Aquaman diet in an interview with LiveStrong earlier this year.

"No foods were off limit, nor do they need to be," Walton said, explaining that Momoa would fuel up on carbs before a workout - fruit in the morning, quinoa or rice in the evening - and mix in plenty of protein and fat (usually in the form of salmon, steak, avocados and olive oil) for the perfect macronutrient balance.

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Getty]]

But now that filming's wrapped and Momoa can properly enjoy a well-deserved rest, he says he's going back to what he enjoys, and for the moment, that means staying away from the weights and eating a heck of a lot of carbs. "I haven't touched a weight in nine months," he said. "I'm just eating bread and butter! Every day is a cheat day!"

But while he's enjoying being off the diet, Jason Momoa revealed to E! that once he saw himself playing Aquaman on the big screen, he realised that all of that hard work had paid of rather handsomely. "My first experience putting that suit on was looking at [Aquaman director] James Wan, and he was so excited," Momoa explains.

"It's a beautiful suit. I think James, it was a big concern of his to get that right. Obviously, I wanted it right, but he wanted it in this movie and he killed it. The moment [I] walk out, it's a beautiful reveal. Walk out through a waterfall and slam a trident down? That was pretty cool."

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Getty]]

Sound cool? It is: catch Aquaman in cinemas starting December 21, and once you're there, you can really appreciate the work Jason Momoa's done to bring the character to life. I think he deserves a little bit of a rest, don't you?

Jason Momoa stood up for himself in a recent interview after a question about his controversial sexual assault scene in Game of Thrones left a "bad feeling" in his stomach.

In an interview that was published on Friday, July 30, the Aquaman star, 42, spoke to New York Times about a wide range of topics - including his role as Khal Drogo in the hugely popular fantasy series.

However, Momoa took umbrage with the phrasing of a particular question that implied he may have regrets about having played a character who sexually assaults Daenerys Targaryen on their wedding night.

David Marchese, a journalist at the publication, prefaced his question by explaining that the HBO show "inspired a lot of discussion about its depiction of scenes of sexual assault and its treatment of women generally."

Credit: AF archive / Alamy

He then proceeded to ask Momoa: "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."

The actor responded: "Well, it was important to depict Drogo and his style. You’re playing someone that’s like Genghis Khan.

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

"It’s not my job to go, 'Would I not do it?' 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."

Marchese then moved on to talk about Momoa's science fiction series See and other projects he has been involved in since Game of Thrones.

Credit: Image Press Agency / Alamy

However, as soon as the reporter wrapped up the interview, Momoa decided to call him out over the question about his contentious scene in Game of Thrones.

He said: "I wanted to bring something up that left a bad feeling in my stomach. When you brought up Game of Thrones, you brought up stuff about what’s happening with my character and would I do it again. I was bummed when you asked me that."

The actor went on to describe the question as "icky", explaining that actors have no creative control over the depiction of certain scenes.

He added: "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. So it’s a question that feels icky. I just wanted you to know that."

Featured image credit: LMK MEDIA LTD / Alamy