Sitting down in The Hollywood Reporter’s Sundance Studio to promote his new documentary Deep Rising, Jason Momoa explained what drew him to the project and condemned the widespread use of single-use plastics and their detrimental effect on the planet. 

Matthieu Rytz’s film explores the extraction of metals from the ocean floor to power the electrical battery industry. Momoa, who narrates the doc and serves as an executive producer, came onto the project because of his passion for the subject matter. “I look at my family, I look at my family’s friends, at the kids, and I just want better,” he explains. “I took a vow five years ago to go after single-use plastic, because it kills me — I live a single-use plastic life. I travel. I live on the fucking road. I sit on a plane and there’s a plastic bottle that’s a shot of water, and there’s three different types of plastic that we can never recycle.”

Momoa’s goal is to promote the use of aluminum bottles as opposed to plastic ones: “I had to go up for one thing. This is tangible to me. There was nothing like this. Now Dasani, and the red and the blue guy, are making [aluminum bottles]. Good. If this doesn’t survive, at least we made a change, at least you have a choice at the airport, instead of buying some more plastic bullshit. As much as I can disrupt, I like kicking up a little dust for the world, and the environment.” 

Deep Rising’s director Rytz and subject Dr. Sandor Mulsow were also on location at The Hollywood Reporter Sundance Studio presented by Heineken Silver and Origin Spring Water. They gave an impassioned plea for the U.S. to sign the United Nations’ Convention of the Law of the Sea, which establishes a legal framework for all marine activity, including the deep-sea mining that Deep Rising tackles.