[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Chief of War Season 1 Episode 5 “The Race of the Gods.”]
That was no Flexible Flyer sled ride! The fifth episode of this epic drama about Hawaiian royalty fighting for control of the islands featured a jaw-dropping sequence in which warrior chief Kaina (Jason Momoa) — who’d earlier made an emotional homecoming to the island and his family — took part in a traditional Hawaiian Holua sled race.
TV Insider talked to Momoa and Thomas Pa’a Sibbett, who co-created the saga with the actor, about the careening, fast-paced competition and what it was like to shoot it. Watch the full Chief of War video interview above.
The sleds and the tradition of warriors racing them was drawn from historical sources. “The Holua sled, that’s something that we’ve been fascinated with for a long time,” says Pa’a Sibbett. “It is 100% real. The sleds [in Chief of War] were handmade, so they’re not props. And that track itself going down and shooting off a 200-foot cliff, those exist.”
Momoa revealed more of the behind-the-scenes details: “We actually shot it in real time. It wasn’t just us sitting there and shaking the thing. We had this huge hill and we had safety lines roped to them, but basically going down this huge — it was grass, obviously, but we’re sliding down this thing and then there’s the cameras following us down on tracks, and then we had zip cameras going past us. And you eat s**t a couple times, you fall off and you get pretty messed up. It was fun, but also scary.”
The scariest part for Momoa was the potential for damage to the … royal jewels. “You’re in a malo [loincloth]. When you fall, you’re like, ‘Screw the face!’ There’s one flap that could get caught. You could get sucked into something!” he shared.
Chief of War, Fridays, Apple TV+