It's one of those slightly quirky things that in any interview with Mamoa, no-one ever seems to mention Stargate Atlantis, and just jump to Game of Thrones as to what made him an actor. However, he was on the Graham Norton show recently, and he mentioned that he found out he was going to be playing Aquaman back in 2013 and he was utterly broke at the time. A little later, Graham brought up his role on Game of Thrones, and man, Mamoa's expression just hit a slightly broken look and he made a comment about how while he put a lot of effort into playing that role, it basically destroyed his career at the time because he couldn't get any work after that, in part due to how many people thought he couldn't actually speak English.