Posted in: HBO, Max, TV | Tagged: On the Roam

On the Roam S02: Jason Momoa & Brian Andrew Mendoza on Artisan Stories

On the Roam creators Jason Momoa and Brian Andrew Mendoza discuss expanding on the first season's success, profiling artisans, and much more.

When Jason Momoa and Brian Andrew Mendoza developed On the Roam for HBO Max, it was about sharing their journey bringing their like-minded interests on screen, profiling the artisans of various trades, from motorcycle enthusiasts on a quest to reverse engineer a relic from the past in the vintage DAH Hill Climbers, photographers, filmmakers, and musicians with Momoa getting personally involved each episode interacting with the subjects and working with them on any possible goals. In the season two premiere, the star of A Minecraft Movie (2025) and Supergirl (2026) worked with the band The Bobby Lees to help them secure a record deal, showing audiences their creative process. Among other musicians featured in season one are ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, Guns N' Roses' Slash, and Primus's Les Claypool. Momoa and Mendoza spoke to Bleeding Cool about the goals they wanted to set for season two, how they space out their time to work on their passion project series in between their other commitments, developing their storytelling voice, profiling filmmaker/artist Julian Schnabel, and if they have plans to develop any unreleased material as a bonus feature in some form in the future.

On the Roam Creators Jason Momoa and Brian Andrew Mendoza on Expanding on Season 1's Success, Profiling Their Subjects, and More

BC: When you wrapped season one of On the Roam, what did you want to build off heading into season two?

Mendoza: I think we wanted to try to step it up and do bigger things, travel more, see more, meet more people, meet more artists. The series is about celebrating artisans, craftsmen, and the people who are doing really unique things. We stepped it up with, like, we covered the DAHs [Hill Climbers] on the Harleys on season one, and we went further into the board track bikes of 100 plus years ago, recreated engines that had never been, recreated or "fabricated," I should say, in that many times didn't actually race them. So, it was trying to figure out what we could do that was bigger. Also, while staying within the loves of subjects and things that Jason really appreciates, because the whole series is through Jason's eyes. It's making sure that the viewer can go on the experience with him and that must be authentic to what he's really interested in, and me, too. I'm equally interested in, and we're both huge fans of Julian Schnabel, [our] hero.

Jason, when you're developing the series, how long did it take you to develop your style for the docuseries? I see you have a more hands-on approach, going beyond simply telling the story from a historical standpoint?

Momoa: I think we probably took an approach that I don't know how anyone else normally shoots their stuff. I just know how we do it, how I want to do it, and how Brian wants to do it. I mean, we built the company about 25 plus years ago, and so through Pride of Gypsies, not only does it have to be shot with a certain ethos, but how we want it to look, and be presented, is extremely important to us.

As far as the storytelling, it's very scary because I play characters, I hide behind characters, I don't look at the camera. I don't have to, but to now go into someone's life, excite them, and build this passion with them, it takes a long time. That's generally around two years minimum for something like that to happen, to build and to have the idea, be with them, create the idea to shoot that, and then be able to have a finished product and be there at the right timing for all of that to happen.

Any time I have time off from a day job, we're generally shooting this, which is based around our passion. You must love what you're going after. The good thing is that we're both very curious people. We both love handcrafted artisans. We love this stuff, and so we build our company off of a lot of this, and so I feel like we're really living out childhood dreams and things we love to do. Ultimately, we want to make something in this world of the "reality" of…what do you call it?

Mendoza: Unscripted?

Momoa: We've never done unscripted, it's where it's like being able to, but you know…

Mendoza: Apply, I mean, I think it's like we're always trying to apply sort of the cinematic edge to it. We want things. There are certain episodes that you haven't seen. There's one of what we call "History of Speed" that's [episode] 205, which is four-track racing, and we went out to Tennessee. We shot that in our own unorthodox way because it's a very small team, but we had a CineBike, which uses the same technology you'd use when you're shooting an action film. Some of the shots we captured towards the end of the episode of these bikes on this track in Tennessee are just as good as you would see in any hundred-million-dollar feature film. However, we've always wanted to be really small in this, because we are approaching real people, and you want to make them feel comfortable. You don't want to bring this whole group, so there are three of us: a cinematographer, Damien (Bray), myself, and Jason. Then, we also have a photographer, Jason Roman, with us most of the time. Like I said, a really small team that's traveling. We got (EP) Kate (Curtright), who's helping us out, and other people helping us coordinate that stuff, but we're the ones actually shooting.

What's the most difficult part of keeping the stories within frame, given how much content you have to deal with? You also have the benefit of having a platform like HBO to tell these stories, and when I think of the Julian Schnabel episode, there was so much focus on his art and then the filmmaking. I imagine you could probably do at least 2-3 episodes from that. How do you scale that down?

Momoa: I mean, that's the part that sucks.

Mendoza: When you're told you know you can't go over…it's just part of, I mean, it's part of everything you make. You wish you could have, if it's a feature film or a TV show, more time to tell some of these stories. You must whittle it down and kill some babies that you wish could be in there. Ultimately, it's just staying true. I think the excitement of what makes us always keep in is like, as you're shooting, you know there's a moment, there's always these moments when you're shooting throughout the day that you're just like, "Oh my gosh! This was unplanned, this is magical." Those are the things that you want to preserve, because those are things our audience is going to also see when they're watching it.

They're going to recognize that that moment was off the cuff, or that moment it was. I think it is something where, as an audience member, you don't want to feel like you're watching something, because it's produced, and we don't produce this. We're not like…we don't huddle with a bunch of producers at night going like, "We're going to do this tomorrow." We literally are usually getting off a plane, going like, "Hey, we're going here and going to go shoot it." It's very cinéma vérité.

Was there anything from season one that you most regret leaving on the cutting room floor? Maybe, perhaps make available as an extra or something on the side?

Mendoza: There was a lot on season one; we had the pandemic, and then that just threw Jason's schedule into disarray. We had to shift around a lot of things in season one to make it work. There were a few things. I don't want to single out one over the other, but yeah, not everything that we captured made it into season one.

Momoa: Yeah, I think it's really having like being able to…maybe it'll happen at some point where we put a YouTube thing out. You can showcase all the things that you don't get to put in, because there are so many people that are just like, "Oh, wow! I didn't get to see that part of that party. Like, bro, it's just like it's got to fit into…." We have a wonderful thing with Lenny, and we did a whole fucking piece with Lenny that I built him a bike, and it didn't make the cut. That's with Scotty. I mean, I had a fucking hand built; we made him his own motorcycle, and it just didn't get in there. There are a lot of beautiful things, and we just couldn't fit them all in the time. Maybe, one day, we'll release all that. It's really just happening; we have wonderful editors. Brian works with them really closely, and I just feel like maybe one day, they will be able to put more of that stuff out.

New episodes of On the Roam stream on Thursdays on HBO Max.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!