Fast X: Who is Dante? Jason Momoa villain explained

❘ Published: 2023-05-19T16:30:00

Universal Pictures

Fast X introduces the next big bad to the Fast and Furious family: Dante, played by Jason Momoa – here’s everything you need to know.

In our review, we wrote: “It’d be disingenuous to call Momoa a revelation – I’m pretty sure we all felt the serotonin from the ‘ma boy!’ hugs in Dune – but he is operating on a different plane from everyone else. He chews up every line with maniacal glee.”

The Fast Saga’s villains are pretty hit-and-miss. Johnny Tran is a half-baked rival to Dominic Toretto, and then there’s a long list of drug lords and “Drift Kings” before we get to Owen Shaw, his “big, brother Deckard” (who’s no longer an antagonist), and tech terrorist and genius Cipher.

They’ve never faced off against a villain like Dante before, who has a very personal axe to grind with Dom and his familia – so, here’s everything you need to know. Spoilers to follow…

Who is Jason Momoa’s Dante in Fast X?

Jason Momoa plays Dante, the vengeful son of Hernan Reyes, the drug lord from Fast Five.

As Dom and co., prepared to steal the safe from the police station, Dante wanted to kill them all after they burned some of his dad’s money. “When suffering is owed, never accept death as payment,” Reyes told him, a quote that becomes the villain’s mantra throughout the film.

Once the safe was dragged out by Dom and Brian, Dante drove a car alongside his father and pursued them on the bridge. If you cast your mind back to the original sequence, one of the cars has a man firing a Gatling gun out of the top – that’s Dante’s car. Dom walloped it with the safe, plunging the car and Dante into the water with a cracked head.

He was legally dead for two minutes, but the experience “opened his mind” and put him on a path of crime and merciless vengeance. He even steals Cipher’s equipment and men after taking their families hostage. While he hates Dom, he seems to find him and his legacy quite impressive, and notes that he wouldn’t be who he is now had he not lost all of that money.

In an interview with Digital Spy, Momoa said: “I went in with a certain idea of how I wanted to play this character and everyone really got behind it.

“The more you play and with the help of [director Louis Leterrier], who I want to work with for the rest of my life, he did a phenomenal job, and he just encouraged me to play more.

“I wanted to make a character who is… to me, the devil is something that lures you in, it has this inviting feeling and you trust it and the next thing you know, you’re on the dark side.

“I wanted to make him very approachable with the colours, and when you got really close enough to see his eyes, you’re like, ‘F**k, I’ve been tricked, this is the devil’ and he’s gonna have fun hurting you.”

Fast X is in cinemas now, and you can check out the rest of our Fast and Furious 10 coverage below: