While filming the first episode of The Inertia’s new documentary series, a special called Sine Qua Non: The Psychology of Big Wave Surfing with Greg Long, I took some time to discuss Greg’s involvement in a much higher budget surf film: Chasing Mavericks. Chasing Mavericks is a feature film starring Gerard Butler and Jonny Weston about the life of surfer Jay Moriarity that premieres later this month, on October 26th. Greg was pretty closely involved in the project, so it was interesting to hear his perspective – from rescuing Gerard Butler in 20-foot Mavericks to playing Jeff Clark to trying to figure out how surfers might receive the film, there was plenty to discuss.
So how did you first get involved with the Chasing Mavericks movie and what is your role in the film?
I actually play one of the characters that Frosty [Hesson], who was Jay’s mentor, was surfing Maverick’s with at the very beginning – kind of before it was discovered by the rest of the surfing public and it was still sort of this mysterious – almost myth of a wave that was really distant and people had heard stories about.
