So how was it to meet all the old friends again?
Some of them I have met sometimes through the years of course. But it was fantastic to sit down with Tony Alva, and a bit sad to meet Jay Adams. He really wasn’t well when we did the interview. He is a lot better now, and he himself chose to live his life as he did. He says so himself. He is not the least bitter. He regrets very few things.
You have been saying that it was the hardest interview you have done.
It was. But he was very open and wanted to tell his story. Afterwards he said that he wished he hadn’t been in such a bad condition at the time but “I was, so what?” that really made me warm cause it was like a blessing for me to use it.
What were your expectations on Dogtown & The Z-boys?
That someone would be able to watch it late night on cable somewhere. I didn’t think it would be a success. I couldn’t even dream about it being shown in cinemas. I had just come out of the creative strait jacket of the TV business and had been given total freedom from the financiers to do exactly what I wanted. I was grateful but I didn’t think anyone wanted to see the film I wanted to see. Strangely enough it seems to have come out at exactly the right time. For me, the success made a huge difference.
How did you get Sean Penn to do the narration for the film?
We were joking that it’d be nice to have him. I mean, he was totally right but you know… it was Sean Penn. Anyway, it turns out that Glen Friedman knew Sean’s assistant and Glen showed her a trailer we had done. The assistant said that Sean would love it and arranged for him to see it. Sean decided to do it for free. The reason was that he is an old surfer and skateboarder himself, and it turned out he went to the same high school as Tony Alva and Jay Adams There were two high schools in Dogtown, Santa Monica and Venice. Sean was in the same class as Jay in Santa Monica. He knew them more than well.
The Hollywood version, Catherine Hardwicke’s Lords of Dogtown, is due for release. Who’s going to play you?
A guy called John Robinson. He had the leading role in Gus van Sant’s Elephant. He just happens to be a great surfer and skater as well. Heath Ledger plays Skip Engblom, a guy called Emile Hersch (The Girl Next Door) plays Jay Adams and Victor Rasuk (Victor
Vargas) is going to be Tony Alva. You wrote the script. Have you seen the film? I’ve only seen the first version. The film company is ecstatic, and film companies are very hard to please, I might add.
Dogtown & The Z-boys is available on DVD. Riding Giants will be released in June. Lords of Dogtown will be out in cinemas in the autumn. Bones Brigade is being released on DVD some time during the second half of the year. Sean Penn can be seen in The Assassination of Richard Nixon in cinemas now.
