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This is NOT your parents’ idea of a surf movie.

Welcome to the North Shore of Oahu, where a seven-mile strip of surfing subculture just got ripped in its own machismo barrel by a new breed of athlete – surfer girls.

Filmed entirely on the North Shore at the epicentre of big wave surfing – without a single blue screen or tank shot – Blue Crush was inspired by writer Susan Orlean’s article for Outside Magazine, “The Surf Girls of Maui.” An avid surfer, producer Brain Grazer acquired rights to the article in hopes of fulfilling a dream of his own: “To capture the subculture of surfing” and film an accurate portrayal of one of the world’s most exhilarating, dangerous and misunderstood sports. He found a way of telling it through director and co-writer John Stockwell’s interpretation of an evolving and unrealised force in that world – women surfers.

“It’s based on this short story about poor surf girls, Hana surf girls, who just didn’t have the money to do anything except be maids. For them, if they could go beyond that, they would be a surfer and try to establish their identity that way,” Grazer said. “Pipeline has become the ultimate contest for any man and particularly a woman, to survive because it has a global wave intensity and it crashes on coral.”

While the story spins around the emergence of these women on the waves, the real star of the film is Mother Nature herself. “The surf is the star and we had to acknowledge in filming, this is a star we couldn’t control!” quipped Stockwell.

Grazer put it another way: “What the tornado was to Twister, the surf is to Blue Crush.”
As Stockwell and Lizzy Weiss began to immerse themselves in the Oahu subculture and develop the story, they found that a star per se was not needed above the film’s title. Concept had surpassed credits so Stockwell and Grazer began looking for believable actresses who were basically unknowns.

“There are certain movies where a high profile name would be distracting and one about surfing falls in that category,” noted Stockwell, a veteran surfer. “You would watch a big star surfing and think, `Wow, there’s no way Sarah Michelle Gellar surfs that well!’

They found that lead in Kate Bosworth.

“I thought maybe Kate was too elegant and refined and was concerned that she wouldn’t be believable as this girl who sleeps on a mattress on the floor and takes on the scariest wave in the world,” recalled Stockwell. “When she got to Oahu, she became the character physically and mentally and the pro surfers in our movie all said, `Yeah, she could be one of us’.”

It’s simply because Bosworth came prepared. (She won her debut role in The Horse Whisperer because of her champion equestrian skills.) “I started taking surf lessons weeks before I was offered the role,” Bosworth said. “Aside from how Brian and John perceived my acting, I wanted to prove to them I was a hard worker and determined” – the same attitude that permeates the character of Anne Marie. “I thought their biggest fear in not casting me might be that I had never surfed before and I wanted them to see how serious I was.”

It worked.

Because Bosworth was already a competitive athlete, the learning curve in surfing wasn’t as steep. Still, she trained for nearly a month, surfing and swimming interspersed with weight workouts and running in the sand. “Surfing is not an easy sport,” said Brian L. Keaulana. Hawaii’s premier water man and the film’s ocean strategist and safety expert, Keaulana trained the actors to surf. “You use totally different muscles than most other sports and the power of the ocean is psychologically intimidating.”

For Bosworth, confronting the enormity of the waves “was terrifying at first. This truly is a life and death sport. People go out there and face those waves and die,” she said. “I had the best water safety team possible behind me but when I had to go out the first time with waves that had a 12-to-16 foot face, I don’t think I have ever been so scared in my life. I ate a lot of water.”

But it was more than conquering waves that drew Bosworth to the role. She was equally intrigued by Anne Marie’s internal evolution. “Her spirit was broken on a lot of levels. It was more than just what happened to her on the Pipe” when she nearly drowned, said Bosworth. “She was abandoned by one of the most important people in her life, if not the most important person in her life – her mom. She had to be a parent not only for her little sister but also for herself because she was just a teenager when her mom left. In my life, my mom is my best friend. She is the one who really listens to me, is always there. I had to imagine how terrifying it would be to live without her to really understand Anne Marie, living with that fear. What Anne Marie and I have in common is our strength, the fact that it takes a lot to break us and I can say I get that strength from my mom. So I came from that… of trying to live without that support in my life and be there for someone else as well.”

In the final analysis, “the biggest competition for Anne Marie is within herself,” she added. “It’s the internal battle that she really needs to win. And I would like to think that without some guy or even the friends she dearly loves, she wins the victory completely on her own. She’ll either win it or it will take her down.”

After Bosworth, Stockwell tapped Michelle Rodriguez for the role of Eden, who shapes surfboards, rides a Jet Ski and surfs. On paper the Jersey native known for her gritty, urban tough girl roles in The Fast and The Furious and Girlfright would seem the most unlikely candidate for a beachcomber. Again, it was the actress’ natural athletic abilities that came to the fore, adding authenticity to the role.

“The extent of my knowledge of surfing was the word `dude’ and that Keanu Reeves movie Point Break,” Rodriguez admitted. “I thought surfers were corny, aimless people and when I got to Hawaii I discovered that they were spiritual, beautiful people who at times risk their lives for the love of their sport.”

Rodriguez found her comfort zone on the Jet Ski rather than the back of a board her character shapes. On the Jet Ski, Eden tows Anne Marie into huge waves too large to paddle into, then cuts away before the wave crashes.

Although pro surfer Megan Abubo did double for Rodriguez in some scenes, Rodriguez performed a lot of the Jet Ski tows herself.

“Michelle likes motors. She likes power,” said Grazer. “The motor is closer to the urban, hip-hop vibe that she’s about. She gets on that Jet Ski and kicks ass. She’s a tough girl!”
Casting Sanoe Lake in the role of Lena, the third in the friendship troika, was a no-brainer despite her lack of acting experience. The Hawaii native, model and lifelong surfer brought an offbeat perspective and unique energy that proved invaluable to the film.

“Even if Sanoe wasn’t a surfer I would have cast her in the part,” Stockwell declared. “That’s how good she was in the role.” He adapted her character to reflect Lake’s real life pursuit as a surf wear designer. With Lake, he added, “It was great to have someone in the water with Kate and Michelle who could whisper to them the right way to paddle, to sit on the board, to duck dive. It made them more secure with Sanoe out there.”

What was a unique experience for the actors and a welcome surprise for the filmmakers was the bonding that occurred among the women off camera. Life began imitating art when the three shared a beach house together at the urging of Stockwell. “I wanted them to go through a surfing boot camp, but I also wanted sort of a social boot camp, where they could absorb the culture as well as create a bond with each other which translated to their scenes.”
The gamble paid off – in part.

“It helped in the sense that I could throw them into any situation and nothing turned out forced or contrived,” Stockwell said. “It hurt me in the sense that when one of them decided she was done or fed up, the others rallied behind her. I couldn’t exploit any schism between them because they were a unified force!” Still, he said, it was worth it.

When the girls weren’t shooting, training or prepping for lines the next day, they were watching surf videos non-stop. “The videos were always playing. It was just part of the life,” said Bosworth. “You could watch the guys go out there and just rip it. Some of the girl surfers would, but the big difference is that the girls had a very distinct graceful style. Rochelle Ballard is one of the best female surfers out there and she was so amazing and beautiful to watch.”

Ballard and A-list surfer Megan Abubo doubled for Bosworth and Rodriguez in the exceptionally dangerous big surf scenes. Aside from Ballard and Abubo, Keaulana also locked up top-ranked women surfers Keala Kennelly, Layne Beachley and Kate Skarratt who appear as themselves in the Pipe Masters competition. The work of these masters gives Blue Crush credibility in the portrayal of women surfers unmatched by any film to date. What rings true is the immense odds they face in this male dominated sport – a fact that remains.

“This is a guy’s sport and they let you know it,” said Bosworth. “I had the advantage of being on a movie, but you could hear the girls talk about it. The girls definitely have to prove themselves out there. I mean there’s a lot of playful banter between the girls and the guys, but you know you have to be serious about surfing if you’re going to stick around. It’s like chauvinism in any sport and like normal life really. But for me? I don’t think I was good enough to be intimidated!”

The territorial aspect of the surfing subculture goes beyond women, and had to be addressed to make Blue Crush. The North Shore locals naturally wanted to surf whether or not somebody happened to be making a movie on their beach, and so the production employed top local surfers to gain access to the waves.

“In the water, it’s barbaric,” added Grazer. “There are these very rigid rules about when you can take off and when you should paddle or not paddle, just like the overall kind of rules or etiquette of the sport. If you violate it, there’s a consequence. In the subculture, they are very rough guys. You get dissed. You get taken out of the water. They beat you up.

“So you’re dealing with this subculture consequence and you’re dealing with the life or death situation of the wave, surviving the wave. The wave variables are changing all the time,” he said. “ I think in Blue Crush we captured the consequences of both.”

Capturing that meant casting locals that live and breathe that subculture, Stockwell explained. It was Oahu native Chris Taloa’s debut performance. He is one of the world’s top body boarders and competes professionally as Chris Won Ton. Stockwell found Ruben Tejada, who plays JJ, hanging outside a grocery store on the North Shore’s main road. The surprise for Stockwell was how they, like the others surfers, were naturals in front of the camera. “Then again, it’s a lot easier to teach someone to act than to teach them to surf,” he said. “The non-actors tend to keep the professional actors honest.”

But there were actors who didn’t feel that comfortable with surfing. Two were Matthew Davis, who plays Anne Marie’s love interest Matt, and Faizon Love, who plays Matt’s outrageous teammate Leslie. Love does not swim, so learning to surf was a double threat. Ironically, Keaulana says Love was more afraid of sharks than drowning – “everything was about sharks.”
“How many black people did you see running out of the water in Jaws?” joked the standup comedian Love. “Black people go to the beach, but we don’t go to the beach.”

Davis’ ambivalence toward surfing proved serendipitous for the part. Football, not surfing was his game in real life as it was on screen. “I’m really the role reversal in this film – the guy standing behind the woman. As an athlete, my character understands the passion for what she does and he supports her in that. I think by reinforcing her choice, her following through with it validates the choices he made. But this really is a girl empowerment story. My character doesn’t try to steer her away from her passion, for his benefit. It’s because he does love her and that’s why he helps her.

“But I did this role because I thought it would be interesting to really see what actresses go through,” Davis added. “I did feel the pressure I’ve always heard actresses talk about in playing a supporting role as the love interest. You have to be focused on your diet and staying in shape and looking good at all times. I really came to understand those elements. It’s not easy.”

The role reversal is “what’s so great about this movie for young women,” noted Bosworth. “The guy isn’t a Prince Charming who saves the day for her. He inspires her but she saves her own day.”

Grazer and Stockwell hope Blue Crush proves illuminating not just on a personal level, but on a level that pays homage to a sport that to them has never been fully realized by a film going audience.

“I want surfers to walk away saying `This is real. This film rocks’,” said Grazer. “There have been other surf films that didn’t do this for a lot of reasons. The film technology alone has changed so much since Big Wednesday, one of the hallmark films showcasing the sport. But with earlier films the audience couldn’t get inside the wave. (In Blue Crush) you can get inside the physics of the water,” he explained. “You can be inside the world of these surfers, this subculture. You can hear them talk, hear them breathe, hear the heartbeat. When they get taken underwater, you can be with the underwater camera, a gyrocam that gets you inside that washing machine experience that is relentless and you feel it. Twenty years ago you couldn’t do that. We now have the film capability to do that. All we had to do was find a filmmaker who cared about telling the truth. John Stockwell was that guy.”

With 40 percent of the film being shot on the water, Stockwell made it happen by relying on the talents of experienced water camera operators Don King (2nd unit camera for Cast Away) and Sonny Miller (In God’s Hands) and nine-time world champion body-boarder Michael Stewart. Stewart would ride into the waves on his boogie board, balancing on his elbows with camera in hand. “A lifetime of being in the water is the only reason he could survive what he did,” said Stockwell. “What these guys were able to do in the water allows the audience to see surfing like they’ve never seen it before.”

Because of the unpredictable nature of the waves, shooting them was tough to schedule. It meant Stockwell and company had to stay low-tech. “Movie companies are not built to wait around. They’re built to shoot and the traditional way of solving a problem is to throw money at it. That would not work in this case,” said Stockwell. “What we did was stay as small and flexible as possible. We would make multiple company moves during the day chasing the surf.”

The film began principal photography in December 2001. After the Christmas holiday break, it reconvened on the North Shore in January. But the shooting schedule had to remain flexible, and literally go with the flow of nature’s dictates. But Stockwell and company were determined to pull it off, and did – just like Anne Marie. In the end and on many levels, life on Blue Crush did imitate art.

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In-Depth - Blue Crush Production Notes