Interview: Erin Chack

I sometimes wonder how much of my decision to start surfing was of free will and how much was the result of watching the movie Blue Crush at an impressionable age. There was nothing cooler to 12-year-old me than Kate Bosworth out-surfing NFL players and messing with rich people at her housekeeping job. Blue Crush turns 20 today, so I chatted with legendary screenwriter Lizzy Weiss about the film, feminism, and that iconic condom scene.

So you’re up in Truckee, CA?

Truckee!

Do you live there full time?

Oh god, no. I live in LA.

Oh, cool. Me too. Do you surf?

I’m not a surfer. In fact, I’m more of a river person than an ocean person. The ocean terrifies me.

Does it?!

It didn’t quite as much back then but just getting older and hearing more things… There are a lot of drownings in the ocean.

Speaking of drowning in the ocean—your movie Blue Crush turns 20 today! The script was originally adapted from Susan Orlean’s Life’s Swell article for Outside magazine. Whose idea was it to turn that into a movie?

Well, the Susan Orlean article is very beautiful. It has a dreamy feel. It’s a slice-of-life of these girls who grew up in Hana, this little town at the very end of Maui on this very windy four-hour road. Susan created this world where there’s nothing else to do but surf. This was before there were iPhones, and every day before and after school these girls just surfed, surfed, surfed. It was their life.

Universal had the rights, and they gave the article to a number of writers and asked people to come in and pitch their take. And they referenced—and this is really going back—a movie from 1988 called Mystic Pizza.

Of course. With Julia Roberts.

So I created these two best friends: Basically, it was Eden and Anne Marie. Anne Marie was going to leave the island and she was upset and a boy was coming between them. It was smaller and softer than Blue Crush but they loved it! So anyway they hired me. They liked my pitch.

Hell yeah.

At the same time the original Fast & Furious had just come out and it made $100 million or whatever. Universal started thinking maybe instead of this beautiful Mystic Pizza-type movie we could make it more adrenaline-filled and so they hired [Director] John Stockwell. He’s a surfer.

What kind of research went into writing the script? Were you able to visit Hawaii?

God bless them, they did send me to Hawaii.

That’s incredible. Was it your first time?

No, because I grew up in LA, Hawaii was our family trip. But I got to meet the actual girls in the original article.

How old were they at the time that you met them?

18 maybe.

And how old were you at the time?

Late 20s. I spent the night there and it was amazing. Doing the research and getting into it is so important. I feel strongly that while of course writing your own experience is an amazing way to write, I felt like my point of view as an outsider was also really valuable.

Absolutely. 

There are things that would be almost invisible to you if you grew up in it. Like the pay phone on the beach. I remember having breakfast with John and seeing it and saying, ‘Oh my god, look. People call and someone answers it to say what the surf report is.’ And he said, ‘That’s how we’re opening the movie.’

That felt extremely 2002 to me when I rewatched it: That she CALLS a hotline for the surf report. I screamed! 

Yeah! I was fascinated by it. I got to meet [pro surfer] Rochelle Ballard. They sent me to Santa Cruz; they were having a surf contest there. I learned about the language of surfing and the waves and all that. It was an amazing experience.

If you could rewrite it today, is there anything you’d change? 

It was organically very diverse.

It was.

It just was! John, one of his best instincts was to mix professional actors with locals. That’s something he does really, really well. So you’ve got Sanoe [Lake] and Mika [Boorem], but he also populated it with Hawaiians and Samoans, like Chris Taloa who played Drew.

You know, when I think back to the early 2000s, it felt like surf culture was everywhere: Hollister, The OC, board shorts, puka shell necklaces, Bethany Hamilton, etc. Was this movie a product of that trend or did this movie cause that trend? 

Well, the costuming was amazing. [Costume designer] Susan Matheson was the one who came up with the mix-and-match bikini. I feel like until then every time you saw a girl they were wearing a matching bikini. The idea behind it was these are girls who don’t care. There are bikinis on the floor. They grab what’s dry. They’re so cool, they’re not trying to match flower with flower. The mix-and-match was very, very Blue Crush. And to me, it was such a strong statement. It was ‘I’m dressing for me’—like a boy does—’I’m not dressing for you. I’m not trying to match.’

Very utilitarian.

And then there was a lot of conversation—in a good way—about the poster. Yeah, of course, they were wearing bathing suits but they had a very empowered stance.

By the way, many of my queer friends wanted me to tell you that you caused their gay awakening. 

That’s so funny. I guess that’s something if we were to do it again today that would be more in the conversation. Maybe I’d make Eden bi. I think it’d probably feel more real and honest to that world, and our world and every world to mention that.

Your degree in women’s studies comes through your writing. Was there pushback from the studio over how feminist the script leans?

Oh my god, no!

Good!

John was so interested in making a female-forward film. There were a lot of women executives and producers behind the scenes of that movie: Buffy Shutt, Kathy Jones, Suzy Barbieri, Karen Kehela. Everyone wanted exactly that kind of movie.

I ran into Kate [Bosworth] recently in LA and we both have so much love for the movie. She worked so hard and a lot of people were up for it. A lot of people wanted that part. And for John, one of his main things was, ‘I don’t care if it’s a surfer, but I need an athlete. I need someone who can absolutely throw herself into this.’ And she did.

She definitely did.

They got her a surf instructor and she just killed herself for weeks getting surfing muscles: the shoulders, the paddling arms. She really worked hard and did an incredible job. It’s just one of those roles where you can’t imagine anyone else. She was so lovable and real and funny and she felt like a surfer.

We gotta talk about the condom scene. It’s one of the most iconic scenes of the early 2000s.

That happened to my friend.

No!

Yeah, we were in our twenties. He had hired a housekeeper for the first time and he had had a one-night stand the night before. He left it on the floor and when he remembered, it was too late. It was gone. She had taken it. And he was so mortified. So I thought, ‘What’s the most egregious, embarrassing, hilarious thing for [Anne Marie] to shame someone for?’ Also, I have a cameo in that scene!

Do you?!

I do, I do. It’s hilarious. We were shooting and John goes, ‘I want Matt [Davis] to be interviewed by a female sports reporter. Lizzy! Get in there!’ I was in yoga pants and no makeup. The one thing I regret is that I didn’t get a cameo in the credits. I wanted it to say at the end ‘Reporter: Lizzy Weiss.’

I love all the moments of women supporting women in this movie. Do you have any favorite moments?

One of my favorite moments is with [pro surfer] Keala Kennelly at the end. It’s a really beautiful scene when she says, ‘Go, go, get this wave. We support each other and I’m rooting for you.’

I’ve always loved that the ending had the Rocky mentality where he doesn’t win that fight but he goes the distance. We can’t expect Anne Marie to be better than these pro surfers but we can expect her to overcome her fear and surf a truly beautiful wave.

And you don’t even remember that she doesn’t win. It feels like a victory. And everyone’s running up to her on the beach and it gives you the feel-good Hollywood feeling without being cheesy. It was lightning in a bottle. Sometimes it all just comes together, you know? I got lucky and I’m so happy. I’m so proud of it.