Latest news with #100FootWave
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Tony Todd reflects on mortality in exclusive ‘Final Destination Bloodlines' featurette
Final Destination Bloodlines, the sixth film in the death-defying franchise, brought the series back to life, earning strong reviews and more than a quarter-billion dollars at the global box office. As the film heads to home video—most likely setting off a Rube Goldberg machine that will wind up flinging a disc into your Blu-ray player—Gold Derby has an exclusive look at one of the special features being included on the release. More from GoldDerby 'Feel good about not conforming': Christina Ricci reflects on her iconic roles, from Wednesday Addams to Misty Quigley 'The show is a true fluke': '100 Foot Wave' executive producer on how they chase big waves across the globe How Anna Camp played twins with a twist on 'You' Longtime fans of Final Destination were treated to one of the final on-screen performances by horror icon Tony Todd, who reprised his role as Bludworth in Bloodlines, and some long-withheld details about who he is and why he knows so much about death. On-set, Todd spoke with a behind-the-scenes crew candidly about his own mortality and how he related to Bludworth in one final appearance. "We're acknowledging a passage of time, and I'm not immortal," Todd says in the clip. "I'm struggling with my lifelines just like everybody else. I have to make sense of this character, who he is, where he's coming from, what it is he really wants." The filmmakers strived to make the send-off one worthy of Todd and his character's legacy with the series. "Tony very much appreciated what we have done in Final Destination 6 to give his character a perspective and a grounding in the real world," producer Craig Perry says. Final Destination Bloodlines will be available digitally on June 17 and on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD on July 22. Best of GoldDerby Stephen King movies: 14 greatest films ranked worst to best 'The Life of Chuck' cast reveal their favorite Stephen King works, including Mark Hamill's love of the 'terrifying' 'Pet Sematary' From 'Hot Rod' to 'Eastbound' to 'Gemstones,' Danny McBride breaks down his most righteous roles: 'It's been an absolute blast' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The White Lotus' star Aimee Lou Wood on the social media drama: ‘It's been scary, overwhelming, and difficult'
The past two months have been quite the roller-coaster for Aimee Lou Wood. She'd barely had a moment to process the fallout from the season finale of The White Lotus, which claimed the life of her fatally doomed character Chelsea, before she got caught up in a swirl about an insensitive Saturday Night Live sketch. And then there was "The Great Unfollowing," the social media obsession about why her White Lotus costar Walton Goggins was no longer tracking her Instagram posts. More from GoldDerby 'Feel good about not conforming': Christina Ricci reflects on her iconic roles, from Wednesday Addams to Misty Quigley 'The show is a true fluke': '100 Foot Wave' executive producer on how they chase big waves across the globe Damian Lewis on returning to 'Wolf Hall': 'Who doesn't want to play Henry VIII?' "I've never experienced anything like this before, so I'm kind of learning along the way," Woods tells Gold Derby. "But the wake of it has been a lot." Here, she reveals how she's learned to deal with the impact of her newfound notoriety, the advice costar Parker Posey gave her, and why she always knew that Chelsea was going to die. Gold Derby: I feel like you've lived two lives — the show life and then the post-show life. Aimee Lou Wood: That is so weird that you say that because I've just been talking about that. It's felt like two chapters of a very complex, amazing, confronting, challenging story. I've had to hold a multitude of truths to just be accepting of everything that's happening. Because it's all of it. You can't put it into a box. You just have to see it as a transformative experience because it is. It's amazing, and it's also been scary, overwhelming, and difficult because you're having to shift into a different way of living that you're kind of expected to know how to do it. But, of course, we don't know how to do it. SEEAimee Lou Wood is rising in the Emmy odds after the 'SNL' teeth joke How are you taking care of yourself? Given the social media swirl of everything that you've been through since the show has ended, are you OK? I am OK. Thank you for asking. That's so nice. God, that made me emotional. I spoke to Parker Posey today, and it was just the best chat because she just does it so right. She just doesn't engage with that. It's like, this is her experience. She is taking from this what Parker needs to take, rather than being at the mercy of other people's opinions. It's about her experience. I think that I'm good. I think that I've learned so much about people and about myself from the craziness of this. And for that, I'm really grateful, actually, and I've had reckonings in my life that I would never have had without this pressure cooker. So I think it's sped up my growing up process quite a lot. Parker was, like, we're entertainers. Our job is to entertain, and then we become not entertaining because of how heavy some of the stuff can be, and actually you have to just be silly actors. We love pretending, and it's when you forget that, or when you lose track of that, that's when it becomes very confusing. You have to reconnect the fact that we're daft and we're silly and we tell stories, that's who we are. And actually, we're not designed for that other part of it. We're not designed for the social media, all of that stuff. That's a different job, that's a completely separate job, and a completely separate thing to the acting. That part is harder because it's not what is our element. I'm not in my element doing that. I'm in my element when I'm on set. I'm finding that moment in Chelsea's story. And I think, "Oh, I've just got to tell the truth here." And that's what I love. But the other stuff, it is a completely different skill. You're only human at the end of the day, and so you have to find that right balance between the two. You do. You really do. It's just taking it all the good and the bad, and then you can do it. Because at one point, it was a bit, like, everyone's coming at me. This is so overwhelming. It's like, actually, everyone's not coming at you, Aimee, they're coming at an idea of you. They're coming at Aimee Lou Wood, who's someone that they don't actually know, and someone that's not you. You're a concept to those people. You're a concept to those people commenting on social media; the people who love you and know you are still the same people. So actually, all of that stuff can't really touch Aimee because they don't know me. It's strangers, it's people who don't know me. Especially with a character like Chelsea, especially with the design of Mike [White]'s show and his casting, he wants people who are really close to their characters, who do share an essence with them. It becomes extremely personal, and then it's like, well, actually, the "you" that they're talking about isn't me. It's Chelsea. That's a really interesting thing to experience. Aimee starts feeling like a disappointment because she's not Chelsea, especially when it's a show that penetrates the zeitgeist this much. You start to feel like you don't belong to yourself. I think that's what Parker was trying to say to me this morning. You can take from this what you need, what you want, to further your journey as a human being and as an actor. It doesn't have to be for anyone else. This is for you, so that then you get a sense of ownership back, rather than feeling like you're being owned by all the people who watch The White Lotus. SEEAimee Lou Wood gets her flowers — literally — from 'SNL' star Sarah Sherman after 'mean and unfunny' sketch; Bowen Yang defends Wood's 'completely valid' reaction I think there's also something about Chelsea inhabiting a world that's full of very unlikable characters, and she is probably the one fundamentally good people that exists in that world. How did you find your way into her? I felt very deeply connected to her from the first read of the audition sides. I'd always wanted to be in White Lotus, and I just didn't know where I would fit. I would watch it, and I think I want to be in this show, and I want to work with Mike, but where the hell do I fit in this world? I don't feel like there's a way in. And then I saw these audition sides from Chelsea, and I was like, "This is the way in if it's going to be anything, it's going to be this." And so from the beginning, I just think I really understood her, and she really resonated with me, and I think Mike really just bolstered that. We didn't have many chats about Chelsea, intellectually, it was all very gut-driven. His thing was more telling me you already know… ...that she was going to die? Yes. I did the scene where it said, "We're going to be together forever, don't you think?" And he says, "That's the plan." And she says, "Is it?" And as soon as I said those words, I knew it was them that died. I knew it was them. And Mike was like, "I think you're picking up on something here." And he told me. So I knew from the second time I ever spoke Chelsea's lines that she was the one who dies, and that Rick was too. And so you kind of have to put it out your mind while you're filming, because she doesn't know she's going to die, even though she does kind of have a connection to death that is quite strange, like she's kind of obsessed with it. She keeps saying bad things happen in threes. Yes, she references it a lot. So that was also helpful because it meant that I could know in the back of my mind because I think Chelsea knows in the back of hers. She knows that she's a person who cannot help but go towards danger. So she's very connected to her death drive, which is what makes her so alive as a person, because she thinks about death a lot, and she's close to it. So it means that she lives very courageously and very moment to moment. But it also is really sad because I felt like she was this person who just couldn't help but walk towards her own doom. And that reminds me of so many like women that I love, who I looked up to so much growing up, these kind of tragic heroines that were there. They were amazing and wonderful and brought so much light to the world, but also had this self-destruct button that they couldn't stop pressing, and it's part of what made them so alive and so interesting as artists, but it also meant that they didn't live. I just always understood that Chelsea was someone who almost knew that she wasn't going to live that long, and so therefore, a relationship like hers and Rick's isn't really that scary to her because she's got that amor fati thing going on, which is, yeah, this is probably destructive, but that doesn't stop her from doing anything because she's already accepted that maybe her life isn't going to be a long one, and it's not going to be a cozy one and a safe one. It's going to be bright and fast. What motivates her? Is it her love for Rick? I think that with Chelsea, a thing that really helped me was her line about "bad things have happened to me too, and you don't see me walking around feeling sorry for myself" that she says to Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon). And after I said that, I thought, Chelsea is running away from something. Chelsea is running away from a pain, just the same as Rick is, but the way that they deal with it is so different. And by pouring herself into Rick, she never has to look at her own stuff. It's all about his pain. She laments that to Chloe, but really she likes it that way because it means that she can just see and give and pour and not ever have to look in. It's all looking out. And that's why she's so confronted by Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) because trying to look at her, and she's like, "Whoa, no. That's not how I work. I do the looking." So I think that what motivates her is love for Rick, but it's also a really deep fear of sitting with herself. She does not want to sit with herself. She really doesn't. She doesn't want to feel the feelings. She's running away. She's gone traveling. She doesn't stop moving. She doesn't stop talking. She's constantly talking; words are her armor. She just chats, chats, chats, chats, chats. And when she's lying on the floor at the end and she can't speak for the first time, Rick actually gets to see her almost more clearly than she's ever let him see her before because she's got nothing funny to say, nothing inquisitive to ask. She's just her, and he can see how much he adores her and loves her. She doesn't really let anyone properly get to know her. It's both adoration and love for Rick and a true belief that he's her soul mate. But it also means she avoids all responsibility because if it's written in the stars, if it's fate, then she doesn't have any responsibility. She doesn't have any choice. So it's done, it's written that whatever goes will go and I don't have any control over it. It's a very clever way to avoid ever growing up, facing your stuff, facing your feelings and taking responsibility because we're soul mates, so there's nothing I can do about it, and that's where her and Rick are so similar because Rick's like, "There's nothing I can do. This is my fate. I have to go and kill this man." No, you don't. You have free will, but both of them believe that their stories are already written and that they can't change it, and that's why they are the perfect storm. SEEPatrick Schwarzenegger on pulling off Saxon's transformation in 'The White Lotus' Season 3 Do you think Saxon was truly changed by his encounter with Chelsea? Do you think she changed him? I think that she did change him. I think she did, and I think that it wasn't even romantic. I think it was someone that he needed to meet on his spiritual journey. That just shocked him. He was in a script, and she just came and ripped up the pages of the script and went, "No, we don't follow that." I'm not doing those lines. It was the shock of this human that woke him up. I think that he thinks it's romantic because he doesn't know any other way to be with women. It has to be that there's some kind of object of desire to him if he's interested. But actually, what I think Saxon realizes over the course of the show is that he's so much more interested in what she has to say and what she has to teach than his own lust. I think they could have had a beautiful friendship. I think what's so sad is that both of them could have had a gorgeous friendship, but they were both blinkered by something that was stopping them from connecting fully to each other. If Saxon was brought up in a different family, he wouldn't be that guy. And if Chelsea had a different life, she wouldn't be that girl. So they kind of miss each other, when actually, by nature, they're probably very similar. They're determined. They both love their mantras. They both love spouting loads of knowledge, and they're both really trying in life. But their just conditioning has been so different that they think they're opposites, but they're actually so deeply similar, and I think they just see that at the end, and then it's too late. What's one thing you took away from the experience? I've learned so much. Probably one of the most profound life moments I ever had was watching Chelsea die, sitting with Charlotte and Patrick and all my friends, all these amazing friends that I've made, and going, "Oh, it's permission to let go of anything in Chelsea that was me, that was holding me back." Because she's so close to who I am, just getting to grow up for both of us, because the thing that Chelsea can't do is grow up. I think that it's made me more ready to be a grown-up. Who do I want to be as a person? Who do I want to be as a human being, and how do I want to live? Because I now have the privilege of getting to be a grown-up, and if I'd made a different step in my life when I was younger, I might have been a Chelsea. So seeing that unfold is really profound. Best of GoldDerby 'The best job I ever had': 'From 'Supernatural' to 'The Boys,' Eric Kripke talks his biggest hits — and miss (ahem, 'Tarzan') 'Cross' star Aldis Hodge on building an aspirational hero — who's not a superhero Jonathan Pryce on the 'great responsibility' of playing a character with dementia in 'Slow Horses' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The show is a true fluke': ‘100 Foot Wave' executive producer on how they chase big waves across the globe
HBO's 100 Foot Wave just aired its third season finale in May, which is pretty remarkable considering it wasn't originally supposed to last this long. "There was a lot we didn't know back then when we started," executive producer Joe Lewis tells Gold Derby. What began as a two-hour movie about surfer Garrett McNamara's attempts to ride a mythical 100-foot wave quickly morphed into a six hour docuseries, which then grew into a multi-season program encompassing McNamara's family, the town of Nazaré, Portugal, and the surfing culture that dominates it. The realm of documentary filmmaking was new territory for Lewis, who has spent most of his career producing narrative shows like Fleabag, for which he won an Emmy. "The show is a true fluke," he says. As fate would have it, his wife's second cousins are McNamara's wife, Nicole McNamara, and brother-in-law, Cj Macias, both of whom feature prominently on the show. They approached their distant relative about an idea they had for a movie, and Lewis took it to documentarian Chris Smith, director of American Movie, Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, and Fyre, to name but a few. "Chris was on this incredible timeline of making ridiculously good documentary features independently." And that's how 100 Foot Wave began in 2019. More from GoldDerby 'Feel good about not conforming': Christina Ricci reflects on her iconic roles, from Wednesday Addams to Misty Quigley Damian Lewis on returning to 'Wolf Hall': 'Who doesn't want to play Henry VIII?' Tony Todd reflects on mortality in exclusive 'Final Destination Bloodlines' featurette "Originally, we thought we'd just shoot them until they got the 100-foot wave, and that would be the end of the movie," Lewis recalls. "When we were talking to potential financiers, the most common question was, 'Are they going to get the wave? And what happens if they don't get it?' Obviously, we thought that was super important to the story, and thought it would be much easier to get than it's turned out to be." Smith, Lewis, and their crew shot throughout the entirety of surf season from July 2019 into March 2020. As they were cobbling together a lengthy first cut, Smith, who had just produced Tiger King, had an epiphany. "The five-hour cut moved incredibly well," Lewis continues. "It was just all fascinating." So the decision was made to simply insert main titles and end titles at certain points throughout to create six episodes, and "it was just so obvious that was how it was supposed to be." Considering no one ended up surfing the 100-foot wave by the end of Season 1, "it turned out that might have been beside the point, or the chase might actually be the exciting thing," Lewis says. "So the fact that no one ever reached this goal — maybe no one ever will, maybe someone will — gave them something to keep going towards." As well, "the further we got into Nazaré and big wave surfing, and the community and the world," the more "we found ourselves endlessly interested" and eager to return for more. "Every person that we'd interview or spend some time with all had their own stories that were all fascinating," Lewis adds. "So someone that might've been just an interview in Season 1 ends up having a whole storyline or arc" as the show goes on. As the show's storytelling has expanded throughout each season, so too has its scope, and in the case of Season 3, it was out of necessity. "For the first time, we're out of Nazaré, maybe for most of the season," Lewis explains. "It wasn't planned that way; it naturally evolved. The big waves of the Atlantic were not very active during that surf season, so the surfers ended up going other places," such as Ireland, Morocco, Hawaii, and Cortez Bank. So while Season 1 is about the history of Nazaré and Season 2 is about the people who inhabit it, Season 3 concerns "the greater big wave community in the world. We would not have mapped it out that way, but it's the best way that it could have gone. It's fun, beautiful, and exciting to chase waves around the world. I get the high that the surfers get from it." Even as the series continues to grow, it keeps its focus on McNamara and his Icarus-like mission. "Garrett never stops trying," Lewis says. "He's been trying to get this thing that might not exist, this 100-foot wave, for decades and decades. It's fascinating to watch someone try to do that. I just find Garrett so awesome and interesting and funny and determined, all of these things that if you asked me to make up a good character for TV, I would describe the adjectives that are Garrett." The same goes for his family and everyone in his community who "dedicates their lives to big waves. I'm always surprised by how good they are on TV and with cameras." 100 Foot Wave has garnered Emmy attention for its first two seasons, winning back-to-back prizes for cinematography and competing for writing, picture editing, sound editing, sound mixing, and documentary or nonfiction series. It speaks to the high level of craft that goes into making it, and Lewis hopes people recognize "what it takes to capture this show. We plan nothing, we script nothing, we shoot six months out of the year" with "between six and 15 cameras running everyday." The show is "a huge mission. We live with this large group of people for six months, shoot almost seven days a week," and "the result is thousands and thousands of hours of really intimate footage," which then gets whittled down. "For some of the seasons of the show, I think we've shot almost 3,500 hours, and it ends up as five and a half." As the years have gone by, their methods have become more streamlined, and their ability to capture compelling footage has improved not just from a technical level, but from an intimate one as well. "The surfers have let us in more and more over the years because we've shown that we want to do right by them, or at least portray them authentically, and their world too," Lewis reveals. As they prepare for the next season and beyond, he remains "continually excited by the new stuff that pops up. Last year, we met some amazing characters who hopefully people will meet in Season 4. The year just gets more exciting." 100 Foot Wave is streaming on Max. Best of GoldDerby 'Cross' star Aldis Hodge on building an aspirational hero — who's not a superhero Jonathan Pryce on the 'great responsibility' of playing a character with dementia in 'Slow Horses' 'Feel good about not conforming': Christina Ricci reflects on her iconic roles, from Wednesday Addams to Misty Quigley Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jonathan Pryce on the ‘great responsibility' of playing a character with dementia in ‘Slow Horses'
Jonathan Pryce has been a welcome presence throughout the first three seasons of Slow Horses, earning an Emmy nomination as Best Drama Guest Actor in 2024. His role as retired MI5 officer David Cartwright was greatly expanded in Season 4, and as he tells Gold Derby, "I was grateful for the opportunity to spend more time with the other actors." The majority of Pryce's previous appearances had taken place at his character's house in the countryside, where his grandson, rookie MI5 agent River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), would periodically pay him a visit. Getting bumped up to series regular meant that Pryce would get to visit Slough House, the administrative office run by rumpled agent Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), and that "opened up the whole world to me." Throughout the first three seasons, clues are dropped about the elder Cartwright's mental decline, which turns into full-blown dementia this season. It was a startling change for someone who had once been the shadowy power behind the throne, yet at the same time, "that's only the way other people saw me. I played a very benign grandfather to Jack, and I think that's one of the interesting things about playing a bad guy: he doesn't believe he's a bad guy, it's only the other people who think he's a bad guy." Although he's often referred to as "The Old Bastard," "I played him in a very benign, kindly way, like a good spy: outwardly, you don't show your true emotions." More from GoldDerby Grammys unveil 2026 ceremony date, new categories 'Feel good about not conforming': Christina Ricci reflects on her iconic roles, from Wednesday Addams to Misty Quigley 'The show is a true fluke': '100 Foot Wave' executive producer on how they chase big waves across the globe For Pryce, "the chance to explore David's dementia was something I was very happy to do," and something he has experience doing. "When you get to be my age, the only things you're offered are the old man with dementia or cancer, or their wife has cancer, or their wife has died and they're going off on some mission to acknowledge their wife's death." He had previously played a character suffering from dementia in Florian Zeller's play The Height of the Storm, which "proved to be quite a rewarding experience, because what you don't want to do is indulge the character's illness or abuse the illness in any way." In addition to his acting experience, Pryce is also an ambassador for Alzheimer's Society, and often works on their behalf. So "I felt a great responsibility to portray David's dementia in as truthful and as positive a way as I could." Throughout his experiences, Pryce has learned that "the person who has dementia is living in one world, but of course the pain is endured by the family," which is seen in the way River reacts to his grandfather's illness. He was able to bring some real life experience to the performance as well, "I had one family member who had dementia," an aunt who "didn't develop it until her mid-90s." Pryce would visit his aunt in her care home, and as he recalls, "it was quite benign what was happening to her. She was being taken good care of, but she gradually didn't recognize me. I would say, 'Auntie Myra, it's John,' and she would say, 'I have a nephew named John. He's a famous actor.'" He remembers relating this to one of his sons, who assured him, "'She remembers you. She just doesn't recognize you.' That was important for me, to realize that I still existed in her mind, because we were very, very close as a family." SEE Gary Oldman on 'Slow Horses' being 'an extraordinary show to work on' and 'one of the highlights of my career' Although David's illness was a big change, Pryce reveals he didn't change his behavior to map out its progression. "It's kind of difficult to chart your performance, because it's never shot chronologically. It was there in the writing, and there in people's reactions to me." His costars "are very sensitive actors to be with. They knew what was happening to David." Oldman's character, on the other hand, was "only too happy" to see that "he could say what he liked to me. He never liked me, and he certainly wasn't going to be sympathetic towards me now. So it was explored through my relationships with the other characters, and that's how it is in life. If you have Alzheimers or dementia, you go through your life, but it's how other people react. Other people tell your story, and I've always found that with acting roles, whatever they are. It's the classic thing: how do people know you're a king? Because everybody bows to you. That happened in The Crown," in which he played Prince Philip. "It's very nice to happen." Pryce also had people kissing his ring when he played Pope Francis in The Two Popes, which netted him his first Oscar nomination. "When I was first offered the pope, I didn't think I could possibly do it," he admits. "I'm not religious in any way, but God, I'm glad I said yes. It was one of the best experiences I've had in 50 odd years, working with [Anthony] Hopkins and Fernando Meirelles, that entire production team. It was just the best, absolutely the best." With Francis' recent passing, Pryce watched with the rest of the world as a new pope was elected. "I find it incredibly moving, having played at it and been apart of it. It was just wonderful to see who was chosen, that he was Francis' man, and that, in his early words, he was going to carry on Francis' work." Perhaps his most iconic role is that of lowly office worker Sam Lowry in Terry Gilliam's dystopian comedy Brazil, which remains "extraordinary" to this day. "It's gotten me a lot of work over the years, because directors who were young when they saw Brazil got into filmmaking because of Terry and because of that film," he says. "It's really gratifying. I meet people all the time who say that film changed their life, or it was a turning point for them. It's good, because it's a great film" and "still more relevant than ever" with its critiques of big government surveillance and terrorism as a response to injustice. "The terrible thing about it is, as a society, we don't learn from these things. We don't learn from history. That's the downside of it." Pryce's career began on the stage, where he won Tony Awards for Comedians and Miss Saigon. His performance in Carrington earned the Best Actor prize at Cannes, and he's received further Emmy nominations for Barbarians at the Gate, Return to Cranford, and The Crown. Best of GoldDerby 'The best job I ever had': 'From 'Supernatural' to 'The Boys,' Eric Kripke talks his biggest hits — and miss (ahem, 'Tarzan') 'Cross' star Aldis Hodge on building an aspirational hero — who's not a superhero 'Feel good about not conforming': Christina Ricci reflects on her iconic roles, from Wednesday Addams to Misty Quigley Click here to read the full article.
CNN
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
‘It changed me': Big wave surfer Garrett McNamara on the wipeout that altered his perspective
As a professional big wave surfer, charging down mountains of water that reach the size of an apartment block, Garrett McNamara doesn't scare easily. Perhaps best known for taking on huge walls of water in his television docuseries, '100 Foot Wave,' the 57-year-old Hawaiian earned himself a world record in 2011 – which has since been bested – for surfing the biggest wave in the world, a 78-foot (23.8 meters) monster in Nazaré, Portugal. But despite his fearlessness and aptitude for risk, the surfer isn't immune to the peaks and troughs of life. In 2016, the veteran surfer suffered a wipeout at Mavericks, a famous big wave surf break off the coast south of San Francisco, shattering his shoulder into '10 pieces.' What followed was months of physical pain and 'the most challenging six months ever in my life,' he said to CNN Sports. 'It was a very dark, dark time of our life, our relationship and working through that,' his wife Nicole told CNN, explaining that the accident 'began a very long journey of depression.' 'At that time, Garrett I feel was really actually going and chasing these waves for the wrong reason … (for) most of our relationship, he was doing it for the right reasons,' she added. 'He was trying to prove himself to the wrong people for the wrong reasons, and it was one of the first times I didn't actually travel with him.' While she was at home and caring for their young son in 2016, she received a brief message informing her that her husband had been injured. The experience of the injury, McNamara told CNN, 'totally changed me,' and almost 10 years later, he said his perspective on life has transformed. 'I've been really doing well, better than I've ever done on land, and I have released the monkey. The monkey is not on my back. I don't have to ride every swell everywhere in the world,' he said. 'I'm really looking at being more present, being with the family, doing things with purpose and intention, and taking my time, slowing down – all things that aren't normal for me.' The life of a big wave surfer is one that few could imagine, involving copious amounts of travel, change and risk, and McNamara said, for the most part: 'We fly by the seat of our pants and I just go and do whatever this amazing woman shares with me.' Nicole added, 'We're polar opposites, but I think that's what makes it work.' 'I'm the grounding force that he doesn't have, and he's this excitement and adventure and freedom that I definitely don't have but crave it,' she explained. Now entering its third season, '100 Foot Wave' explores the challenges of the sport for a crew of surfers – and their families – as they continue to push boundaries. This involves dealing with the death of a tow surfer, brain injury and the impacts of these tragedies on a community. Away from filming, in their day to day life, the couple still navigates regular situations like raising their children, who have inherited their parents' love for the ocean, though McNamara explained to CNN, 'I'm not real excited for anybody to follow in my footsteps. I am an open book when it comes to all the challenges I faced.' 'If (my son) Barrel wants to follow in my footsteps, I will just make sure he trains harder than anybody and is ready for what he's getting himself into,' the veteran surfer added. As for what's next in life, if and when '100 Foot Wave' ends, McNamara says he will always have an affinity with the ocean. 'I won't ride horses, I won't jump out of airplanes … I'm very comfortable in the ocean and I've always focused on riding big waves. 'I feel like I'll be riding big waves 'til the end, but maybe vicariously through people that I'm helping and mentoring and driving the jet ski – I'll be able to drive the jet ski forever.'
