Wednesday, May 8

Stacy Peralta Speaks

By Billy Miller
Exclusive to EXPN.com

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Stacy Peralta was the first skateboarder in history to be paid by a shoe company - Vans. For three bills a month, Peralta, Tony Alva and the rest of the Z-Boys set the stage before the theater had an audience. Almost two decades later, Vans ponied up for the first skateboarding documentary to hit the multiplexes. Complete with Sundance Audience and Director's Awards, Dogtown And Z-Boys is on its way, as is Stacy Peralta.

Stacy, on the other side of the camera.

Miller: This film was made fast with a skeleton crew.

Peralta: It was a small crew - Editor Paul Crowder, Producer Agi Orsi, Craig Stecyk, myself and a few others like Peter Pilafian who shot most of the stuff, and Glen E. Friedman. But that way everyone gets to wear a lot of hats. It's more personal.

How did the financing come together?

Docs are notorious for making no money, so it was hard to find someone. First we found this Hollywood company to back it, but they wanted another company to pony up half. Our producer approached Vans to do the film and they agreed. Then as it turns out, the other company backed out, and Vans came back and said they'd finance the whole film.

Peggy Oki, an original Z-boy.

What got Sean Penn involved?

We were three-quarters of the way through and needed to find out who was going to narrate this. We all had the perfect person in mind but wrote off the notion as a pipe dream. Glen E. Friedman had a connection to his assistant, who liked the trailer and made sure Sean watched it. The next thing we knew he was in our office to see some footage and we were shaking in our boots.

He had some connection to the material?

He knew what surfers and skateboarders were on the screen, and it was as much a trip down memory lane for him as it was for us. He wanted no money, just the opportunity to do this for his kids.

What made you all want to revisit this?

The sport has now reached middle-age. I'm in my mid-40s, so is Tony Alva. All of us are considered the founding fathers of modern skateboarding. You've got people like us looking back, kids coming up who are wondering where it came from, it was time to glean some perspective on this.

Why a documentary?

It was an opportunity to tell the real story from our perspective. Someone had bought Tony Alva's and Jay Adams' "life rights," but I was deeply disappointed when Hollywood was going to come in and buy this story that was ours. They kept coming back to me saying they needed my rights because I was the straight guy and Tony and Jay were the rebels. They needed me to balance out the two, but I wouldn't do it unless I was involved in the screenplay. They already had an A-list writer, and at the last minute he got a television series sold to the networks. So while it was in a holding pattern we put our documentary deal together.

Now you've written the fictional Dogtown story.

I wrote that screenplay when I got home from Sundance in 2001. It's in the process of being financed. David Fincher's acting as producer-he's the right guy-he's very smart. They're looking at ten different directors who might be in on this.

Did you ever think ...

... Not in my wildest imagination. I never thought the film would succeed like it has. Not only has it captured the hearts and minds of skateboarders, but the film is seemingly grabbing the interest of the non-skateboarding public. I never imagined that skateboarding would someday be an accepted sport or a piece of Americana like it is today. When we did it back then, we were looked down on for doing it. There was no future in it. There was no respect except from your peers. Now there's a network devoted to it-ESPN2.

What brought about this resurgence?

Kids are turning to these action sports and turning away from traditional sport. I hate to say this, skateboarding is a lot more fun than say, football, where you're intentionally smashing your body into another human being. There's more art to it, there's more flow. It's more democratic-in football the quarterback and running backs are probably having the most fun, but in skateboarding, everyone can have the same fun. Also, you have a lot of urban kids turning to skateboards. If you have a skateboard in your hand, the whole city is your skatepark.

Jay Adams, literally down since day one.

What's different today as opposed to your era?

Skateboarding has completely left surfing and become this urban, inner-city activity. That's one of the most exciting things to me about it. Now you've got white kids skating with black kids and Asian kids and Mexican kids. If that would've happened thirty years ago there would've been fights. There would've been no way this could have happened.

It's not just a sport?

Now you talk like a skateboarder, you dress like a skateboarder, and you look at things through a skateboarder's eyes. Buildings aren't buildings anymore, you're looking at the architecture to understand how to ride it. You're constantly on reconnaissance to find new places to ride your skateboard.

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