MovieChat Forums > Point Break (1991) Discussion > Was Swayze really surfing?

Was Swayze really surfing?


Its obviously him sky-diving, and its obviously NOT Keanu either skydiving OR surfing... but i'm wondering if Swayze had a stand-in for his surfing scenes.

Its looked like it could be him, but his face was relatively in the dark, and guy looked pretty good at it. Obviously, i'm not referring to the end scene, but just the general surfing scenes throughout the film.

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Doesn't the trivia page state that Keanu learned to surf for this movie and still surfs to this day.
Now I don't know how reliable movie trivia usually is..
But I like the idea of Keanu grabbing his surfboard now and again to chill out on the waves.

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i don't doubt that Keanu was out there, on the board, wading around in the water, but being that there is no conclusive shot of him jumping up on the board and actually surfing, i'm concluding that it never happened.

Same with the skydiving.... Every scene of Keanu in the sky is a closeup (apparently in the simulator), but there's tons of shots of conclusively Swayze up in the air.

If Keanu was actually up in the air, you'd think they would've for sure 'proved it' by getting that shot.... Not getting that shot would be an even huger failure than him not being out there in the firs place.

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That sounds acceptable. That Keanu did learn to surf for this movie. But learning to surf and actually surfing are two different things. So maybe he did the easy shots and someone else did the more advanced surfing scenes. But he did like to surf and still does so to this day, with improved skills of course.

With the skydiving. I don't think Keanu did that or was even allowed to do that. I read somewhere (might be the trivia page here) Dat Swayze was already an accomplished skydiver before this movie. So what's the difference between a stuntman or Swayze, apart from the risk of losing a main actor. But it was the 90's, what's a little risk for death in the movie industry? Nowadays it's all insurance issues, you can have the nr. 1 stuntman turn main actor and you'll see the ex-stuntman gets a stuntman.

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Keanu Reeves did do skydiving in the group skydiving scene. The skydiving scenes are a combination of the actors actually skydiving in the wider shots and hovering over a skydiving simulator for the close-up dialogue shots because you can't hear anything and really talk when skydiving. Patrick Swayze wasn't doing the big surfing shots either. The Blu Ray, which contains everything from the DVD, has featurettes covering all this.

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that was righteous of him.



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Not the high performance surfing shots, no.

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I don't know the answer to OP's question, I just wanted to say I like the scene (inc. the music) of the first surfing scene of Bohdi (Lori said "That's Bodhi").

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John Philbin (Nathanial) and Bojesse Christopher (Grommet) were the experienced surfers of the bunch and did all their own surfing. James LeGros (Roach) is never seen surfing.

Swayze said he did "just enough" surfing to where they could use a few shots of him on the board and have it look real. But a majority of his surfing shots were handled by his double. You can clearly see the wideshots of Philbin and Christoper "actually" surfing. As for Keanu, he didn't know how to surf prior, but learned to for this movie and still surfs to this day.

However, people mustn't confuse learning to surf for the movie and actually surfing for the movie. The Original poster is correct Keanu was not surfing for this movie and is it very obvious.

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