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A Conversation with Actor Lucas Hedges

A Conversation with Actor Lucas Hedges

How surfing inspired a revelation for the Academy Award nominated actor.

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Inherent Bummer
May 09, 2025
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A Conversation with Actor Lucas Hedges
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Surfing keeps on giving. One of its greatest gifts to me is the opportunity to talk with people who rip at other things in life and share our love of surfing. Connecting and exchanging our unique interpretations of wave riding is one of the best parts of being a surfer.

My most recent example of this was with Lucas Hedges: a Brooklyn born, life-long actor, best known for his roles in “Manchester by the Sea,” “Moonrise Kingdom,” “Mid90s,” “Lady Bird,” and most recently “Sorry, Baby.” He is an avid and enthusiastic surfer and his perspectives on surfing and surfers are some of the most eloquent I’ve heard.

We had a chance introduction and through some serendipitous timing we were allowed the opportunity to talk surfing, “sending it,” and Christian Fletcher.

Read our conversation below.—Travis Ferré

[Interview has been edited for clarity and length.]

Inherent Bummer: Let's start with something you mentioned before we began recording – this serendipitous thought you had recently about surfing and acting.

Lucas Hedges: Yeah, so I was doing this dance piece where my character does Irish step dancing. I was doing a lot of acting in this piece as well. When I act, I always feel like I'm living and dying in any given moment – everything's either going amazing or it's fucking terrible. 

You don't have your cruising altitude?

No, I don't at all. And I kept thinking about how I went down to Nicaragua to surf about a year ago.

I had been surfing in Costa Rica with my brother and I wanted to extend a trip and he had to go home to work. I was like, “Where should I go?” He was like, “Well, you could go to Mark and Daves.” So I called them up — and now I don't have enough experience to just pull up to Nicaragua and scope it out by myself  — so I needed somebody to take me around. And this guy, basically before I went, he was like, “Yes, I can take you around.” But he was like, “But you've got to be ready to send it.” 

I had that in the back of my mind throughout the entire rehearsal [last week]. I became obsessed with this idea right before I went on stage every time, and kept thinking about when he took me out to Panga Drops. First of all, this was a spot I had no business surfing. I wasn't even close to catching these waves. It's really windy. I'd never been in anything like it. And basically the one thing I had in my mind when I was surfing there was, “Send it.” 

I didn't really have any coordination with respect to the wave, but I was just trying to send it and I got crushed every time. 

But the point of the story really doesn't have to do with paying [dues], it has to do with this notion of sending it. And that is ultimately what I love about surfing is that every single time I'm about to catch a wave, there's a part of me that goes, “Fuck, I shouldn't be doing this. It's not safe.” Every single time .. and I'm taking off on the smallest waves too.

“You know how in life, if you sit around doing nothing long enough, your brain just starts having awful thoughts? When I'm surfing regularly, it's the opposite. It feels like God's in my life.”

I think we all experience that feeling at our own level. I had a similar moment a couple weeks ago where I had to actually put my chest and head down to push over the ledge. 

Yeah, surfing can put you there. It humbles you every day, every time.

So during rehearsals, I kept thinking "send it" to myself. I realized when you enter a scene, the scene is essentially the wave. I was having this experience of transcending the state of fear before that moment, and then riding the wave of the scene. That day I was like, "Holy shit, I figured out acting!" And then you emailed me.

That’s so rad.  

I secretly do feel like surfing is the ticket for me – not professionally, it's not how I'm going to make a name for myself in this world. But when I'm surfing in Montauk regularly, or when I was surfing in Nicaragua, there was a point after about a week where I genuinely felt like I had a new mind, a new brain. You know how in life, if you sit around doing nothing long enough, your brain just starts having awful thoughts? When I'm surfing regularly, it's the opposite. It feels like God's in my life.

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