Dan Patrick tries to keep vertical with Tony Hawk
DP: Tell me about your part in the movie classic Thrashing: A Love Story?
TH: I was just an extra, a skater in the competition scene.
DP: Give me the plot of that movie.
TH: West Side Story meets skateboarding.
DP: Do you remember any of the lines?
TH: The most classic line from that movie would be the girl asking the main character, "Well, what do you thrash?" And he says. "What do you got?"
DP: Dude, that's deep.
TH: Yeah. That was a good one.
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| Hawk executed the first 900 in competition history at the 1999 X Games. |
DP: Who would be the perfect stunt double in the Tony Hawk movie?
TH: Oh, geez. Tom Green. He's the perfect build, and he'll try anything.
DP: I don't think you're ready to have like a nut cut off, are you?
TH: No.
DP: OK . . . who would be your love interest?
TH: Oh, wow. I have to default to my wife.
DP: You've got to step outside of that. Your wife will understand. It's a movie.
TH: I think the only girl I've ever heard her comment on is Jennifer Love Hewitt. So, I'll go with that.
DP: Give me the evolution of your hairstyle?
TH: Well, long and scruffy, and then molded and pretty. And then this--short, tight and easy.
DP: Tell me more about your pretty phrase.
TH: Well, not pretty. I mean, pretty boy in the sense that like it was eighties, and it was swooshed.
DP: You met George Harrison, right?
TH: Yeah, we were in London doing a demo. And this kid I didn't know came up to us, and asked if I we wanted to come back to his house for dinner. Obviously, I didn't think much about it at first and then someone else told us this kid was George Harrison's son. So, we followed this kid home, and ended up having dinner with George Harrison. Tom Petty was there, too. Bob Dylan was supposed to show up later but we left.
DP: You left?!
TH: Yeah, I was kind of tired.
DP: Give me what you've broken.
TH: Well, officially my only broken bone is my elbow.
DP: Give me the unofficial.
TH: Unofficially, I cracked a rib. Sprained both my ankles many, many times. Tore cartilage in my knee. I've gotten knocked out about eight times. And broke my front teeth three times. And I've bruised my ego many, many times.
This article appears in the August 7 issue of ESPN The Magazine.
