HBO'S 100 FOOT WAVE

A Conversation with HBO's 100 Foot Wave Executive Producer Joe Lewis

Interview by Tommy Moore and Evan Schell

Words by Tommy Moore

Photos Courtesy of HBO

Published May 30, 2025

100 Foot Wave - Season 3 Out Now

There are situations in life many of us are familiar with: balancing a career and family, fickle working relationships with friends, handling high emotions crisis moments. Then there are situations in life only a select few are intimately familiar with: weighing risk vs. reward 100 concussions deep in a concussion prone sport, towing a friend into a deadly wave, staring down the face of a 100 ft. wave. There's been few surf films or documentaries that marry the stories from behind the scenes and in the water well, and HBO's 100 Foot Wave is one of them.

As the fifth and final episode of their third season rolls out, we sat down with executive producer Joe Lewis to dive into crafting a surf docuseries that stands alone from the crowd, working alongside a cast of characters of the likes of Garrett McNamara, Lucas Chumbo, Kai Lenney, Justine Dupont, Luke Shepardson, and more, and cutting 3500 hours of film down to a five and a half hour long series.

Sitting Down with Executive Producer Joe Lewis

Tommy Moore: Evan and I were actually talking last night about how I don't come from a surf heavy background. I'm more on the general creative outdoor side of things, and how you dive into all of this is so attractive to me, just as somebody who understands a piece of the cultural side of it, but isn’t someone who’s earned their stripes in the water.

Joe Lewis: I mean, we don't think of it as a surf show, you know? It's about people that do an extraordinary thing. Chris, the director, is definitely not a surfer. I'm the world's worst surfer.

Tommy Moore: On that point, I’d be curious to hear a little bit more about your guys' initial concepting and how you figured out the approach for trying to have a broad reach with the show, but also hitting the sensitivities of the Eddie with such high regard for detail and culture.

Joe Lewis: A lot of credit goes to Chris Smith, our director. But from the beginning, like I said, he's not a surfer, I've surfed, but I'm not a surfer. And like anything, you're just trying to be really quiet when you're working by yourself, and listen to your own instincts. Is something exciting? Does it make you curious? Does it confuse you? Is it boring?

But for us, I don't think either of us ever thought a minute before we heard about this that we’d do something in surfing, so I couldn't even have predicted that we'd be 17 hours into the story, six years later. But just truly, one of those things where we stumbled into something. It was a lot of luck, and then after the luck, so much work to get it done. You shoot 3500 hours for a season of TV, and it ends up five and a half hours. There's a lot of versions of the show in there, there's a lot of episodes, and again, you're just following your own curiosity, and obviously working with a lot of great editors, just trying to get down to where it's interesting, whether you know or you don't know anything about surfing. Garrett [McNamara], and all the other surfers have always been encouraging to that. We never get a note that there needs to be more surfing. The surfing is spectacular and amazing to watch, but I think what’s great is that it's a true doc series. We just follow people, and everyone sort of gets what we're there to do, which is just follow life.

I just think it's just such an amazing group of people. Season one of the show was really about the backstory and about Garrett, Nicole, the McNamaras, and Nazare. Season two it was about Andrew Cotton or CJ Macias to Garrett’s, brother in law. But every year, we've met new people in Nazare. Some people have led us to other people, and the cast just keeps expanding, and the show keeps so organically expanding. So in season three, Lucas Chumbo, is ridiculously good, just one of the best big wave surfers in the world—one of the best people in the world—and he was in season two a little bit. But it's not till season three where we're really been able to spend a significant amount of time with him. He's just an unbelievable character.

Tommy Moore: I think, too, how you shine a light on especially the family side of things—the relationship side of things—it’s that's such a special thing that opens a new door to showing the impacts of the action sports worlds outside of the actual sport. It's very often not shown when you look at your standard surf or skate film. You rarely see the repercussions of things on a big screen.

Joe Lewis: I mean, listen, when I started the show, I didn't think we'd be having a birth in season two. I think one of the reason all the great shows have some kind of family, and then this one is a real family. And again, none of this is set up television. We just capture an amazing couple, and their endlessly interesting life where they're going to school around the world with their kids. I think it’s just Garrett's ability to be himself and Nicole's ability to be herself. They've just been so good. Nicole has talked about this a lot, that if she's going to do it, she was just going to be herself and not change anything for the cameras. And I think you can really, really tell. I just love them, and they're such a good family, and really love each other. It’s just one of many things that we didn't know at the start of the show that would be so core to its working so well.

Tommy Moore: With that too, because it’s such a raw, natural display of a family, there's all these really elegant plot twist, lovely gut punches if you will, that go along with all the different individual plots.

Joe Lewis: Garrett and Nicole work together. She's a spotter, and in episode three of the third season it's just natural that she goes out there. And I'm sure her being out there also gives Garrett the confidence and safe feeling to do a lot of what he does. That episode in particular, also just sort of recontextualizes the whole show going back from the beginning, just through the lens of their relationship and the world of surfing. That episode just really lets you in on something that happened before the first episode of the whole show that sort of started Garret’s journey into Nazare.

Tommy Moore: One thing I wasn't expecting was the fourth episode when it dives into the Eddie. The Eddie is just such a paramount event, that's so much more than a competition for the sport, but also for the islands and the culture. It was shown in such a way, like I mentioned before, that makes it palatable and approachable to everybody, but also hits on so many of the key points and so many of the feelings throughout all of it, and especially the given storyline for that year.

Joe Lewis: I mean, listen, it's crazy. I don't know if it's luck or some kind of blessing.

We had planned when we started shooting the season, that it would be every other year. We would just spend the year in Nazare. And next thing you know, you know, the weather just has a different story. We're all over the world and end up in Hawaii. I'm really, really happy with that episode. And again, I think we're a show about people, and on the surface, we're a sports show, and that's our most, I feel, sports like episode, where there's a competition, and a bunch of people who all deserve to win, and could win.

Tommy Moore: For something like that, do you go in with a plan that you're gonna be on the hip of six different people, or are you alongside 15-20 people, and then you're able to in post choose the storylines and the plot lines that work out well? Or is it really just a roll of the dice to who you're paired up with?

Joe Lewis: It is a roll of the dice. There's so much luck in that. But also we're very fortunate HBO gives us time to edit and find the story, too. I think in a way it feels natural, and I hope in a way it feels natural and easy the way it ends up on screen. But it's so much work to get it to that point and so, so much luck in being with these characters when stuff is happening. It's just truly thousands of hours that you don't see where nothing's happening.

Evan Schell: From someone that grew up surfing and is around it a lot, I think you guys did a great job of doing Eddie justice and telling the story. It's pretty intense, and also, just a very multi layered kind of story, and there's so much history that's involved in that. So I really enjoyed watching that episode.

Joe Lewis: That’s great to hear. I mean, that's the hard part when you're doing these things, is these are all real people and real events, and you just want to do right. Everyone in it is so sincere, and especially for someone who's lived his life like Eddie, the last thing you'd ever want to do is not pay homage to that.

Evan Schell: Totally. I didn't want to jump too far forward, but I was also kind of curious. Have you guys thought about just the fact that Landon recently won, how that would play into to future stories? 

Joe Lewis: Yeah, we shot it. We were there. I mean, there'll be a season four, and that'll be part of it, but yeah, we've been shooting for the last two years, a little bit of that, since season three. I mean, not to jump too far, but yeah, it's insane the next year. Garrett was there and coaching Landon, and I think it was a real special moment for just the entire McNamara family, in so many ways. It's incredible.

Tommy Moore: I can't imagine from the production side, the headache and the last minute, 2am working hours it must take to organize everybody to end up in the same place at the right time when you have 12 hours notice.

Joe Lewis: Somehow it is crazy, but it's also fun. It's just absurdly fun. Also, we have an amazing crew with people have been shooting for years with us in Nazare. We have a great producer named Vincent on the ground there. And the secret is shooting a lot of hours and being in the right place, with a lot of luck, a lot of preparation, and just working. Laurent, who shoots our camera in the water, went out to Nazare, went out to Morocco, where episode five goes. We’ve just found such a great crew of people, and think our drone improves every single year. The nature of the sport is you're having breakfast and then you're all of a sudden going on a plane halfway around the world that night. And the surfers do it more uncomfortably than we do sometimes. So it's hard to find a complaint, but it's just so fun. I mean, I hate to say, but it feels like you're an adult going on a fun adventure, and then when you score… I mean, I cannot believe the sunrise, how the sunrise looked when we got up and Cortez, let alone the waves that followed. There's no there's nothing more fun.

Tommy Moore: Even CJ said something in the last episode about his favorite thing about surfing is that's what gets him up in the morning to experience a sunrise, to get him outside and out into nature. There are a lot of sleepless nights in the production world of outdoor media, but there's also a lot of those pristine moments that are so fleeting. It's nice to be able to slow down and actually experience them.

Joe Lewis: I mean you have a magazine about it. Just being in nature has some effect on you. And, you know, it's not like a tree makes you happy, but maybe being around a bunch of them for a while, or an ocean, or a mountain, or the sand, does have an effect. I think they've just stumbled onto the sport where they're not competing in a dusty, hot gym. You can't do their sport without extreme nature, and I feel like it forces you to be mindful of a lot of things.

Tommy Moore: There's something in the mix of such extreme aspects of nature, plus such make it or break it situations with the actual sport itself, plus these really heavy personal and familial situations that there's a lot of moist eye moments throughout all five episodes. It feels so natural, like I was saying before, with all these different storylines coming together. There's some really heavy moments throughout all five episodes and I think they're framed really well. They're explained really well, again, to give the person that's removed from the sport itself perspective, but then also does a lot of justice to the individuals that are actually in it and a part of it.

Joe Lewis: I hope so, and it's also very funny. I mean, the show makes me laugh. Garrett’s so funny and everyone from that world, in their own way, is funny and a character. There's a lot of life or death stakes this season and insanely high goals people are trying to reach.

Tommy Moore: I think it does a really good job of of showing off the the actual cast of characters that fill out the action sports world, and the personalities that are there, just because it takes such a special and unique person to have a life that's surrounded by this on their daily basis.

Evan Schell: I wanted to comment, again, we've been talking about it, and I was curious, because you'd said that you don't come from a surf heavy background, but were there any any specific things that you'd seen in surf related media before making the series that you looked to or pulled any inspiration from?

Joe Lewis: Good question. No one's asked that yet. You know, the real answer is no. Personally, they're just like seminal docs for me, like American Movie, which Chris, our director, made in the 90s and Hoop Dreams, also from the 90s. Just these longitudinal stories that were about characters and had a mix of tones like that. But no, there was nothing in the surf world that we said we want to make our version of that. There was one amazing shot from a Quicksilver or a Billabong movie back in the 2000’s I remember where this wave just kept getting bigger and bigger and growing, and it just made me get excited for the cinematography side. But no, again, from the beginning, I just think we've never thought about this as a surf thing. And I feel like this has been more influenced by scripted stuff that I've done and some of Chris's work, too.

Evan Schell: I think it's amazing. Because I think that that's kind of been the issue with a lot of previous shows or films that people have tried to do in the surf world. I don't think that they can kind of bring that touch to it where you you get these feelings of more connectedness, I guess you could say, because even for me, some of these people, I know them in the periphery, but I don't know everything. I didn't even know Chumbo had kids.

Joe Lewis: He's such a good dad. He's so sweet with them. I love watching it same as you. I think it helps tell the story, definitely. Especially with how many of them have just small kids, too. Kai just had more kids. Garrett's got lots. Justine has a kid, not to spoil it, but she and Fred have a baby who's very cute at the end of the third season. There's something about that, the lifestyle I can't figure out, that weirdly lends itself to it. I think it's because the competitions aren't as regular. I'm in awe when I watch families do it, because it just looks like some dream some code they figured out to work, but be together and spend time in nature all at once.

Evan Schell: I felt like in the last episode that was really touched on in a really nice way, too, of trying to figure out  am I going to go on this trip or not? I see that with my friends that are professional surfers, and they have kids and they have wives and other partners that they're trying to manage and deal with that, because it's a tough balance.

Joe Lewis: Maybe the key to great surfing is having a great partner. I also love that episode, because you see Garrett with his son, Titus, you see you just, you see lots of people surfing with their family and kids. It’s just really, really touching, touching to see, too. I mean, I can't watch the end of Field of Dreams without getting choked up when he has a catch with his dad. And I feel like it's like the surf equivalent of this.

100 Foot Wave - Season 3 - is out now on HBO Max.

A Conversation with HBO's 100 Foot Wave Executive Producer Joe Lewis

Interview by Tommy Moore and Evan Schell

Words by Tommy Moore

Photos Courtesy of HBO

Published May 30, 2025