Tony Hawk has teamed up with Steve-O from Jackass for a brand new skating present.
The pair are helming Sk8 or Die: The Lee Ralph Story, a brand new scripted collection telling the life story of the New Zealand skateboarder who reached the highest of his sport within the Eighties earlier than all of a sudden vanishing from the scene.
The present is at the moment in lively improvement and has been conceived as an anthology collection with every new season exploring the lifetime of a skating legend. Hawk and Steve-O each function govt producers.
Vinnie Bennett will star as Lee Ralph, with Oscar-nominee Keisha Fortress-Hughes set to play as Lee’s sister Kim.
The collection will discover Lee’s childhood in New Zealand, rising up the son of a heroin-dealing father and his rise to skating fame within the late Eighties, turning into recognized for skating barefoot. On the peak of his fame, as one of many sport’s high stars, he all of a sudden dropped out.
“Lee Ralph was a really distinctive character, and that’s saying so much within the eclectic world of skateboarding,” Hawk mentioned in a press release. “His skating was highly effective and easy, whereas his look and angle was unapologetically dirty. However he at all times wore a smile and we had been at all times stoked to see him.”
The collection is co-written by Tom Hern and Halaifonua (Nua) Finau, who will even function showrunners, with Hern directing choose episodes alongside Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe.
“I’ve recognized Lee for practically 20 years. He’s an expensive buddy and one in every of a sort,” says Hern. “I’ve at all times recognized about his skating achievements and his considerably legendary antics for years, but it surely wasn’t till researching this undertaking that Nua and I discovered about all the opposite loopy, unbelievable facets to his story. Along with the Forrest Gump-like twists and turns of his life, Lee and his household’s story may be very touching and provoking. We will’t wait to deliver it to the display screen.”
In different information, Steve-O lately defined why he modified his thoughts on getting breast implants, which he first introduced in July was a part of a collection of deliberate pranks.
In an interview with Consequence, Steve-O reveals that the deliberate surgical procedure confronted setbacks: “I acquired inside 10 hours of being in surgical procedure for that,” he says.
“The surgical procedure was purported to occur at eight within the morning. And 10 pm the evening earlier than, I acquired a name that the anesthesiologist backed out of it, as a result of he discovered that it was me doing it as a stunt.”
“And that sort of set off a sequence response the place the physician didn’t wish to be related to it anymore, and so they had been having hassle discovering one other surgical procedure middle to to make it occur.”
Nonetheless, on the time, Steve-O was nonetheless decided to see by way of the bold and controversial stunt. It was a dialog he had with a transgender grocery employee that brought on him to rethink it.
“On the day that the scheduled surgical procedure was purported to occur, I used to be testing on the grocery store,” he tells Consequence. “And the individual ringing up my groceries was evidently transgender, and it struck me as an indication from the universe. So I requested the transgender individual if I may run one thing by them, and I had a dialog with this individual that had a profound affect on me.”
“I knew what my motivation was, I knew what my intention was, and it wasn’t to be hurtful to anyone. I used to be simply making an attempt to get laughs,” he continues. “I had performed a bunch of workshop exhibits to check out materials, and I had quite a few trans individuals come to me after the exhibits to voice help for [the stunt]. And I feel some individuals would’ve been okay with it, and a few individuals wouldn’t have. It will’ve been a combined bag.”
