Mathews & Vaculik interview
HUCK talks to Mark Mathews and Richie Vaculik, the stars of new surf documentary Fighting Fear, about their enduring friendship.
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One good friend can change your life. That's the tag line to Macario De Souza's new film Fighting Fear, a documentary that explores the trials and tribulations of two friends; big wave surfer Mark Mathews and MMA fighter and surfer Richie 'Vas' Vaculik.
The film follows the pair from their childhood days in the Sydney suburb of Maroubra, charting the highs and lows in both their sports careers and personal lives, and showing how they've grown up along the way.
HUCK caught up with the pair at the O'Neill's London premiere of the film to find out what they make of each other.
Mark on Richie.
"We met when I was about 12 and Rich was about 10, just down at the beach and the local board riders club. We both loved surfing and ended up always surfing together. Growing up around the beach, age doesn't really matter so everyone’s mates regardless of whether you’re 30 or you’re 15 because you’ve got the same passion. Rich is just fearless when he’s surfing and I just loved hanging around people that sort of pushed me. I could always use him as a test dummy for any wave we’d go surf. I’d just tell him to go first to see if it was surfable. A lot of the places you go [to surf] are so scary that you don’t feel like surfing. So, if you go there with someone who is more scared than you are, you’re never going to surf it. Going with Rich makes me surf waves that I never would have surfed before. Richie is probably way more outgoing than me and he’s ruthless when it comes to practical jokes. You can’t really play a practical joke on him because you know it’s going to come back ten times worse. I’ve learned over the years not to do anything bad to him in terms of annoying him when he’s sleeping because then when I fall asleep somewhere near him, he’ll shave my eyebrows off. Our friendship is the same as it always was but we’re probably a bit wiser in the decisions we make after all the stupid shit that we used to do."
Richie on Mark
"Mark was someone I knew as always being in the surf. He was always out there and surfing really well. I just wanted to meet him, hang out and become mates. We both loved surfing so much. There was a handful of us who were really psyched on going down the coast when the swell got bigger and chasing waves. I guess that’s really where the foundation for our friendship developed. Carrying each other in those kind of waves definitely creates a bond, a camaraderie, because the consequences are so great and you put a lot of trust in each other. That kind of environment develops a stronger friendship. I could say the same for the MMA tour and my trainers. I put a lot of trust in them that they’ve prepared me for my fights and they’ve got my best interests at hand. Whenever we’re out in the surf together, there's always a competition over who gets the biggest wave of the day. Even if Mark gets the biggest wave of the day, which he normally does, I’m stoked for him. We’re all out there for the same thing. The competition doesn’t get in the way of helping each other out. [...] Mark's got annoying habits. He’s got one where you talk to him and he doesn’t listen. He can’t do one thing and answer a question. If he’s sending a text or tying his shoelace, he just won’t answer you back. That’s something we’ve been laughing at this trip. When he puts his mind on something else, you may as well not be there! The best thing about being mates with Mark is he’s just adventurous. Growing together and travelling the way we do, you just can’t beat it. It’s pretty special."
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Mathews & Vaculik interview (text) by Ed Andrews is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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