Upon its release in 2016,The Shallowssolidified itself as one of the better modern-day creature features. The film, which starsBlake Livelyin the lead role, and as the only character for the majority of the movie (aside from her razor-toothed stalker), follows a woman named Nancy (Lively) who travels to a secluded beach in search of solace as she grieves the loss of her mother. But her pleasant day of surfing quickly turns into a nightmare when she finds herself in the middle of a Great White Shark’s feeding ground. All alone, with no one in sight, Nancy must figure out how to survive, and how to make it back to the beach in one piece. It’s a great survival movie, full of tense, edge-of-your-seat moments. And unlike a lot of shark movies, which can come off quite cheesy, it actually holds up really well and stays smart. But there is one question that has always been on audiences' minds as they watch the movie: DoesBlake Lively actually surf inThe Shallows?
The Shallows
The Shallows follows Nancy Adams, a young surfer who’s attacked by a great white shark after getting stranded 200 yards from the shore while surfing alone at a secluded beach in Mexico. Blake Lively stars in the 2016 survival thriller, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra.
Is Blake Lively Doing Her Own Surfing in ‘The Shallows’?
As awesome as it would be to say that Blake Lively added surfing to her already impressive repertoire, she didn’t do her own surfing for the movie. However, she did do her own stunts, as she revealed inan interview withEntertainment Weekly:
“They didn’t hire a stunt double until the last two weeks. So I was doing all my own stunts, not my own surfing. I did my best with surfing. We had the best junior surfer in the world surfing for me. My mom was like, “You should tell people you did that!” I said, “Mom, that’s like me being like ‘Oh, the Water Lilies—I painted those.'”
Blake also revealed that she got a pretty gnarly injury while doing said stunts, as she explained:
“There’s a scene where I’m swimming up to the buoy and I crack my face underwater and my nose is pouring blood and that was real. That happened. I wasn’t supposed to crack my face underwater. It was just this thing is crashing into the water with these four-foot waves and I couldn’t see, my perspective was off. The waves pulled me the same time that the buoy crashed down and cracked my nose and blood was pouring out. "
The Surfing in ‘The Shallows’ Was Done By a World Champion
The “best junior surfer in the world” that Lively mentions in herEntertainment Weeklyinterview is none other thanIsabella Nichols, a Junior World Champion who was selected to be Lively’s stunt double for the film. She was initially brought in to do all the surfing shots, but she revealed inan interview withStab Magazinethat this evolved into herteaching Blake how to paddle correctly, how to wax the board, and how to put a leg rope and fins on. Basically, while she was in charge of doing the actual surfing for Blake, she also helped Blake look more natural and comfortable on the board, so the actress didn’t look like a fish out of water while playing a surfer. Nichols said that doing so was easy, but that the most difficult part of filming was having to wear a vest to make the location look tropical when it was actually freezing during filming. The fact that we’re all wondering if Blake did her own surfing clearly meansThe Shallowsnails it.
The Shallowsis available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.
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