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"FacebookPinterest\n\nYou don't have to snowboard to watch the new documentary The Crash Reel. The star: Kevin Pearce, the pro snowboarder whose skills and penchant for insane, highflying tricks made him a favorite for the 2010 Winter Olympics\u2014and a rival to the Flying Tomato himself, Shaun White. That is, until a training accident in Park City, Utah changed everything: a missed landing during a \"double cork\"\u2014a half pipe trick in which one's spin rotates horizontally and twice vertically before landing (it's as difficult to describe as it is to nail)\u2014resulted in a traumatic brain injury. Pearce awakened from a coma to a grueling recovery process, struggling with his desire to get back on the snow.\n\nThe documentary, which premiered at Sundance and airs July 15 on HBO as part of the Docs Summer Series, is the latest from Academy Award-nominated film director Lucy Walker. Combining home videos of Pearce from his family and friends, competition recordings, and original footage shot by Walker in the later stages of Pearce's recovery, Walker pieces together an intimate, captivating look at Pearce's journey that is difficult to watch but impossible to look away from.\n\nGQ rang up Pearce at home in Vermont to talk about what it's like to watch himself onscreen, how the sport has changed, and what friend-turned-rival Shaun White might think when he sees it.\n\n\n\nGQ: What did you think when you first saw The Crash Reel?\n\n Kevin Pearce: It was a lot for my brain to take in. It's intense\u2014there are so many different stories, so many different things going on in it that I couldn't really absorb the whole thing. So the first time, to be honest with you, I wasn't that into it. I was kind of like, Whoa. This is not what I was expecting. I've watched it a couple more times, obviously, and I really enjoy it and think that it's well put together, and I'm really happy with it.\n\nGQ: How'd it feel to watch your friends and family onscreen, and hear them express things they'd maybe never said to you?\n\n Kevin Pearce: It was cool to see what they didn't want to say to my face. But, no, I know that everything they do for me is because of how much they love, so that stuff's really a reminder that they're doing everything in my best interest.\n\nGQ: Was it difficult to relive certain moments, especially early in the recovery process?\n\n Kevin Pearce: That stuff's cool, just because I don't remember a lot of it. So to be able to see it, and see where I was, is very impactful for me. And yeah, it's important to see how bad I was and what kind of shape I was in, and then where I was able to come back to.\n\nGQ: Were any of those scenes hard to stomach?\n\n Kevin Pearce: No, it wasn't hard for me to watch. What was hard to watch was what I put my family through, and my friends, and what they've had to deal with throughout this whole process. How much they've had to deal with, and how amazingly they've dealt with it\u2014that's hard.\n\nGQ: What was behind that drive to go for those higher, more challenging tricks? Was it something that was just easy to get caught up in, or encouraged by event organizers and sponsors?\n\n Kevin Pearce: No, it's definitely not encouraged. It's all about the athletes. We're doing what we want to do. It was totally my choice. There were no coaches\u2014nobody, no family members\u2014there was no one on me, telling me I had to try these new tricks. It was all because I love the sport. And it felt so good for me to progress and succeed, just because\u2014and there was a bit of talk about it in the film\u2014I was really a failure at school. I didn't feel successful. I wasn't going to go to a Ivy League school, and I wasn't going to take... I don't want to say the \"right\" path, but the path that you're told to take nowadays. And it's like this was something that I could be successful at and I could do it my own way. It was all my choice, pushing myself to that limit.\n\nGQ: Do you still snowboard?\n\n Kevin Pearce: Yeah, mostly powder, backcountry, easier, mellow stuff. No more competing, obviously, and no more half pipes, or jumps, or any of that stuff. Just cruising.\n\nGQ: What about other sports?\n\n Kevin Pearce: It has affected other sports. My vision is the issue\u2014when my body is in motion, my vision is doubled. It used to be that my vision was always just double, no matter when, if I was just sitting it would be really, really severe bad double vision, and then I got surgery, but the surgery hasn't fid it when I'm in motion. So, example: basketball. When I'm trying to run up and down the court and the ball's moving, or tennis, when I have to move and the racquet and the ball are moving, those things are really difficult for me. But I can play golf. And surfing, I can surf now. I live out in California, so that's really fun.\n\nGQ: Anything you regret?\n\n Kevin Pearce: No. You know, I'm lucky in the sense that I really got to live my life to the fullest and did a lot of amazing things. I won a lot of contests and got to travel to some special places. I've lived an amazing life. I got to go and party when I was healthy, and was still in good, 100% condition. Because those are the things that I don't do now and I can't do. It's a life-changing event. And that's why the recovery's been so successful, because I've come to accept this and understand that I need to change how I live.\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nGQ: Has snowboarding changed?\n\n Kevin Pearce: It's crazy to see how fast it's progressing, and how much cooler and bigger and more exciting is everything that's happening. I think that's what's so awesome about this sport, how it's moving forward and it's so fun to get out there and watch it every year, how far these kids can push it and I'm just so interested to see how far it can go.\n\nGQ: But is it more dangerous?\n\n Kevin Pearce: No, I don't think it's more dangerous. If you're smart and you're doing tricks within your ability and you're doing them safely, whether it's into airbags or your learning the tricks in the correct way so you can continue to do it safely.\n\nGQ: Shaun White plays an interesting part in the documentary (and our understanding of the world of professional snowboarding)\u2014have you heard from him about the film? Do you know if he's seen it yet? \n\n Kevin Pearce: Ha, great question. I haven't heard\u2014what do you think about that?\n\nGQ: It starts out great\u2014early on, he's just one of the boys, albeit one of the most talented\u2014but then the competiveness takes over and he becomes an asshole. Though, post-accident, he does redeem himself a little bit. I'd be curious to see his reaction to the film.\n\n Kevin Pearce: You think he's going to be mad at me?\n\nGQ: I don't know. \n\n Kevin Pearce: I'm so interested to know if he's, like, pissed about the movie. I don't know. The thing about the movie I'm most happy about is how real and how true it is. I feel like I come across-well, I don't if I'd say very well, but I come across as I am. And the family and everything is very true to how it is in real life. It's not like a reality show, all set and staged. It's all real."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/gqa-snowboarder-kevin-pearce-new-hbo-documentary-the-crash-reel>