Jimmy Chin - Free Solo

Full transcript: Jimmy Chin on London Real

6:13 Brian Rose: This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Jimmy Chin, the award-winning filmmaker, photographer and mountain sports athlete who has documented dozens of expeditions for National Geographic and The North Face in 2006 you were part of the first American team to climb and then ski down the summit of Mount Everest, and in 2011 you made the first ever ascent of the 20,000 foot Himalayan peak known as the Shark’s Fin, which became Meru, the award-winning documentary film.

6:40 Your latest movie, Free Solo, which you co-directed with your wife, Chai Vasarhelyi, features Alex Honnold climbing without ropes the 3,000 foot granite wall known as El Cap. You’re smiling a bit there. I recently saw the film. I met Alex. I met your wife.

6:55 I met one of your daughters.

6:57 Brian Rose: Jimmy, welcome to London Real.

6:58 Jimmy Chin: Thank you, it’s a pleasure to be here.

7:01 Brian Rose: Awesome having you here. What’s it been like the last five months, because you’ve been on a five-month tour talking about this movie?

7:08 You watch this thing go from something you didn’t know what it was gonna be to where now it’s been nominated by BAFTA. It’s an IMAX. It’s right now in 30 some theatres in London. For a documentary film, what’s this last few months been like for you?

7:24 Jimmy Chin: It’s been a pretty wild ride for sure.

7:27 You know, ’cause you never know how your film is gonna land with audiences, and so we’ve been more than pleasantly surprised by how it’s been received by people, and just the reactions of audiences has been amazing. I mean, you as a filmmaker you can’t really ask for much more. You know, but it has been a pretty intense five months because we premiered at Telluride Film Festival, and then went straight into Toronto, and then went straight into the release of the film in the US.

8:09 And so you’re just kind of doing press and promoting the film and kind of moving with it for months now, and you’re just traveling, you know, and moving around, but it’s been really exciting.

8:23 Brian Rose: You know, what’s the reaction been like? What’s the typical reaction you get from someone who’s maybe an on climbing fan?

8:32 Jimmy Chin: Definitely the most typical thing I hear is that my palms were sweating the entire time. I’ve heard that probably thousands of times, and which is funny, like people literally have like this, you know, physical reaction to the film, and but also that people are connecting with a story, with, you know, kind of a love story and Alex is you know journey as well as, you know, Alex being a really inspiring person.

9:03 But the climbing at, you know, for sure the free solo is I think really hard for people to kind of wrap their heads around until they see it.

9:12 Brian Rose: Yeah, and then they’re like oh gosh, yeah, I’d like to think I’m kind of a tough guy, but I was there like front row, and I mean, I was doing kind of this thing you used to do in your kid, you know. Yeah, I was like, I can handle this, but it was really getting my physicality motoring. Yeah, you know, in the final part of the movie, which is the climb, which has been built up, you know, for a good year process, and I know it was even more behind the scenes, but it’s, it is, and of course you know he’s gonna make it.

9:43 Jimmy Chin: Yes.

9:43 Brian Rose: And yet I’m still there. It’s almost the ultimate human connection, right?

9:49 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, well, it’s also as a filmmaker, it’s like the ultimate suspension of disbelief, like when people know the ending and even at screenings where they know Alex is going to be doing a Q&A afterwards to be able to kind of bring people into a film in that, to that degree, is, you know, really your goal, you know, is to bring people into a story, is to transport people into a world that they didn’t know existed, or, you know, really kind of move people, and so we’re very proud of that.

10:24 We’re really happy that it’s, you know, the film Erichs on that level, and you know I have, there’s also a certain satisfaction going in and watching audiences during the free solo.

10:38 Brian Rose: Is it true you and Alex just come in for the last 10 minutes?

10:42 Jimmy Chin: We always come in. We’d like to come in for the last 15 minutes and watch, but especially now in IMAX, because it’s really, the IMAX experiences is really mind-blowing for Alex and I, both, because I think it’s the first time we’ve ever been able to share climbing in a way where you actually feel like you’re there.

11:06 It’s the closest you can get to being there, I think, is to see it on IMAX.

11:11 Brian Rose: Okay. And you’ve been there, you’re on those.

11:13 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, well, when I’m, it feels when I’m watching it on IMAX, it feels like I feel when I’m up there. You know, it’s like it’s so immersive, and so that’s been really exciting.

11:24 You know, we released IMAX, in IMAX, I don’t know, like 14 or 15 weeks into our theatrical release, so you know, we’ve been traveling and seeing it on screens, but you know, months into the release, we’re kind of back into it, and it’s been exciting to see it on, I saw it on the Waterloo IMAX screen last night, and I think that’s the biggest IMAX screen in the UK, and it was awesome.

11:51 Brian Rose: Yeah, you know, I was watching this whole part of the film where Alex does this karate kick, and I was just watching it a few minutes ago, and, you know, obviously I feel this, this you know tension and feel my palpitation, but I was asking, like, why is this so fascinating to me, and I’m just guessing that the reason people connect with this film is because there’s, here’s a human here pushing all of the limits and pushing himself to accomplish something that, you know, doesn’t necessarily make logical sense.

12:27 It’s also very dangerous, but it’s almost showing the essence of the greatness of what we can all be, and yes, yes, that’s why we find that fascinating, that someone’s willing to do that, risk their life to just try to, to accomplish this thing, and it’s so pure in that sense, because he walks up the mountain and he walks back out, and, you know, there’s no, there’s not machines, and now there’s no teams, and there’s no medals. Yeah. He’s just kind of doing it.

12:57 Jimmy Chin: No, I absolutely agree. I think that you know, the film’s about a lot of different things. It’s about facing your fears. It’s about courage. It’s about you know, vulnerability and connecting with people, but it’s also about human potential, and it’s you know, Alex is, you know, this act of free soloing is a very visceral way to kind of understand and you know, experience, you know, the greatness of human potential, and also it’s about excellence and perfection.

13:38 You know, and dedication and hard work, and how through hard work you can achieve anything. It wasn’t just given to him, you know. He had to really work for it, even though he’s extraordinary and talented, and I, I think that that’s something people connect with. And I, and I also think in this day and age where nobody seems to be who they are, and, you know, it’s, it’s, there’s a lot of kind of posturing, and this is who I am on social media, and this is nobody knows what is real anymore, but this is real, and this is a very real person doing something very real, and he’s not even, he’s not even claiming it.

14:35 You know, he’s doing it because he’s being true to himself.

14:39 Brian Rose: Right? And that’s the thing, he’s going up there for his own motivations. He’s not going up there, yeah, for the show.

14:46 Jimmy Chin: No, I mean, you don’t become a professional rock climber to become famous or to make money.

14:51 There’s a lot of much easier ways to do, and it is pure. Like, he is doing it because it’s what he loves and it’s what he’s passionate about, and I think it’s nice to see somebody who finds deep meaning and purpose in something, and you know, I think it comes across pretty clearly that Alex’s intentions with what he does are very pure.

15:18 Brian Rose: Yeah, for people that don’t understand the concept of free soloing, can you kind of walk through, maybe even, you know, kind of a brief history, and then also kind of how epic it is for Alex to do something like this?

15:35 Brian Rose: Because I’ve heard a line that if you don’t know much about climbing, it’s pretty epic but if you actually know anything about climbing, it’s like 10x. That yeah, because then you really understand. Yeah, how mind-blowing it is. Risky, crazy. It’s, you know, for sure.

15:50 I mean, I think mainstream audiences, when they see free soloing, they’re like, well, he’s a professional, but he’s crazy, but he’s probably okay. You know, it’s hard for them to kind of, you know, contextualize what he’s doing, but when you’re a climber and you know how big El Cap is, and you know how difficult the climbing is, that really freaks you out, because you know, before Alex, nobody ever seriously considered or talked about free soloing on El Cap. You know, it just was so far beyond what people were imagining that it wasn’t even part of the conversation.

16:30 You know, it was, it’s kind of futuristic. You know, I kind of related to as if I, you know, people keep talking about breaking the two hour marathon, you know, and you know that’s kind of like a lot of talks: someday somebody’s gonna break the two hour barrier on the marathon, and then someone shows up and runs the sub-one-hour marathon, and people are like, well, we weren’t even talking about the sub-one-hour, we’re talking about the sub-two-hour. You know, I mean, it’s such a leap to what people were talking about or thinking about.

17:13 You know, it’s just like another level. But free soloing has been around probably since climbing started, you know, but free soloing at a very cutting-edge level, is, you know, there have been a few great free soloists. It’s not a common pursuit to do cutting-edge free soloing. I think a lot of climbers free solo. I’m free soloed, and I will continue to free solo relatively easy terrain for me, but to do it at the cutting edge, where The technical difficulties are very hard, and it’s like huge formations.

18:00 Yeah, very very few people have gone down that path. It’s perfection or death, you know. So the stakes are very high, and it’s such a mental game, because a lot of the cutting-edge free solos aren’t cutting edge climbs if you had a rope on but you take away the rope, so I’m saying like physically the climbs could be really difficult, but it’s the capacity to manage fear, to have absolute control over your mind, that is the superpower. That is like the challenge is to have absolute control, like not letting your mind slip, and you’re controlling one of the most base instincts of falling, where it’s kind of something, it’s not like you can ignore it.

19:05 You have to be, because it’s so obvious. You know, you’re a thousand feet off the ground with no rope, holding on to holds that are the size of, you know, a coin on edge. You know, like microscopic holds. It’s pretty incredible.

19:24 Brian Rose: I get scared just thinking about it.

19:27 Yeah, and then of course, us. So free soloing is already scary, and now there’s a new sport called free soloing moviemaking, and you put a lens on about this, a really terrifying. I want to get into the making the movie, baby.

19:40 Jimmy Chin: Look, Alex was on my radar for like last five or six years. Like we, he kind of knew about him, but he, when he free soloed Half Dome is when you know that this talk started, right?

19:50 Brian Rose: Yes. And he did a TED talk about that experience recently, and he said that that experience kind of scared him, because when he did it he wasn’t as prepared mentally as he wanted to be, and I think he said he stopped free soloing for a year. You tell me about when you first, you know, knew that he did that and when he first did that piece.

20:10 Jimmy Chin: And yeah, we learned from that, because I think he learned that he wanted, he needed to be perfect. Yes.

20:16 He learned that his assumptions around how to free solo all the big walls was wasn’t accurate, and I’ll go into that in a minute, but you know, Alex came onto my radar when I found out I heard that he had free soloed Moonlight Buttress in Zion, and then followed up with Half Dome. Both of those climbs are fairly significant achievements to climb with a rope. So climbing it without a rope was mind-blowing to the degree that when I first found out about it I was like there’s no way he did that.

21:09 I’m like, that’s just not there’s no way. Like, who is this guy? Never really heard of him before. He kind of came up out of nowhere, and I had to really, you know, check around to verify.

21:26 Brian Rose: How do you verify something like that?

21:30 Jimmy Chin: Well, you’ve got a, there’s a peer group, you know? We at the upper echelon of the climbing world. There’s people who you trust and know, you know, of their opinions, where they were like, I wasn’t there, I’ve seen him climb, he’s the real deal.

21:47 Brian Rose: It’s a very funny subculture. Yes, elite climbers.

21:50 Jimmy Chin: Yeah. I mean, like any elite subculture, subculture, you know? It’s a small world. Reputations, everything, reputations, street cred, all of that, and Alex has street cred for days.

22:07 Brian Rose: Millennium, why?

22:09 Jimmy Chin: Because he is a purist, you know. He’s a climber’s climber, kind of thing, you know. He is just passionate about climbing, loves climbing, can’t live without climbing. His climbing comes from, you know, the heart, and he’s not like, he doesn’t claim stuff, you know. He’s very kind of reticent and low-key, and, but just loves climbing, you know?

22:48 We all know that, you know? I mean, he lives for climbing and we understand that because we’re the same way, you know? I love climbing I live to climb and to ski and to be out outside and it’s like our therapy, you know? It’s like what we do,

23:06 Brian Rose: but you say therapy. I mean, do you guys have demons inside you?

23:11 Jimmy Chin: I don’t. You know, it’s funny, because I think some people climb for a lot of different reasons, and people do a lot of different things for a lot of different reasons. You know, I think one of the big appeals about climbing is that it forces you to be very, very present, and I think that, you know, especially in this day and age, we’ve lost so much of that, which is constantly distracted and like flipping through our phones, and whether it’s for social media or dating or work or emails.

23:42 I mean, you’re just bombarded by media and all this stuff. It’s like hard to be present in the moment with other people too. Like, climbing is a great way to, like, really have an experience with somebody, because you’re sharing an experience that isn’t digital. It’s like very analog. You’re like out there, you’re very real consequences to your actions and your decisions, and those are things that I think that we, you know, our base kind of, I don’t know, that we need, you know, and that we miss.

24:19 And so I think that that’s a big part of why we climb, is to, that that feeling of being really present and in the moment.

24:28 Brian Rose: At your present, it’s almost like the best drug ever, being ultra present.

24:33 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, I mean, you’re forced to, and you’re also constantly being challenged in this way, where you have to face your fear. You have to overcome a fear, like you know, by moving up, and the further up you move, the higher you are off the ground, the more exposure, and you know, you’re kind of like battling your own instincts and overcoming fear, and overcoming fear is this great experience, you know?

25:01 I think that it builds a lot of self-confidence and is satisfying in a deep way. So everyday you go out there and you’re challenging yourself and you’re trying to, you know, make these moves, and so it’s, I think, very therapeutic.

25:20 Brian Rose: Yeah. And what about those demons?

25:23 Jimmy Chin: And then there are demons, you know, and they’re, you know, those can stem from anywhere as we all know.

25:32 But, you know, I think that Alex, you know, certainly like everybody has some demons, conscious or subconscious. But at the end of the day, you know, I think that he just loves the movement and everything else climbing does for you.

25:48 Brian Rose: I mean, you obviously went into his childhood in this parents, and, you know, having this girlfriend there. The love interest was a really good tool, because otherwise you, I don’t think he would have, you could never gotten the inside of his head.

26:04 Jimmy Chin: I think without, yeah. No, I mean, we definitely thought this is much better than shooting a lone guy sitting in his van for two years.

26:14 Brian Rose: Part of me wants to see that movie too. Yeah, yeah. Okay, the guy’s movie to you.

26:20 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, but it made it much much more interesting. It gave it a lot more emotional depth, and Sanni really brought something out in Alex. You know, I mean, here’s this young, beautiful, vibrant young woman who is very emotionally articulate and very emotionally aware, and in some ways she’s on kind of this side of the spectrum, and he’s on this side of the spectrum, someone who’s as a very hard time connecting with people, doesn’t really have a language, you know, whether that’s kind of like physical or verbal.

27:04 Brian Rose: You know, he doesn’t know how. He didn’t know how to hug for a long time. He had to, like, teach himself how to hug, and you were one of the, you were one of the early victims of some of the bad hugs he gave, right?

27:16 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, actually, it was really funny when he first, when we first met him, he used to do this hug where he would put his arms around, wouldn’t really touch you, and you’d feel and pat you in the middle of the back, and it wasn’t a real hug.

27:28 Brian Rose: He’s, where my son hugs me, ’cause he doesn’t know how either, but he’s watched us hug.

27:33 Yeah, gives me like this.

27:35 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, yeah, now it’s like the two-arm heart-to-heart. Like, you know, that’s, that’s a real hug, right?

27:43 Brian Rose: And learning this new language.

27:45 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, with Sanni, and Sanni’s really kind of teaching him another form of communication.

27:52 And you know, she is self-confident enough to, you know, tell him what she’s comfortable with and not comfortable with, but she’s also very open about the fact that, you know, she still loves him for who he is, and she gives him the space to be who he is, but she’s articulate, himself confident enough to say, but these, this is what I need, you know? And I thought that that was, you know, I really respected that about Sanni, and that I still respect about her. You know, she is also very much a go-getter.

28:39 Like, she, you know, is very intentional and the way that she lives, and that’s like Alex in those ways. They’re very similar. They both thought about what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, how they want to live their lives, and I think that that’s that’s great,

28:54 Brian Rose: and you’re close with Alex. I mean, there’s your eyes are hugging in the movie, but at one point you said something like Spock has emotions, or

29:02 Jimmy Chin: yeah, we have nicknames for a minute, everything from the monk, because he doesn’t drink he doesn’t smoke.

29:08 You know, he lives like a very clean lifestyle. We call him No Big Deal Honnold, because nothing is a big deal to him, and sometimes, you know, that works both for what he’s done, but sometimes, like if you’ve done something that you feel like is really awesome or that you’re really happy about, he can also be like, mmm, that’s not that big deal. Okay, so it, you know, and when we love him about, wait for it, because he is who he is, you know, but we, we give him a hard time about it.

29:44 We’ll be like, yeah, that was really hard for me. It might not have been hard for you, but like that’s a big deal for me. And he’ll, yeah, that’s not a big deal. But then, you know, we also call him Spock. You know, highly calculated, very objective, non-emotional lives in like you know there’s an emotional scale of 1-10.

30:08 He lives between like four point nine and five point one and five point two in a scale of one to ten, would be like very excited for Alex, he’s like straight down the middle, and when he finishes out, got the talent at the end, and he says, I’m delighted.

30:24 Brian Rose: What’s that for Alex, that like a six?

30:27 Jimmy Chin: And that was like a 5.8. Well, you know, he says I’m so delighted, and people always laugh, because they’re like, you know, you’d imagine if you pull it off you’d be like jumping up and down, be like, I can’t believe I did it, but we’re crying and bursting into tears, you know?

30:44 And he says that he’s like, you know, I think the movie would be better if I burst into tears, but I don’t really feel like it. Yeah.

30:52 Brian Rose: Is that the only way someone can perform this feat of climbing up a 3,000 foot vertical granite wall with no ropes? Do you think it takes a Spock-like or monkey?

31:02 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, absolutely.

31:03 Okay, yeah. I mean, I think if you were to say, if you were to kind of try to pinpoint his superpower, it would be the fact that he is able to control his mind absolutely, in this non-emotive way, you know, to be able to take one of the most basic instincts of fear, and fear falling, and being in that position, and being able to intellectualize it and say, well, fear right now is not going to serve me, so I’m going to take that and put it over here, right? You know, and then now I’m gonna have to, and it’s not gonna serve me, executing perfectly, and I’m gonna execute perfectly right now, right?

31:45 Brian Rose: Which is what all of you climbers do. He’s just doing it in a highly highly intense situation.

31:53 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, where the stakes are there. The stakes do not get any higher, right? And I think it’s incredibly, because I think it’s like what every athlete, or every, I mean, you could be a lawyer or a doctor, but, or anybody who has to perform under high-pressure situations.

32:16 I mean, that’s kind of like the dream scenario, where you’re in a situation, and the stakes are as high as they get, and you know that you’re going to execute perfectly. I mean, how great would that be? No, you know. I mean, I think that, I think that has a lot of appeal, especially for athletes, you know? If you’re a basketball player, football player, and it’s the Super Bowl or the NBA championships, and to go in there and being like, I’m going to play the perfect game, right?

32:48 Brian Rose: And that’s why this movie is doing so well, because we’re watching that and thinking, wow, I would love to channel that, but I’d love to get in touch with my Vulcan side. Yeah, and be able to, like, do whatever it is that I’ve always thought was impossible, but do it perfectly and be able to pull it off, right?

33:05 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, but when you’re, you know, 18,000 feet getting froze to death on Meru. Yeah, you know, you’re doing a little bit of that stuff – yes, I can appreciate it.

33:14 Brian Rose: Okay, yeah. And you’re, it was, always makes me laugh, is like this weird subculture of elite climbers. Like I guess you and Alex, somebody’s other guys. I mean, you’re, he’s really quiet, soft-spoken, kind of badasses, you know? You lived through avalanches.

33:29 I mean, anybody watched Meru? I mean, you’re out there, you know, really dealing with the situation that is deteriorating fast. If you don’t make the correct decisions, we’re gonna die, we’re gonna lose people. I mean, it’s, I mean, you know, do you, do you ever think about those two contrast to your character?

33:48 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, I mean, I think the climbing culture is in general very understated.

33:52 It doesn’t, at least old-school, like our mentors and the people that I looked up to, you know, it was all about understatement and not bragging, you know? And I think also that comes from the fact that climbing can be very humbling, and the mountains can be very humbling, and the stakes are also very real, and so I think I can’t tell if a chicken or the egg thing, if it kind of necessarily draws people who are more understated and cerebral and calculated, or if it makes you. It’s probably the combination of the two, but it is, climbing is so humbling, and there’s always a better climber than you, you know, and I’m surrounded by incredible climbers, so I always feel like unworthy.

34:50 I think I’m not worthy, but yeah, I think it’s the culture. The culture is very understated, right?

34:58 Brian Rose: So you kind of noticed that Alex free soloed Half Dome. You kind of verified it, you know? You start to get to know him, and then this whole project kind of dropped out of nowhere, right?

35:12 Brian Rose: You, you and your wife never went in thinking, we’re gonna make this movie about this thing, right?

35:19 Jimmy Chin: Yes. We didn’t, we didn’t know. We had talked about making a film about Alex as a character study and a portrait of this character, who, you know, before he ever talked about climbing, I’ll Kabat everything he’d done previous to that was already noteworthy enough to make a film, and him as a character is already interesting enough to make a documentary about, but it wasn’t until we started talking to him about it that he told us that he wanted a free solo El Cap, and that’s you know?

35:54 It was a funny story, because I’ve known Alex for 10 years, and I’ve climbed with him all over the world. I don’t even know how many trips I’ve been on with him, but, you know, and I filmed with him and shot photos of him, and I shot a cover for National Geographic of Alex in 2010. Don’t worry, yes, they have time, and then subsequently we just got the most, this month’s cover story as well, so my only two covers are of Alex, one on Half Dome and one, I want, and I, Yuxuan stills on that final climb.

36:30 Brian Rose: Yes, that’s crazy. We’ll talk about that.

36:32 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, well, film at that stills. Yeah, the one climb. Yeah, well, we only here on chance.

36:37 Brian Rose: Yeah, and that Gio’s listening.

36:40 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, but, you know, he hadn’t told me. So basically, you know, we talked about making this film about Alex, and then my wife. So I’ve been climbing with him, I said, for 10 years, I’ve known him very well, and my wife didn’t know him very well, so she said, okay, you know what, I need to spend some time with him and kind of, you know, suss him out and kind of size him up and see if he’ll be a good character for a feature-length film.

37:15 Brian Rose: That’s, you gotta have some depth, and some something there. And so she, maro, you didn’t start off shooting as a feature film. You got no shot.

37:24 Jimmy Chin: We backed into it, right? Yeah, this would add.

37:27 Brian Rose: So you really have to think about.

37:29 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, so we had a lot more intention going into this film, and then she went out with Alex, and he came out to New York, and they hung out for a while, and then, you know, he told her, well, I’m thinking about free soloing El Cap and try not being a climber, you know. She’s from Manhattan, born and raised in the Opera side, you know, academic, highly accomplished nonfiction filmmaker. She was like, that sounds great, that’s a great focal point for the film, and, you know, that’d be a great journey.

38:05 And so when I called her and said, how’d your meeting with Alex go? She was like, oh, it was great. He said he’s gonna free solo El Cap, and I was like, what? We can’t. I, I don’t know who where we can make that film, you know?

38:19 And so, and I explained there were kind of the gravity of it, and she trusts me on that, you know? She’s, why did you say that? I don’t know if we can make that film, because I knew what the burden would feel like, which is what that someone could die on your watch, and that there was the potential of the filmmaking causing him to die. Like, that was one of many potentials, but, you know, being a climber, being a producer, being a director, I mean, you think about worst-case scenarios and how to plan for them, and how to mitigate them, the risks around him, and so I was just not sure that I wanted to carry that burden for two years, and so we took six months off, and I was having a convert everything development.

39:10 Jimmy Chin: We were like, we need to think about it, so we, you know, we’re wrestling with the questions that are actually in the film, you know, like if you know whether us being there might cause him to fall.

39:22 Brian Rose: You mentioned something like in another interview, Kodak courage. Yeah, and what is that for people?

39:29 Jimmy Chin: Well, Kodak courage is, you know, back in the day when you shot Kodak film, where people, you’d point the camera and someone would do something that they wouldn’t normally do, because you’re, you know, pointing a camera at him.

39:43 The classic one is skiers jumping off a much bigger cliff than they thought they were going to jump off of, because they’re like, oh, they’re filming, or they’re shooting, I’m gonna jump off the biggest cliff I can find, and you know, I mean, that’s called Kodak.

39:59 Brian Rose: You’ve seen that happen?

40:00 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, I’ve seen. I haven’t, but it’s, I wasn’t so worried about Alex, because Alex is kind of distinctly kind of Vulcan. Yeah.

40:08 He handles external pressure very well. Like, external factors affect him a lot less than most people, if at all, because he doesn’t care. Just doesn’t matter to him. Yeah, it doesn’t matter what people think about him, you know? He’s like, he’s eating off the spatula, because he’s like, I don’t care.

40:29 He says certain things because he’s like, I don’t care. You know, they might not be the nicest way to say them, but it’s the most direct path from A to B in terms of communicating what I’m trying to say. It’s about efficiency.

40:45 Brian Rose: Yeah, it’s important if you’re a climber.

40:48 Jimmy Chin: Yes, but we took six months off trying to decide, you know, and I mean, the real question was, is whether or not we trusted Alex, and making good decisions like that, he would make the right decision or that he would never go if he didn’t feel like he was ready, and I’ve seen him over the years make very calculated decisions, and he, I knew he wasn’t a daredevil.

41:13 I knew he wasn’t there doing things to make money or to become famous or infamous. I knew that his intentions were in the right place, and really it came down to a conversation I had with my good friend Jon Krakauer, the author. He’s a good friend and mentor, and like all great mentors, I asked him the question, and then he asked me a series of questions to answer my question,

41:37 Brian Rose: and what were some of those questions?

41:40 Jimmy Chin: They made me answer my own question. Well, he said, you know, well, is he going to do it anyways whether you’re there or not?

41:48 And I said, yes. He’s like, well, do you think it’s a story worth telling? Say yes. Like, who do you think has the best working relationship with him? Where, and that is gonna be able to tell a story the best?

42:07 And I was like, okay, fine. And then who also is able to shoot it? Yeah, and so it was literally the day after that conversation I had with Jon. It was basically, I needed a little bit more validation from my peer group as well. I called Conrad about it too, because I wasn’t even sure if it was okay, and I was like, is this even okay ethically?

42:34 And to have Conrad and Jon both do, you, like, know, that’s worthy. Like, this is the right thing, and we all, we get it, you know? Not maybe not everybody’s gonna get it, you know, because filmmaking, there’s also the intention of the filmmaking, you know, that can be judged. It could be judged harshly. Are you trying to make a snuff film, or like, you know, are you, what are you trying to do here?

43:07 Or you’re getting paid to do this? And like you know, what if he dies? And like, but that one not so much, because you’re like, well, documentary films is not exactly the way to go. You know, you know, go into documentaries because of the money?

43:29 Brian Rose: And what would you have done if something bad had happened on that mountain?

43:36 Jimmy Chin: Well, we talked a lot about that because we had to address that before we even moved into the film. And it’s hard to say. I mean, we knew that we were making a film that was about Alex and to celebrate who he was, and you know, his legacy, and also this incredible, extraordinary person that you know, symbolized or was emblematic of all these, like, attributes that we were talking about earlier, and he had a great, an incredible story, you know, but I think it would have been really, really difficult to make the film, but I think we would have ended up making it, and that’s what we talked about, but we always said, you know, you never know how you’ll react to something like that.

44:28 So you kind of have to cross that bridge when, if and when, if you ever get to it, right? Because it’s hard to say if I’d ever be able to look through a camera again, or it’s hard to say if I could have possibly moved forward with it, or if it just didn’t feel right, and you don’t know what you know. You have to listen to your heart, and until you’re in that situation, it’s hard to really, really, enough.

44:52 Brian Rose: Yeah, yeah. I just thought, like, you know, if he had fallen on the boulder problem, I mean, what, it’s still, you know, would it still be an inspirational film, because here’s the guy, still doing great things?

45:05 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, great reasons.

45:06 Brian Rose: Yeah, trying to push the edges of the human experience, you know? Is, yeah, is there still 95% of the film there?

45:14 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, well, I mean, the thing is, he has, like I said, thought about his mortality more than probably most people.

45:22 Brian Rose: You know, how does he think about it?

45:24 Jimmy Chin: He’s quite nonchalant, but he’s like, if I die, I die. Yeah, I mean, I think I have a kind of a similar take on life and death as well, and you know, I mean, I think you start at the point where it’s like, it’s inevitable. We are all going to die, none of us know when it’s going to be, and those two things, kind of when you really think about it a lot, you know, can change how you make decisions in your day-to-day.

46:01 Brian Rose: You know, because it’s how, so how does that change your day to day?

46:07 Jimmy Chin: Well, I think we, or at least I find, time is truly the only currency, and it is a, you know, limited resource, so how you spend the time is, you know, when you realize, like, time is like our true treasure and I, true, kind of, limited resource and currency that we want to spend very, very carefully. And when you’re faced with death, or when you’re faced with your own mortality, especially like more than once, you know, you think a lot more about those, how you spend your time.

46:59 Brian Rose: When were you faced with death?

47:02 Jimmy Chin: I mean, it’s not necessarily just like a severe incident, like getting caught in an avalanche or barely missed getting hit by, like, an falling serac or punching through a crevasse and you know, barely catching yourself, or you know, there’s those kind of moments,

47:23 Brian Rose: which you’ve done all of those?

47:26 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, okay. Or like being in a car accident or barely surviving some random incident, you know, getting really sick, or you know, there’s a lot of forms of facing your mortality, but I think in climbing and being in the mountains, you’re making these very conscious decisions, you know, that like if you make a mistake in certain places, you know that it could be the end, but it’s kind of a more proactive look at your own mortality.

48:01 Brian Rose: You’re dictating, you can make some decisions to infect it?

48:06 Jimmy Chin: Yes, okay, but you’re conscious that it’s there, right? You know, and I think that in that way, you forced to face your mortality, but it’s, it’s in kind of a different it’s not passive.

48:21 Brian Rose: Okay, you know, which I think is also interesting. What was your scariest moment?

48:27 Was it avalanches, or probably being caught in an avalanche in 2011? What’s that like? What does it feel like?

48:37 Jimmy Chin: Well, physically it’s, you know, I mean, it feels like you would imagine feeling if you were going 80 miles an hour down a mountain with you know, refrigerators. I, you know, I mean, you feel like you’re getting crushed, and like every limb, and your body’s gonna get torn off your body.

49:04 Basically, it’s pretty intense. Okay, yeah. There’s some serious, serious forces. Okay, yeah. Megatons of weight and velocity, so very powerless feeling to, because I mean, you’re, you’re part of like a very significant environmental, I don’t know, event, right?

49:31 Brian Rose: But how did you survive that? I mean, I’m assuming by pure luck?

49:37 Jimmy Chin: Okay, or you know, I, I did. I have thought, you know, about it. It made me think about fate.

49:45 It made me think about, and people say when it’s your time, it’s your time, and I’ve always wondered about that, but then the thought that came out of it after I survived it was, if it’s your time, it’s your time, but if it’s not your time, it’s not your time. It works both ways.

50:03 Brian Rose: If you believe one or the other, and you do believe that. I mean, to a degree that was not your time, you should have died.

50:11 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, yeah, like a bunch of times.

50:13 Brian Rose: Yeah, well, that one in particular was a pretty significant talent, isn’t it? Also easy to suffocate afterwards under the snow?

50:19 Jimmy Chin: Yes, there’s a lot of ways to die in an avalanche, right?

50:22 Brian Rose: Yeah, more than one. So you’ve had that perspective.

50:24 So now you kind of, you’re very serious about your time. You don’t get caught up in other things.

50:30 Jimmy Chin: I still do, but, you know, I think I try to be conscious of that.

50:34 Brian Rose: So you go ahead and make decision. You’re gonna make this movie.

50:38 The whole process, it took how long, and then what were some of the biggest challenges on that? I mean, we see some of them in the film, but

50:51 Jimmy Chin: yeah, I think probably the production was around two years. I mean, from beginning of talking about it and development to finished product was probably over three years. Shooting was two years of shooting, and then there was a year of post, over a year of post-production and editing. But I think the big challenges were how to manage the production in a way that Alex had the space he needs to do what he did and was insulated from all the pressures that we were feeling.

51:34 You know, as a producer of a film, you’re accountable to every dollar that you spend. You know, if you’re a professional and you’re making a real feature documentary, studio backing, I mean, you’re accountable for a lot of things, including producing a film, but like, you’re accountable for every dollar you spend, and you know, there’s the burn rate per day. You know, there’s a lot of factors, you know, how big of the crew do we need right now when you don’t know what he’s doing and when he’s gonna do it?

52:10 So there’s like the producing challenges, because you never knew when he was gonna go.

52:15 Brian Rose: Yeah, and you didn’t, you didn’t have a timeline. You don’t talk about it, and you have a, you have a fixed budget, but you don’t have a fixed production, because you don’t know what the timeline is gonna be. So you’ve got to do. I mean, it’s ninja producing essentially, right?

52:31 Jimmy Chin: As you, you’re, you’re kind of guessing and feeling things out and trying to sort out how to best spend the money. When are we gonna bring in the heavy artillery, and get, you know, run eight cameras and hire, you know, five cinematographers who you have to travel in feed house. Man, yeah, I mean, producing-wise, it’s a highly challenging film to produce, but then there was a hole, then there was a safety side. How do you manage the safety? We had only, you know, I think I mentioned this before, but to be on the high angle team, you had to be an elite world-class professional climber, because I could never have to wonder if you were making a good or bad decision on the wall, right?

53:28 Brian Rose: But used to filming, decision was Alex’s sake, just a climbing side, right? Okay.

53:34 Jimmy Chin: I mean, you’re on a 3,000 foot wall swinging around for hours on and for days on end, you know, just the pure volume of time that we had people in high angle terrain where one mistake could be catastrophic. You know, it’s a numbers thing, like per person, per day, per hour, per week, per month. You know, I mean, when you add up all those numbers, it’s it, that’s how you calculate risk.

54:04 You know, it’s like there’s just the pure numbers. Weren’t stacked in our favor, so that’s without even getting Alex in the… Yeah, that’s just the crew, right?

54:14 Brian Rose: You know, are you so calm? Jimmy has always wondered.

54:17 Jimmy Chin: Well, you have to but that’s just a crew, and then they have to be able to film, and then there’s a whole pressure of getting the right shots, being in the right place, and then there was the pressure of not dropping a lens cap or having the ropes that are coiled on you unravel and knock him off, you know? I mean, there was like a thousand details there. She’s a life and death, yeah, problem, so there was managing that, and then there was the part about making sure that Alex felt like a safe space to work in, right?

54:54 And you, you can’t ask Alex when he’s gonna go. He’s not gonna tell you when he’s gonna go.

55:00 Brian Rose: Now I can’t even imply. You just said, yeah, watch it happen?

55:03 Jimmy Chin: That’s one of the guidelines: that no one was ever allowed to ask Alex when he was gonna go, because we never wanted him to feel like we were putting pressure on him to do it, because the thinking, you know, I thought through all of it.

55:18 If anybody ever asked him to go and he fell, that’s very different than if you never asked him to go and he felt, because if you asked him to go, you would at, you would feel, even if it was the slightest, you know, that you contributed to him falling. That would be a very different way to live with yourself than if you hadn’t asked, and you gave him the space, and you knew that you had given him the space. So I thought through all of those things. So it was like, we’re never allowed to ask him when he’s gonna go.

56:02 Brian Rose: And there’s a point early on in the film when he’s kind of got a sprained ankle, and it’s kind of swollen, and he’s got up this first part of the climb, which I guess is the free black time, which for a non-trained climber, it looks easy, right? Because it’s like, oh, it’s got an angle to it. And yeah, doesn’t, you know, you’re not climbing the yak from vertical? Yeah, for I guess an untrained person looks harder. Although, yeah, now that once you understand that, you realize it’s really like this slick surface.

56:29 Yes, I think I’m Anne glass, right? And Alex fails there and says, I’m not gonna do it, which is again brings more tension in the film, but also you don’t know when you’re gonna know.

56:41 Jimmy Chin: I mean, it was a really hard moment for us as his friends, because we knew how disappointed he was in himself, right? I mean, in himself, Alex, that’s what pushes him, right? He believes he should do this, can do it.

56:54 He’s very hard on, yeah, he has hard on him, and we saw some of that, because it was upbringing, and but he, it was a very difficult moment to film, to when he comes down and he goes and sees Peter Croft, and Peter’s basically like, I already questioned him about, you know, you have to do it for the right reasons. It’s incredibly important to do it for the right reasons, and you know, Alex kind of bats back to him like, life I think I’m still doing it for the right reasons, but from the outside people might think I’m doing for the wrong reasons, because I have this whole film crew. They had that conversation before he goes up, so then when he doesn’t do it and he comes down and we have to film it, was like an incredibly difficult moment to, like, pull out the cameras.

57:44 Brian Rose: And yeah, it’s harder. You want to not do it.

57:47 Jimmy Chin: Oh, everybody wanted to crawl underneath a rock, right? You know, because here he is so disappointed, and but it’s an important moment. Yeah, you know, and that’s non-fiction filmmaking.

58:01 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, it’s like, yeah, you have to film when you least wanna film. Is when you have to.

58:05 Brian Rose: Yeah, we made a documentary last year and I’m training with this Ironman race, and, you know, and I’m arguing with my wife who wants to come to the race, and I’m telling her no, and I’m on this vegan diet, and I’m angry, and at some point it’s like, guys, get the f***ing camera out of my face.

58:20 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, and yet that’s when you have to put it.

58:22 Brian Rose: Yeah, and you’re talking with a guy who’s doing something that could, they could kill him.

58:27 Brian Rose: He’s questioning the whole value of. Yeah, and you gotta pull out the cameras and be kind of, yeah, self-obsessed filmmaker.

58:34 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, I’m fortunate I was still up on the wall. It was Chai and Claire Veritate, DP, that had to do that, so I was very thankful that I did not have to shoot that.

58:42 Brian Rose: Did you potentially think the project’s going out the window at that point?

58:46 Jimmy Chin: Well, you just don’t know. I mean, the filmmaker side of you is looking at the long game, and you’re like, well, this is a significant moment. You know, one of the things, you know, like I said, you have to think through all the scenarios when you go into a project like this one. One of the things was that we were like, well, what if he just shows up and does it without telling you? No, not even if he told us, but like, what if he just shows up and he’s like, all right, get everybody up there, and then like in like a week and a half just does it?

59:20 There’s no story. We were like, that’s another, you know, I mean, this is this is why nonfiction filmmaking can seem like a very difficult afternoon. I could have found some way to make that a cool word. I mean, maybe, but we joked about. We were like, well, what if he just shows up and does so?

59:42 And we talked about that when he turned around. We were like, well, I guess it’s better than if he had just shown up and done it, but then again, we weren’t. We had no idea. Would it be next season? Would it be next year?

59:52 Maybe he’s just decided he doesn’t want to do it for a few years, and then wants to go back and try it later. Would it be in five years? So that was, you know, what the things that we were balancing, and you know, you just have to take it all in stride. Yeah.

1:00:12 Brian Rose: Take me to that day where it happens.

1:00:15 You think it’s coming up? You’re, you have a feeling that Alex is gonna go for it, and now it’s actually happening, and I mean, I think you’re kind of in your, been ready maybe for a few days with all of your crew. And yeah, and they’re all hidden, right?

1:00:32 Jimmy Chin: The directive was like, I do not want Alex to see any of you unless you’re filming with him, because I didn’t want him to feel like we had started to bring people in, and then be like, well, why are they bringing people in?

1:00:46 And I didn’t, so they have to hide over here on these houses and stay away from him. Yes, stay away. They were invisible. Only Clara and I were allowed to be around. Okay, and so everybody else was like, gone.

1:01:01 We just didn’t want him to feel any pressure, you know? Like, oh, all these guys are back in town, or back in the valley. I wonder if they think I’m, you know, feel like I should be going. Didn’t want that. But there’s a funny story.

1:01:15 The night before, when we were all hanging out, and I was with Claire, the DP, a Veritate DP, and it was about five o’clock in the evening, and every single day that week, I had told the crew, I was like, I need you to be ready. I want everything kind of pre-rigged and ready to roll on a drop of a hat, but it was 5 o’clock in the afternoon, and I figured there’s no way he’s probably not gonna go tomorrow, because it’s already 5:00.

1:01:48 Brian Rose: He thought he might have said so via, oh, you would know, or no.

1:01:53 Jimmy Chin: So I was, I just assuming that he wasn’t gonna go, so he was talking to Claire in front of Alex. I was like, wow, I was like, hey, let’s go climb the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral. And Claire’s like, yeah, I’ve been wanting to do that forever, you know, and we started making plans, and Alex is like, oh, wait, what if I want to go scrambling tomorrow, which is what he calls free soloing?

1:02:17 Brian Rose: Scrambling. Yeah, ok, and you’re like, well, we’re totally playing it off.

1:02:22 Jimmy Chin: We’re like, well, we really wouldn’t mind going climbing tomorrow, cuz you know, it’d be fun to go climbing tomorrow. He’s like, no, no, I’m serious. I’m thinking about scrambling tomorrow, like, really, scrambling tomorrow. I don’t know. You’re like, well, ok, just being cool, right?

1:02:38 Brian Rose: It’s trying to act.

1:02:39 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, he’s like, like just, he has this whole like workout regimen that he normally does, and he was like, just to prove to you that I’m serious, I’m not gonna do the workout regimen, which I was supposed to be a big deal.

1:02:52 Brian Rose: He’s a big deal, isn’t it?

1:02:54 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, we’re like, oh, really? He’s like, well, can you guys actually get ready in time?

1:02:59 I was like, yeah, that’s no problem, and I knew that the crew was already up there, like, running around, and built, you know, they had to rig every day in case it was gonna happen, so I knew they were out there rigging, and he was like, well, we hung out for a while. He was like, don’t you have to go? And it was like 6 o’clock, and I was like, ah, I was just gonna wait till the sun comes off of the approach so it’s not hot, and he was like, okay. And then an hour later we walked out, and then I made the call, and then I basically ran up to the top of El Cap, and we rigged all night in the next day he goes for it.

1:03:39 Yeah, and the next day he goes for it, and we were feeling the other director. I gave the crews like, do not get distracted, like do not think about what Alex is doing. Stay focused on what you’re doing, cuz there’s plenty to think about, and we had, we had to execute perfectly that day as well, and so there were some nerves, but it was more like you didn’t even have space for it. You’d be like, okay, well, stay focused on what you’re doing. I triple check your belay devices, triple check the fixed lines, is everything in place?

1:04:15 Is their rope protectors over the sharp edges? Is there? Do we have all the camera equipment? Do I have the right lenses to have the battery, the food, the water, like headlamps? I mean, you know, it was just like checklists, making sure everything’s, you know, checking what everybody else is doing, making sure everybody was doing the right thing, and the timing was right, and so we had enough to do that day where we weren’t allowed or didn’t have the space to be really that nervous.

1:04:41 It was just about executing.

1:04:43 Brian Rose: Just like Alex was, it was just about executing, no room for your mind to wander. It was great. Part in the movie where he’s reading through all of his notes, and you really get to see how this guy has been practicing this intricate ballet on this rock for ten years. Yeah, you know, push here, touch here, hold the fingers here, think, this push there, kick this, you watch out for this, this, this, and it’s the notes and the notes, and you’re like, wow, he’s memorized this mountain and each move of his body, and you know, really ramps it up.

1:05:18 Yeah, like you’re about to see which, without that you might just say, oh yeah, he’s a great climber. That’s what he does.

1:05:24 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, no, it’s, it’s a great moment, but that’s how he, you know, that’s how climbers talk about routes, you know, when they’re exchanging information. They’ll be like, then you grab the mono. I mean, it’s like the world’s most boring thing to listen to if you’re not a climber, but climbers love talking about it, you know?

1:05:40 It’s like there’s a side pull, and then you got a gaston, and you cross over, and then you have to cut your feet out, and there’s a little toehold on the left, and then you have to reach across.

1:05:49 Brian Rose: Yeah, I mean, you could talk about it endlessly, but that’s what he’s talking to. The sequences, right? So he goes for it, and there’s a woman in the film where you’re on the radio, and you’re like, he’s already done with free blast, and you’re like, wow, he’s making time.

1:06:02 He’s making fast time. Yes, because you didn’t really know how long this would have taken.

1:06:09 Jimmy Chin: Well, we, we had made a bunch of calculations. Basically, we took the fastest time anybody had ever climbed it with a rope, which happened to be him and Tommy. They had the speed record on Freerider, the climb, and then when they went and trained on it again, they broke their own speed record, so they had the speed record broke.

1:06:35 Their own speed record, had it again, so they had this speed record, and was over five and a half hours. Okay, actually, was, yeah, I think almost six hours. Closer to six hours. So we just figured, okay, even if he breaks his own record, you know, we’ll be conservative, and we’ll, you know, time it and say that the fastest he’ll climb is five hours, because that’s like a lot faster than even the record. Well, we all know he climbed it in three hours and 56 minutes, so he was, you know, 45 minutes to an hour faster than the fastest time we thought he could conceivably do it.

1:07:25 Brian Rose: Is he, is he 10x above other climbers, or is it?

1:07:29 Jimmy Chin: Well, there’s other climbers that climb harder than him, you know. Tommy’s technically better climber than Alex, and there’s quite a few people who climb harder grades that might be stronger, like physically or finger strength wise, but there’s nobody that’s gonna, you touch him on the mental side.

1:07:54 Brian Rose: Right? Yeah, let’s talk about the boulder problem, the karate kick.

1:07:59 Brian Rose: So he’s getting up there, it’s kind of the climax of the fear, because that’s the most difficult thing he has to do, and as a non-climber I’m watching this and it just looks hairy.

1:08:09 Jimmy Chin: Yes, 2,000 feet up and he’s holding on to it. It’s very airy. It’s like a sheet below him, you know, so it’s like very exposed.

1:08:16 Brian Rose: Yeah, perfect set designed for that, you know?

1:08:19 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, you wouldn’t want the boulder problem anywhere else.

1:08:23 Brian Rose: Yeah, it’s exposed, and he’s got this weird finger thumb hold.

1:08:27 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, the thumb hole is like, it’s a quarter of your thumb pad, you know, it’s very small, and he’s pushing kind of one way with, and he’s pushing. Well, people don’t understand why that’s tricky. People are kind of obsessed with, like, how small that thumb hold is, but what people don’t understand is that the only thing keeping Alex on the wall is the pressure he’s pushing down on his feet.

1:08:51 So that’s what’s locking him into the bad spot. So it’s, it’s not that it’s, it’s what he’s pushing downward onto his feet. Okay, but she’s up on the thumb, but if you’re a climber and you know the route, the footholds are horrible. They’re like the outer quarter of a golf ball. They’re round.

1:09:13 It’s not like he’s standing on a ledge and pushing his foot down on a foothold. He’s pushing down on his feet, and they’re, and they’re literally pasted onto the wall, and only the friction of that outer quarter of a golf ball and that thumb hold and body tension is keeping him on the wall, so it’s very not a very good place to move from.

1:09:36 Brian Rose: My heart was racing. Together, and so you had the perfect shot there. He does that.

1:09:42 Yeah, whoo, kick, and he passes that, and then he looks at the camera and smiles.

1:09:48 Jimmy Chin: Yes, which is because these are fixed cameras, the remote triggered cameras, so we didn’t know actually that it was, if we got it, because there was always the question that the batteries ran out before he got there or something didn’t function. So we wasn’t until we got down, looked at the footage, and saw him doing the karate kick, and then when he looked at the camera and smiled and says, hell yeah, you know, we all fell out of our chairs.

1:10:18 We were just like, ah, you know, we got it.

1:10:20 Brian Rose: Yeah, then did you know everything was okay, or you don’t know it’s okay until everyone’s back on the ground? You don’t know any.

1:10:28 Jimmy Chin: Well, by then everybody was back on the ground, but yes, every day it was, you know, there was always that, you know, we’d all be back at the production house, waiting to eat dinner, starting dinner, and, you know, radio calling, and it wasn’t until everybody was back at the house, it you know, people could relax.

1:10:45 Brian Rose: Okay, because you’re wandering around up on El Cap in the dark and trying to get down and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, the final part of the movie, you give him a hug at the end, and it looks like you seemed pretty relieved. Yes, I mean, you’re pretty calm guy. Yeah, was that, you know, one of your crazier days?

1:11:05 Jimmy Chin: It was, yeah, certainly the craziest production day I’ve ever had by far, and it was just this moment.

1:11:11 Jimmy Chin: There’s like this culmination of all these years of effort for your great friend Alex, all this, you know, culmination for all this effort for your crew and the film, but it was also a historic moment, and it was also this moment of absolute beauty and perfection that this is very, doesn’t happen very often, you know? So we knew it was a special moment.

1:11:41 Brian Rose: Yeah, again, this just reminds us the greatness of being a human. Yeah, like, yeah, being able to do that or see someone do that.

1:11:52 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, it’s still epic just thinking and talking.

1:11:55 Brian Rose: I know, and I am so glad. Oh my god, right? film, and you get to see it on IMAX, right? It was a couple years ago, and still you feel good about it, and still, yeah, I loved, I saw it last night.

1:12:05 Jimmy Chin: I didn’t watch that. I always come in for like the last 15-20 minutes, and yeah, it makes me very happy, big smile on my face watching it, automatics, right?

1:12:15 Brian Rose: You know, where do you go from here? I mean, we’re a few days out from potential Oscar nominations, and be really interesting to see you and I accept that on the stage, and you know, I mean, like that, this is all crazy stuff.

1:12:29 Jimmy Chin: I don’t count on anything, don’t feel entitled to anything.

1:12:33 I think that my I’ve always gone back to the fact that my true measure of success for this film was that Alex you know, if Alex survived, Alex pull it off, and, and we were able to film it. Well, really, if Alex pull it off and lived, that was anything else was gonna be gravy, so whatever happens happens, and that’s fine.

1:12:58 Brian Rose: How was Alex?

1:12:59 Jimmy Chin: Now, I mean, he stays busy. He’s climbing, of the things not necessarily free soloing, but yeah.

1:13:07 Brian Rose: Well, what does he do next? You know, is this no?

1:13:11 Jimmy Chin: I mean, I think he continues to climb. I mean, he still loves climbing. I think that this was probably the closing chapter in really high end, difficult free soloing.

1:13:26 Maybe someday he’ll be inspired to do it again, but I mean, I think that you know, he pulled off the greatest free solo of all time, and I don’t know that it’ll ever get repeated, and he’s evolving, you know, also as a person and in his life and in his career. He has his foundation the Honnold Foundation, which he’s very focused on. He has an incredible relationship with Sanni. They were very happy and living together, and, you know, we talked about that line where he’s like, nobody’s ever achieved anything great being happy and cozy, and it’s I think he says in the film, and I think that with Sanni he’s kind of turning the corner and thinking, oh, maybe you can be happy and cozy and still achieve great things, right?

1:14:24 Yeah, you know, that was like quite an evolution for him.

1:14:28 Brian Rose: Yeah, it is, and how do you top this? Is this the greatest film you’ll ever make?

1:14:35 Jimmy Chin: I mean, I don’t know. Maybe.

1:14:37 I mean, when we finished Meru and Mary released, I was like, well, I’ll never make a film that comes close to that. Film matters like your first child, you know? You’re like, yeah, very connected with that witch, and it’s kind of a Shakespearean story, and I was like, but no, I mean, I think you just continue on and try to do good work and be, you know, you can’t worry so much about the end product. I mean, it’s always about the process, and you have to, like, find joy in the process of filmmaking and not in the accolades or the box office.

1:15:15 It’s got to be, you know, for the right reasons. Yeah, because you want to tell a great story, and so there’s a lot of incredible stories out there, and I hope to make a few more films in my life and make films that have meaning.

1:15:30 Brian Rose: And you know, how do you say stay so active, and it’s so busy? I mean, you’re no spring chicken. Yeah, two years younger than me.

1:15:38 Yeah, you’re 45. Yeah, you’re out, you know, doing a lot of stuff climbing, big mountains, ya know? Do a lot of physical stuff too.

1:15:48 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, well, I mean, because I, I still love doing it. I mean, at the heart and core of who I am and what I do, you know, climbing and being in the mountains and skiing and those are the things that keep me motivated and happy, and things that I get to share with my family, and my kids love skiing, and I hope that I can kind of pass it up.

1:16:14 You know, that joy, it’s a joy that is, I mean, it does cost money, I guess, to ski and to climb. You have to have the gear and things like that, but really, I mean, it’s, it’s these are such incredible kind of sources of joy and happiness, and that, you know, I hope that they, they find it as well.

1:16:38 Brian Rose: Have you ever thought about your connection with nature and why it’s so powerful? Because if you look at your life, I mean, you’ve always kind of gone with your intuition.

1:16:51 It was like, you know, what, I just, you know, I want to go skiing, I want to go mountain climbing. Like, look at you now. I mean, you know, you know, Chai’s in Manhattan. You’re a Jackson Hole, you know, yeah, where you want to be.

1:17:03 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, we, we kind of communicate a bit.

1:17:05 I’m in New York quite a bit, these ways.

1:17:08 Brian Rose: Yeah, that I mean, like, is there something that’s like Dallas there? I mean, do you think the Sun, sir, it is Daoist?

1:17:17 Jimmy Chin: Okay, I studied comparative religion in college. Not that wasn’t my major, but I, I was very, very much prescribed to Taoist thinking and philosophy, and water.

1:17:30 Brian Rose: What does the Tao tell us about our connection with nature, for people that don’t know?

1:17:39 Jimmy Chin: I mean, it’s a good thing to mimic. Yeah, the natural process, and I think being connected to nature is you know, I’ve been very healthy for me.

1:17:55 Brian Rose: Right? Yeah, simplifies things.

1:17:58 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, just purifies things, shows you the scale of things. Yeah, and just the natural order of things, and yeah, we get caught up pretty easily in our minds, and you know, I think being in nature kind of like brings you out of there and into the moment. Yeah, I think I was telling you earlier, my mom took me on a camping trip when she became a single mother, and she took us kids camping in Yosemite. In this version, I went and saw a Half Dome when I was a kid, and El Capitan, and it was powerful.

1:18:32 And again, Yosemite is so pure out there, cuz there’s not much. There’s no McDonald’s here. And there, I mean, it’s really you and this epic nature.

1:18:39 Brian Rose: Yeah, and then I watched, I think, the Ken Burns documentary on the national parks and John Muir, and what he used to do, and, and then later I brought my stuff daughter out there. Yeah, I was like, why do we bring our kids to these places?

1:18:50 And he said, I, we’re showing them, why do we go and look at a huge sequoia tree that’s so massive and 2,000 years older than will ever be? And yeah, he said, I think it’s because it’s reminding us to be humble, and remind us that our eyes are short. Yeah, that they’re bigger powers involved in us. Absolutely. You know, they remind me of your insignificance.

1:19:11 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, you know, which I think is, it’s a powerful feeling.

1:19:14 Brian Rose: Yeah, I remember. And when I was at, you, somebody I was reading one of the boards there about how these things were created, because if you look at El Cap or Half Dome, it, like, it doesn’t make sense how it was made, right? You realize it was actually stacked much higher with glaciers that were just carved out in these rocks, and when you actually think that that whole thing was, like, underwater under ice, and yes, what’s left?

1:19:38 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, it’s magical. It is magic. Weird, the coming that way. Yeah.

1:19:42 Brian Rose: What’s a daily practice that you have that keeps you able to be Jimmy you know, which means you might have to, you know, go to South America on a climb, go here, go do that, go to a film premiere.

1:19:55 Jimmy Chin: Usually it’s just some, I mean, I do do some sitting meditation, but sometimes it’s yoga, sometimes it’s sitting meditation, sometimes it’s going to the climbing gym if I’m at home. It’s certainly going out in the mountains, going for a run, a mountain bike ride, climbing, skiing. Those I still love, having fun, you know, and going, and I think all of those things point back to what I was saying earlier, about it just makes you very present, and that to me is very therapeutic and keeps my feet on the ground, and I appreciate the simple things.

1:20:43 Brian Rose: Yes, and you’re here to have great experiences. Yeah, create great art. That’s important for you as well?

1:20:50 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, I mean, I definitely want. I guess it is.

1:20:53 Jimmy Chin: I don’t think about it in those terms, but how do you think of it? I think about doing meaningful work, work that has an impact on people, I guess, right?

1:21:06 Brian Rose: Creating great artists. More altruistic, isn’t it? You want to have an impact on other people?

1:21:14 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, I mean, that’s egotistical too, you know? Yeah, but I, but I like the process, and I love the craft of it, you know, photography or film. Thank you both. Yeah, they both have things that I love about them. They’re very different mediums.

1:21:31 Brian Rose: Was obviously been very, yeah. What makes it good? Photographer,

1:21:37 Jimmy Chin: I mean, what makes anybody good? It’s like relentless obsession. Yeah, craft.

1:21:45 Right? Oh, when you beat your head against it, you, that’s fine, so long as you kind of, like, avoid looking at the cost of that obsession. There’s always a cost that comes with it too.

1:21:57 Brian Rose: Yeah, what did those costs?

1:21:58 Jimmy Chin: I mean, it can be different things for different people, of it, you know.

1:22:03 Jimmy Chin: Clearly relationships and family and peace of mind, you know. Obsession is not about an obsession. Does not create a peace of mind to him.

1:22:16 Brian Rose: What was the best day of your life, and then the worst?

1:22:21 Jimmy Chin: I don’t know.

1:22:22 Jimmy Chin: I mean, I like to think that the best days of life are still to come, but you know, I’ve had some really great moments. I feel like I have great days all the time, though, and they very, you know, when you have your you know, my son, and when I had the day my daughter was born, or last night watching you, so hon, hi max, climbing Meru, great day. Skiing Everest was a great day. My last big powder day, and Jackson was awesome. I have some pretty good days.

1:23:00 Worst, is there was some pretty heavy days on this production that were really hard, but yeah, I don’t know what was the hard, hardest one. Hardest day on the production was probably the day that he bailed. That was really hard, because there’s so many hard decisions to make, you know, but that was probably one of the harder days.

1:23:27 Brian Rose: All right. If I was to ask a bunch of your friends what’s what’s Jimmy’s superpower, what allows him to be the guy that he is, you know, to do what you do, produce the things that you do.

1:23:42 What would they say? I mean, we kind of know it. What Alex is, our, you know, to get him to do what he did. What are your…

1:23:52 Jimmy Chin: No, I, I mean, in terms of like my climbing and professional athletes, I’d, it’s probably I don’t have really that many skills outside of the fact that I can I’m, I can maintain positivity through some, you know, I’m at my best when things are the worst.

1:24:11 That’s, that’s probably the thing that I bring to the table. I can suffer and hang and for some reason, like I said, yeah, I’m, I’m the best when things are the worst, but, but my wife always laughs, cuz she’s like, yeah, but you should see him when he can’t find his sock, you know, which is totally true. Like, you know, but when you’re keeping, you’re hanging off the face of Meru, and everybody’s like, thinking, yeah, those Evelyn’s are ripping out around you.

1:24:45 I’m like, ah, this is fun, but like standing at the DMV, I’m like, I’m gonna kill somebody, you know? But yeah, and I, I’ve always loved putting together teams, and I think I’m pretty good about how I put the teams together and how I run the teams, and like get everybody motivated for a common goal. Okay, I can do that.

1:25:14 Brian Rose: Okay, yeah. And what scares you?

1:25:17 Jimmy Chin: Mmm, like not living a fulfilling life, right? which is the theme in this movie, and if you, and everything you do, then why did these guys go do these things?

1:25:30 Brian Rose: Yeah, and can you explain that?

1:25:33 Jimmy Chin: Well, I also think that a lot of it has to do with me feeling these, really having these really powerful experiences in what I do, and wanting to share that in a way that people can feel it, because I found them very profound and part of the human experience that I hope other people have, and also there’s this, there’s this part of me also that is like sees all of the misperceptions and all of the assumptions that I don’t necessarily find true about what I do, about what my peer group does, and people look at it in a certain light, and I’m like, that’s not what it’s about, and I want to kind of in telling these stories, also give people a perspective that is my perspective, but that I feel, you know, is more true to the spirit of why we do over, which is you’re not daredevils, you’re doing this because this gives you life.

1:26:43 Brian Rose: Yeah, and also, I mean, if you know, it’s also about the process, and it’s about how to live, or how you want to live, and living with intention, and those kind of things, right? And that comes up in the movie, right? Young with intention, like that’s kind of what Alex is doing a lot of that time. And what would we be surprised to learn about Jimmy, something that you do, you know, that we might be surprised of? Of course we know you run and climb and meditate.

1:27:14 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, I mean, nothing that surprising. I’m not, I mean, I play the guitar. I played a bat in a band in college. I play the violin, or I played the violin for a very long time, right? I love hanging out with the kids.

1:27:34 Jimmy Chin: Okay, Chai and I ski together all the time, and I don’t know, we have a pretty dynamic life.

1:27:40 Brian Rose: You both had Tiger moms, right?

1:27:42 Jimmy Chin: Yes.

1:27:42 Brian Rose: And is that why you are the people you are today?

1:27:45 Jimmy Chin: Well, it’s so funny, because Chai and I are constantly like laughing at ourselves, because we’re, we try to be self-aware, but we’re like, we’re totally attorneys to tiger mom and dad a little bit.

1:27:58 I’m pretty chill. Like, I like them. I, I don’t want to push anything on them. I only want them to find, I only want the kids to find something that they love. It doesn’t have to be skiing or climbing or surfing.

1:28:11 I want them to have those skills so we can go out, fun and family vacations, because you know, it’s just fun, be able to have a good time with them. Okay, but yeah, I just want them to find something that they’re passionate about, right? That they love, that gives them meaning and purpose, you know, right?

1:28:33 Brian Rose: But the tiger got you here, so you can’t.

1:28:36 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, like when I, you know, when I, I have to take them climbing and skiing, I’m always like trying a very conscious of trying not to be that guy.

1:28:46 I, you know, let’s just have fun, right?

1:28:50 Brian Rose: Yeah. And what keeps you awake at night?

1:28:53 Jimmy Chin: I’m not much.

1:28:54 Brian Rose: Okay, you really?

1:28:56 Jimmy Chin: I got a sleeve.

1:28:57 Brian Rose: You’re in really well, really well, you’re in the environment so much. Do you ever think about like, wow, what if the snows not here? What if this mountain’s not here? What if this isn’t here?

1:29:06 Brian Rose: Or I mean, does that go through your mind?

1:29:09 Jimmy Chin: So, yeah, all the time. You mean like conditions?

1:29:12 Brian Rose: Yeah, or protecting the earth.

1:29:15 Jimmy Chin: Oh yeah, absolutely.

1:29:16 Jimmy Chin: Okay, I mean, I think that hopefully, sharing a lot of the work that I do, I believe that you only protect what you love, and I think when you are in the environment a lot, and you are spending nights out under the stars and in these incredible landscapes, that you learn – it’s not even conscious. You just really appreciate what’s around you, and you know, I’m not as vocal as some, because I don’t like to preach, but I hope it comes out in the work that people, you know, when you see a beautiful landscape, your instinct is certainly not to destroy it. You know?

1:30:06 Brian Rose: Yeah, no, I don’t think. Yeah, I hope not. I like that way of doing things. Yeah. You may always ask everyone a few questions at the end.

1:30:13 If you could pick up a phone and call the 20-year-old Jimmy Chin and give that young man a bit of advice? I guess you’re in Bay Area now, or you scheme.

1:30:22 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, that’s, are probably like, what the hell you doing with your life? I was trying to decide if I was gonna be a climbing bum, or if I should try to get a, some sort of a career job, office, corporate, something or other. Right?

1:30:36 Brian Rose: What advice would you give yourself?

1:30:38 Jimmy Chin: I would say, listen to your instincts, go for it. I’m pretty happy with the decisions I made. Yeah, in my 20s.

1:30:45 Brian Rose: Yeah, on that same note, best advice you’ve ever received in your life?

1:30:50 It could be from a climbing mentor or anyone, a photographer, a teacher, or someone else.

1:31:02 Jimmy Chin: I’ve had a few. I can’t think of anything specific right now, but oh, there’s one. Trust in the cosmos, but tie your camel, I think. It’s, you know, Arabic.

1:31:22 Brian Rose: It’s like the perfect climbing metaphor. Yeah, you have to believe in the cosmos, but yes, get your gear right? Don’t look, shake your knife. And last question: to that 20-year-old, is watching us, maybe someone who’s thinking about climbing or even free soloing, or just someone that’s watching? Yeah, advice to them, what do you, what advice to give to them, or maybe things that they could take from this movie on how to live their life?

1:31:49 Jimmy Chin: I mean, I think it’s about being honest with yourself, being true to yourself, but also examining your intentions for why you’re doing things.

1:32:07 Brian Rose: I mean, thank you so much for the time. Yeah, thank you for making the movie and for making all of those difficult decisions and going through those stomach-turning moments. You know, I’ve been, you know, Alex on my radar for a while.

1:32:37 You have been since Meru, so really glad I said I don’t talk to you. I know the film is airing, I think, in March on that Geo. Yes, and I just have to tell everybody that they have to go see it. It’s incredible, you know? Again, I, I don’t usually get worked up during movies.

1:32:52 Yeah, but it’s just a beautiful example of what the human experience can be, and yeah, you and Josh should be really proud, and we’re having a little experience making films. I know how hard all that stuff is, and nothing would make me happier than to see both of you on the stage accepting the Oscar. I’m not gonna jinx it. I’m just saying it would be a beautiful thing, and I watched it today with the lens of the awards, and I thought, am I just, might just me, am I caught in a moment, or is this the greatest documentary in there?

1:33:18 And I thought, objectively, maybe it’s the greatest, a community.

1:33:21 Jimmy Chin: Yeah, well, I’m glad you think that.

1:33:23 Brian Rose: Kind of knows everybody, if you know that, but there’s that movie Senna, that great documentary.

1:33:27 Jimmy Chin: Thank you, so know as well.

1:33:28 Brian Rose: And I’m not a Formula One fan, and it was a great movie.

1:33:31 Yeah, it was a night, and I think that’s what this is, because you don’t have to be a climbing fan to see that this is the essence of the human experience.

1:33:40 Jimmy Chin: Yes, well, hopefully people have that experience, and like I said, Alex made it, climbed it solo, El Cap, like the rest is gravy.

1:33:47 Brian Rose: Yeah, well, gets well said. Well, I look to have thing, we’re gonna have Alex in here too, but thank you so much for everything you’re doing, and all the best.

1:33:57 Jimmy Chin: Wow, it’s such a pleasure.

1:33:58 Brian Rose: That was great.

1:34:13 Jimmy Chin: Awesome, thanks.