Laird Hamiton's near death experience working as Kevin Costner's stunt double.
Laird Hamiton's near death experience working as Kevin Costner's stunt double.

Interesting little story time with legendary big wave surfer Laird Hamilton as he opens up about near death experiences. Predictably being held down by monster waves looms large when he recalls times when his life was threatened, but one you might not know about is when he almost died while working as Kevin Costner’s stunt double filming 1995’s Waterworld.

Hamilton was nearly lost at sea after he was blown off course while driving a jetski from Maui to the big island of Hawaii. 60 miles away from the nearest land and his fuel nearly empty, he plenty of time to contemplate his decisions before he was picked up by the Coast Guard thanks to a location device he had with him.

While Waterworld is widely remembered as Cosnter’s epic aquatic flop as it cost an estimated $175 million to create and only took home $89 million domestically, the film actually performed quite well overseas giving it an overall box office haul of $264 million making it one of the top 10 highest grossing films of 1995.

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