Surfing helped launch Sean Penn’s acting career and made him a stoner icon in Fast Times At Ridgemont High. Now the past and future Jeff Spicoli might just be getting back on the board – but this time for Curtis Hanson’s biopic Jay Moriarty.
Moriarty was a surfing star of the 1990s, a young man with a keen talent and a knack for the boards, surviving several huge wipe-outs to gather a hefty following. The adventurous twenty something also loved sky diving and free-diving, though tragedy struck the day before he turned 23 when he was killed on a free dive.
Thanks to Production Weekly’s Twitter burst (via the fine folk at Cinematical), a report has surfaced that Penn is negotiating to play Rick “Frosty” Hesson, an ex-lifeguard and champion swimmer who became Moriarty’s mentor.
It’s not certain that he’ll sign yet, but you can almost hear the Spicoli-style headlines writing themselves…