The Dark Wizard (2026) s01e03 Episode Script

For Dean, it was
his cathedral,
his proving ground.
Dean was in his 30s
at this point.
Physically, mentally,
I think he was still
as a climber.
I realize
the clock is ticking.
At least most people
get weaker soon.
But the mind gets better
with age.
Creativity becomes
more and more.
I've never been
the strongest climber,
but somehow,
I seem to, through willpower,
pull off big climbs,
creative climbs.
And now what can I do
with total concentration
and single-focused desire?
At this moment,
Dean still had the power to do
something really great
in the Valley.
Half Dome, of course,
had never been free soloed.
God, man, could El Cap
ever be free soloed?
If you want to have
a big impact on climbing,
you do something on El Cap
or on Half Dome,
the biggest walls
in the most important place.
Alex Honnold,
he had these same ambitions,
and he had these same goals.
Once again,
you're gonna have conflict
and competition going on.
These two guys duking it out
in the most dangerous duel
you can imagine.
Who was gonna be the first
to do these legendary climbs?
So amazing climbing
is gonna happen,
or somebody might die.
I was hanging out in Dean's
living room in Yosemite,
and there was a little
black book on the table.
and I was like,
ooh, this is, like,
Dean's tick list,
secret list
of what he's training for,
what his big dreams are.
Top of the list was
free solo Half Dome.
Dean's big breakout moment
in the '90s
was that speed solo
on Half Dome.
He was sometimes hanging on
the rope and pulling on gear.
Dean hadn't yet
free soloed Half Dome.
Nobody had.
There's just one
blank section at the top
that he was too scared to do
without a rope.
But he was working
towards that goal.
It was gonna get
extremely close to his limit.
He just kept practicing on it,
getting more comfortable.
that Dean wanted
to free solo Half Dome,
and it certainly seemed
like something
that he maybe could have done
at some point,
but he just never did it.
And I don't know,
I just thought I could do it.
Well, I mean,
I knew I could do it.
Honnold free soloing
Half Dome,
it was arguably the greatest
single achievement
in Yosemite climbing
at that point.
Dean probably
could have done it,
and it would have been
quite a plum.
Well, Alex just came
and did it.
Dean was super pissed
that Honnold had come
and stolen his project.
I mean, he was, like,
so territorial, you know?
Alex Honnold,
when he did Half Dome,
what was your take on it?
Yeah, you know,
when Alex came around,
you know.
Partially I was like,
fuck, I wanted that.
Another part was just like,
that's the way it goes,
you know?
Alex has been
real competitive with me,
trying to do things
he's younger.
He's real competitive.
You said,
"Fuck, I wanted that."
So is there a more broad thing
you could explain how
Oh, fuck, he knew
and he did it before me,
because he was a competitive
kind of, like, twerp.
Dean knew there was
one big climb
still to be done
the free solo of El Capitan.
It is always in
the collective unconscious
of the Yosemite climber
that free soloing El Cap
would be the ultimate
of the ultimate.
3,000 feet of steep,
overhanging rock climbing.
El Cap is the biggest thing
that anybody would
think of free soloing.
Dean said to me many times,
"The man who solos El Cap
will be the greatest climber
of all time."
I knew that Dean wanted
to free solo El Cap,
because who doesn't look
at El Cap
and want to free solo it?
It's more about, like,
whether or not
you're capable of it.
At some point, somebody wrote
an "Outside Magazine" article
inquiring as to whether
Dean or I would do it first.
Which of these two
contenders will it be?
Well, I mean, I know
when I read the piece,
I was like, it's gonna be me.
Looking up at El Cap,
it looks so fucking scary.
Hard to believe
some of the things I've done
and almost impossible
to believe
what I want to do up there.
Yeah.
Feeling the competitive pull,
seeing that Alex is probably
going to free solo it
before me.
Yikes.
Dean was desperate
to get it before Alex,
but Potter understood that
if he was gonna solo El Cap,
he knew, yeah.
Let's try freeBASE.
FreeBASE, climbing
with parachute protection.
I invented that
trying to figure out a way
how I could climb El Cap
by myself
with a high likelihood
of living.
Before taking it
to El Capitan,
Dean started soloing
with a BASE rig
some of these other routes
hard, hard routes that had
never been free soloed.
Of course, BASE jumping
is illegal in Yosemite,
and he's climbing where
the rangers can see him.
As long as I don't fall,
it's legal.
If I do fall
and have to pitch my chute,
the rangers are waiting for me
down there.
But I don't care about that.
Whatever it takes,
I'm gonna take it further
than anything anybody's
free soloed in Yosemite.
Whoo!
Glad I had my little friend.
This whole time,
Dean was prepping
for freeBASEing El Cap.
To free solo
or freeBASE El Cap
meant climbing
one of the routes
straight up the biggest,
steepest part of the mountain.
But for the most part,
those climbs are
too technically difficult.
Everybody knew
there's only one route
that's remotely possible,
the Free Rider.
This route,
the hardest pitch is
right in the middle
of the wall.
The problem is, you know,
El Cap's like that shape.
And so lower down,
it's not that steep.
If you fall off
the hardest section,
you're hitting the slab
80 feet down.
But having a parachute or not
wouldn't affect the fact
that you would bounce off,
and, like,
it would be
a catastrophic way to die.
But I'll tell you what.
That whole top part
of Free Rider
overhangs a little bit.
Dean was pretty convinced
that the upper part of the wall
was actually quite safe
with a parachute.
Eventually, Dean wanted
to test the freeBASE
right at the very top
of El Cap.
Right.
He rappelled down.
There's a bunch
of white cars down the road.
But falling
with the BASE rig,
it was illegal
what we were doing.
And Dean was stressed
about getting caught.
What's that car
straight out there?
No tool car or anything?
You think they won't see me?
He came up with the idea
of wearing some sort
So he couldn't be identified.
Classic, classic Dean.
Whoo!
All right, Bryan,
let's do this.
Yeah, my name is
Bryan Smith,
and I've been known
for adventure filmmaking.
I got this opportunity
for a one-hour special
you know, a story
about Dean Potter.
Called Dean.
He said it was appealing
to do something
for mainstream television.
Dean was like, "Well,
I want to solo Free Rider,
"but I'm not prepared
to, like, you know,
top to bottom free solo
the whole thing."
But he said,
"The upper section,
I can climb freeBASE."
In case he fell,
he'd be able to jump
and pull a parachute.
It's, like, badass.
Come on over.
When we arrived in Yosemite,
Park Service was
already on edge.
Like, "You're filming
Dean Potter?
What?"
We're assigned a monitor
to follow every single
step that we do
inside of Yosemite
National Park.
Yeah.
So we start running
this interview.
we're losing light here.
Yeah.
Dean and our
It won't be too much longer.
They clearly have a history.
you won't censor
what I say at all,
So please don't tell me
what to say.
And I'd like it best if
you couldn't hear my interview,
because I'm uncomfortable
around the Park Service.
Thanks a lot.
I've never had
a more intense lead up
to a film shoot.
Several days before the climb,
with all the drama
coming from Park Service,
they said there can be
not a single parachute,
nothing.
So you're gonna
have to climb this,
like, without a parachute
on your back.
Dean didn't know what to do.
He was freaking out.
His intensity just
starts ramping up.
He doesn't want to talk.
You have a million questions,
but you probably shouldn't
ask him anything.
Eventually, he was like,
"OK, I'm gonna do this
without a parachute."
But he was scared.
We didn't know if he could do
what he was gonna do.
But the whole film crew
is here.
He didn't want to bow out.
The day before the climb,
we're going up the trail,
getting our equipment
to the top of El Cap.
- Take that camera.
- Yeah.
He had concocted
some kind of crazy approach
from the top to down climb,
traverse in,
and then free solo the upper
section of Free Rider.
Camping up there,
Dean became more
and more distant,
kept moving his tent
further away,
just completely separating
himself from production.
Everyone on the crew
was like, "Is he OK?
Is he gonna survive?"
I mean, I barely slept
that night.
The morning of, Dean told us,
"Get your shit together.
Don't fuck it up, and, like,
be ready for the shots."
- Ask them.
Maybe they can.
Everyone moved
into their positions.
- Ready.
- Ready?
Yep.
And got ready for Dean
to make a grand appearance.
He had this, like,
red, tattered shirt on.
And Dean said, "Oh, this is
a shirt my dad gave to me,
and I always wear it on days
that I think I'm gonna die."
And I mean, I've worked
with professional athletes
that are very good
at managing risk.
Where most people would stop
and be like,
"OK, I don't feel well,
maybe I shouldn't do this,"
Dean's feeding off
of that energy to, like,
kind of push himself
forward to the brink.
Then he started slowly
moving across
this, like, secret approach.
The ledge, it's getting
smaller and smaller.
Squeezing himself
through these places.
Eventually,
he gets to this hard spot
on the upper part
of Free Rider.
We were shitting ourselves.
And now all of a sudden,
he's, like, 3,000 feet
off the Valley floor.
He gets up to this section,
the off width.
There's no handholds
or footholds.
Just, like, wedging
himself in there.
Every move,
it's a total fight.
You can see
it's taking a toll on him.
It was pins and needles,
and I was right in his face.
This whole time, I was trying
to stay focused on the shots,
but I was so scared of making
a mistake on the camera side.
You know, you drop a lens cap,
you kill the guy.
All of a sudden,
somebody comes on the radio.
Tell him to shut up now.
Tell him to shut up.
Tell him to shut up.
Please no radio.
We're in the middle of filming.
No radio.
Sorry.
No problem.
Sorry I lost it.
He's, like,
apologizing to us.
I mean, dude, you don't need
to apologize to me.
You're, like, hanging
with no rope.
He got to the top.
And it's not, like,
a moment of excitement.
I don't know.
I think he's just
taking in that
he's still there
I was pretty fucking nervous.
I didn't sleep last night
was, like, feverish
and, like, a little bit,
like, unsettled
or very unsettled all night.
And that was my deepest
spiritual act right there.
So it's even kind of weird
to share it with the camera.
For us as a group,
this was a big deal.
For the first time in history,
somebody had free soloed
a huge section of El Capitan.
El Capitan's headwall has
now been climbed ropeless,
and I think it's just
a matter of time
till he does it
from the ground, probably.
There's not too many people
in the world to do that.
- No, there's one.
yeah, there's one guy.
- His name's Dean Potter.
- And it's not Alex.
It really is, like,
towards soloing El Cap,
the most ultimate free solo
in the world.
The day after the climb,
there was this complete reset
in his personality.
It was clear that, for Dean,
in these on-the-edge,
life-or-death moments,
there was a payoff.
Like, the death consequence,
as extreme as it is,
it is such a teacher.
It's just so pure.
Like, it's like,
if I live, I'm really happy.
Like, it's that simple.
through this, afterwards,
it puts me in this
totally different state.
And then it just
like, how good life is.
You put your life out there.
You feel these
different things,
than most of us realize.
I'm just tapping into it
a little bit.
I'm hungry for this now.
I felt it, and I want more.
So Dean's solo, the route
that he called the Easy Rider,
that was, like,
the first volley,
his own personal step toward
free soloing El Cap.
To me, I was like,
oh, that's creative.
That's interesting.
Power to him.
Like, that's cool.
But it's a long ways away
from actually doing
the hard thing.
You know, now you only
have to worry
about the bottom 2,500 feet.
But Dean had a vision.
He had plans.
Dean cooked up
a concept to go
way off to the left-hand
side of El Cap
to solo this route
called the West Face route.
It's a little smaller
and, by itself,
not considered one of the big,
proud, real El Cap routes,
but it just happens to go
right into
that circuitous linkup that
he had figured out to the top.
He called it the West Rider.
It was soloing the West Face
and to the Free Rider finish.
He had found a way
he could claim to be
the first person
to free solo El Cap.
Super inspired by the idea
of this West Rider route,
picking away at that.
Seems like it will
come into doable
sometime this spring.
You know,
Dean was pretty secretive
about the whole thing.
This climb was really
important to him.
But Alex heard that he was
planning on doing that.
I don't know who leaked it.
I'd heard rumor
that Dean was gonna
solo the West Face of El Cap
and connect it over
into the Easy Rider.
And that, to me,
felt slightly threatening.
If he did that,
mainstream media
you know, like,
it would be considered
the first free solo of El Cap,
the most weaselly way
to free solo El Cap.
The idea of somebody
doing this, like,
sneaky little reach-around
where they start on the side,
they finish in the middle,
they call it an El Cap route,
I was like, that is a hard no.
I was like, that is doing
a disservice to El Cap.
Honnold's, like, defending
the honor of El Cap,
like that is an achievement
below the dignity
of El Capitan.
what action did you take?
I knew that if I free soloed
the West Face before him,
Dean wouldn't be able
to claim it as this, like,
first free solo of El Cap.
And then I just went
and did it with no fanfare.
"West Face, 5.11c, solo.
"Good times but climbed
too tensely on bottom.
Over gripped."
This was
a preemptive strike.
Honnold just sort of
took the glory out of it,
stole the thunder.
I was hanging out
with Honnold.
Alex goes,
"Dean was trying to do
"on the West Face,
"and I nipped that one
in the bud,
"and I just ran up there
and did that right away.
There's no way he's gonna
call that soloing El Cap."
And I was like, wait a second,
this is a whole other level.
Right?
It really illuminated
the life-and-death struggle
that was playing out
between these two.
As I suspected,
it sort of took the wind
out of Dean's sails,
and then he never soloed
the West Face
and sort of
let the whole thing go.
in the coffin.
done by others
will just help me
lose my overinflated ego.
Yeah, I'm feeling
all sorts of different pulls.
Not sure.
Always not sure, not sure.
I think very few of us
in our lives
will ever experience
anything like
what Dean experienced
relative to Alex Honnold.
It makes for fun
sports journalism,
but if you put yourself
in Dean's heart
as someone who hangs your ego
on one or two little things,
on a few fragile little hooks,
it doesn't get any easier
as you get older.
And Honnold just kept going.
The 2012 climbing season
in Yosemite.
2012 was a big fucking year,
because I basically
did everything
that Dean had ever done
or wanted to do.
And generally in better style
and, you know, faster
and whatever.
Yeah, poor Dean.
In that period
in the Valley,
Alex systematically demolishes
Dean's records,
Dean's projects.
Dean wanted to do this thing
called the triple linkup.
Of course,
Honnold did it first.
totally something that
Dean should have done
if he thought he could.
And then right after that,
I broke Dean's speed record
on the nose on El Cap.
Honnold teams up with Dean's
old nemesis, Hans Florine.
Honnold called me and said,
"Dude, we're getting
this frickin' record."
Come on, Alex!
I was a little stunned
that he was
so fiercely competitive.
Yeah, I mean,
I'm competitive.
You know, like, if I'm playing
somebody at ping pong,
I want to win.
We totally smoked it.
Alex just obliterates
everything.
There's almost a cruelty to it.
It just happens
over and over again.
The guy seeks out my projects
and I do nothing
to try to stop him.
I think the most
brutal moment
was when Alex repeated
the free solo of Heaven.
Dean had free soloed
that super hard crack route
where he got to the top,
and he let out
this primal scream.
He's proven himself
as a warrior
and joined the demigods.
Alex gets a call
from some tech company.
They want to shoot
an ad with him.
I have a website
because I need a way
to put myself forward.
Well, I could just do laps
up and down it
so you guys could shoot it
a whole bunch of times.
No big deal.
I'm Alex Honnold,
and this is my Squarespace.
At some point,
I saw a voicemail on my phone
from Dean that was
several minutes long,
ranting about me
respecting his project,
respecting my elders,
and my lack of propriety
I was like, oh, no.
It was all bad.
But it was kind of like, OK,
there's no more competition.
It's just done.
For Dean,
the writing was on the wall.
The future had arrived,
and he was no longer it.
So that's painful.
Dean knew that his time as
the king of Yosemite was over.
And I don't think
he could handle that.
Dean was lost.
It was one of those periods
where he was
incredibly difficult.
Eventually,
he would alienate himself
from everyone in his life.
I was, like, a reporter
for the mags,
and I wrote this little
article about, like,
what he was doing on El Cap.
And he came up to me
and was like,
"I need to talk to you, Cedar,"
and, like, grabbed
the handlebars of my bike
and just started pushing me
backwards away from the group,
dude, and was basically like,
"If you ever talk about
one of my projects again,
like, I'm gonna
fucking kill you."
Like, that was the vibe.
And I was just like,
gulp, you know.
You guys were friends.
Dude, we were, like,
really good friends.
And then, dude, he would
just snap on you, you know?
And that was the beginning
of the end for me
of my friendship with Dean.
Over the years,
this is something that
anger and frustration
and jealousy.
Whatever thing inside him
that got triggered.
I was the first of us
to break up with Dean.
We did the raddest shit.
Jimmy led us here.
And it was the most fun
and most out there.
I took a pretty nice whipper,
40 footer or something.
I caught it.
Jimmy caught it,
got throttled a little.
But then when
I started to be recognized
for my own climbing,
I became competition,
and it's like, what?
Like, what the fuck happened?
I did try and be like,
you know, like,
what's up, dude?
Like, what's going on?
"It's because I heard
you're taking all the credit."
Dean didn't know
how to share, basically,
is what it comes down to.
He did not know
how to be gracious
with another person's light.
I would see him all the time,
You know, shields up.
Gotta protect myself.
What do you want?
Dude.
I want it to be easy.
Yeah, Bradley.
For me, the end of the road
was a certain point in time
where, for years,
Dean and I had been
working on this film project
that expresses his art.
And he thought this was
gonna be a big deal.
I think as his
climbing legacy was ending,
this film was going to be
his redemption.
He wanted, like,
a theatrical release.
You know, he wanted
And it just kept growing.
It was incredibly taxing.
He would get so mad.
He would get so frustrated.
We'd be editing
in my little bedroom.
I made a cut that
he didn't want to make,
and he was having
a psychotic fucking break.
He grabbed me,
and he fucking lifted me
out of that chair.
Like, he just fucking
takes a swing,
and he, like,
stops it on my nose.
And he's, like,
pressing against my nose
just to let me know.
I don't remember what I said,
but in essence,
it was like, we're done.
Take this equipment.
We're done.
I can't have this
in my life anymore.
Like, it's not healthy.
He just stormed out.
A couple of days after,
he's like,
"I want everything
you've ever shot.
"It belongs to me.
You sign off rights
to it forever."
I was like, that sounds
fucking great, actually.
So we have decided we aren't
working together anymore.
Yeah.
He had drawn up a document
signing over everything.
It says Brad Lynch
and Dean Potter,
business separation.
Brad Lynch releases
all his rights
to all footage he ever shot
of Dean Potter.
- Yep.
- Yep.
He's like,
I'll give you $13,000.
No bad-mouthing.
Total nondisclosure about
creative process and conduct.
The one exception is
talking to a therapist
who has signed
a specific nondisclosure.
I spent all of that money
on just fucking
mental health care.
Ten years I spent in therapy.
Ten fucking years.
Dean and I, we never
spoke again as friends.
I'm sorry.
Over time, Dean lost
a lot of people in his life.
His friends,
they're dropping out.
Well, there you are.
That's kind of cool.
Aside from all
the emotional drama,
you know,
I still believed in Dean.
Yeah, I fucking love that guy.
hits the screen.
Sometimes it felt like
I was the last man standing.
But I knew that
he needed support.
He needed a friend.
He hadn't had a serious
romantic relationship
since Steph.
He said, "Hey, Winky."
I go, "What?"
He goes, "I need your help."
I'm like, "What?"
He goes, "I can't get laid."
I'm like,
"How am I gonna help you?"
"I just need to get laid."
I go, "No, no, no,
you need a lot more than that.
You're just lying to yourself."
Right?
I go, "Until you get yourself
square with yourself, dude,
it's not gonna happen,
or you're gonna make
some really serious mistakes."
And that's when he got
involved with this woman.
She was this cool,
intelligent person,
but something wasn't right
with her mental health.
You could tell.
After, like,
a short period of time,
Dean tried to end it,
but she wouldn't let go.
And he continued to reject her.
Dean comes back to his house,
and there's her car
sitting in the driveway.
And there she is
in the driver's seat,
slumped over.
She had taken
a bunch of barbiturates.
Dean tried to resuscitate her,
called the rangers.
By the time
the Park Service responded,
she had passed.
Imagine how it must
have felt to him.
But honestly, he didn't even
ever talk about it.
what happened there?"
He's like,
"She had some problems."
And that was it.
That was it.
But I could tell
he was extremely agitated.
I could see the turmoil,
the darkness.
He was really fucking low.
And understand,
this all happened
two weeks before
he goes to China.
Chinese state television
proposed that
Dean come to China
to do these stunts.
Slacklining
and BASE jumping.
They're gonna put it
on live TV
in this country
of a billion people.
They were offering him
quite a bit of money.
I believe it was $200,000 cash.
Three, two, one.
- OK.
- OK.
He wants me
to come along and help out,
film the process.
I was like, "OK, OK,
cool, cool, cool," you know.
But I'm thinking,
fuck, this guy is in
a really weird
fucking headset.
He's way too tense
for anything good
to happen out of this.
Immediately, they bring us
to a fucking Chinese Hooters.
What's this?
all: Hooters!
Which is so weird.
all: Hooters!
Then we go to this
five-star hotel,
and there's
a press conference.
It was his 40th birthday
on that particular day.
One, two, three.
Happy birthday, Dean!
How do you like that?
We get to this place,
middle of nowhere in China,
and there's these
incredible mountains.
There's TV trucks
and people everywhere.
There was Mike Beck,
Dean's lawyer,
and Forrest, the translator.
I'm Forrest Liu.
I'm a climber
and a slackline walker.
My job was to be Dean Potter's
translator and assistant.
I feel so excited because, oh,
this is an American legend.
Dean was, like, cool guy,
really friendly.
He getting along
with the local villagers.
But I can see
the situation for him,
it's crazy.
People and cameras everywhere.
Dean has to deal with that
because they pay him.
In the days leading up
to the big event,
Chinese state television was
filming promotional content
for the broadcast.
So the first order of business
is a BASE jump.
But there's all these
people up there
swarming around
the cliff edge.
One of the cameramen
from television
called Beetle,
he's kind of a wild man.
He makes everybody nervous.
No, Beetle.
Don't let him try. No.
Beetle!
You, Beetle.
Hey, no, no, no.
He could kill her.
We got to calm
everything down.
- Gotta calm down.
- No, stop it. Beetle.
- I heard. I heard.
- You stay there.
Hey, Beetle!
Tell him I'm fucking serious,
and he's got to calm down.
Come on.
Go down.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Oh-ho-ho!
Any good.
Tell them I will say,
"Three, two, one, go."
7, 6, 5.
Tell me when.
Hey, wait. OK, go.
- I'm gonna count it.
- OK, count it.
- Ready?
- Go.
Three, two, one.
See you.
You know,
throughout his career,
Dean had tried to straddle
an ethical divide
between his art and commerce,
between pure motivation
and impure.
Nice meeting you.
My name is Jackie.
- Nice meeting you too.
- Congratulations.
- Thank you.
- What's the score?
How would you score
your flight this time?
I never score my flight.
Why?
I have no competition
or no scoring system.
- OK.
- This is art.
This is spirituality.
Mr. Potter, sure.
This is as commercial
as he can get,
and he knew that.
But he's still resisting it.
Pretty outrageous out here.
In a few days, on live TV,
it's the main event.
Dean's got to walk this
solo high line, no leash.
The line was about 130 feet.
It's longer than anything
he's ever soloed.
And Dean out there
playing around on his line.
He's gonna have to walk
this slackline on command.
Hunan television station is
the most popular one in China,
and it's a live show.
I think the organizers
were getting nervous.
It can be a legend
or a disaster.
And we notice there's
this huge cargo net laid out.
So this is the net, huh?
It was a safety net
to put below him.
And Dean was like,
"What the fuck is this?
What is this?"
And they go, "Oh, well, we know
"we want to put this net there
just to make sure.
"You know,
we don't want you dying
on Chinese state television."
And Dean was like,
"I don't fucking need it.
"No. No fucking way.
I'm not a fucking
circus performer."
And this is
a real deal for him.
So the planners are like, "OK,
we won't use the safety net."
So it looks like
they're trying to rig the net.
But then we see them
installing the safety net.
We need to know your plan.
Yeah.
And they tell Dean,
"Don't worry.
No one will know it's there."
He goes into
this rant about how
they're making him look stupid.
What's going on?
We've done everything
we've said,
and they keep lying to us.
I told the truth.
And now, you know, I had to lie
on the TV station right there.
I'm not gonna lie anymore.
You know,
I'm gonna tell everybody
there's a big fucking net
underneath me,
like, and that Hunan is
a bunch of fucking liars.
I was kind of the middleman.
If I translate directly
to Chinese,
everything gonna be messed up.
Meanwhile,
the money was supposed to be
in the escrow account
back in the United States,
and the guaranteed payment
has not been paid.
And he says,
"No money? That's it.
I'm out of here."
Sorry.
Bye-bye.
So.
No, bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
- We go home now.
- Yeah, yeah.
I know. Go.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Nobody want him
go back to America.
That's OK.
I go bye-bye.
So I have to try
to calm him down.
Dean digs his heels in
there and says,
"Look, either I get the money
or I'm done with this thing."
Sure enough, they bring in
duffel bags stuffed with cash.
That was all very mafia.
Now he's got his money,
and there's no net.
Before he solos this thing,
he's got a few days
to practice with his leash,
and he would try
to walk the line.
And he couldn't.
He was nervous.
Breathe.
And we were talking,
"This is not
"the master we saw
in the movie.
What's going on?"
He kept falling and falling.
When he was trying
to practice,
there are tons of cameramen.
It was hard for him to focus.
Go away.
Go away. Go away.
Dean could not
walk that line.
But he had no choice.
He had to walk the line.
If you fall
right at the beginning,
it's not too bad
to catch and save yourself.
But toward the middle,
it gets wobbly.
Definitely, like,
way harder to catch.
Without the leash,
if you miss the line,
you're in the void.
Whoa.
Dean was so fucking stressed.
And he goes,
"OK, so where's the butt weed?"
And I was like, "What?"
He goes,
the weed that you put up
your butt to bring over here."
I go, "I didn't put any weed
up my butt, dude."
He tore into me.
He told me how worthless I was.
I'm lazy,
and what a mistake it was
to bring me here.
And I just ran into my room,
and I just started to cry.
I never felt so betrayed.
I gave him everything I had.
The next morning was
the day of the live event.
How do you feel now?
just trying to relax.
It's, like, totally unknown
whether I make it across
or not.
I'm looking at Dean,
and I could see him
collapsing inside.
I could see it,
like, in his eyes.
It's not there.
He doesn't have it that day.
And Dean looks at me and goes,
"OK, Winky,
"if I fucking fall, right,
you come down.
"You don't let anyone
touch my body.
"You take care of me.
You're gonna take care
of me, right?"
And I'm like, "Yeah, dude,
I'm gonna take care of you.
"Right?
It's not a problem, man.
It was just everything bad
coming to a head.
How do you feel now?
I'm just trying
to calm myself.
I was just thinking,
this is a guy that gave
everything to master his arts,
and now this is it?
Risking your life for
a couple fistful of dollars?
Everybody is suddenly quiet,
like the whole world
is frozen.
That's more than 100 million
people are watching.
Out in the middle
of the line,
it starts to look wobbly.
And I'm like, fuck.
I was just fucking willing.
He fucking stuck that thing.
So he gets to the end
of this line,
and on this live feed,
we can hear him sobbing.
- Wow.
- Wow.
He had just gone
to the deepest, darkest place
he possibly could
to stay alive.
But he had lost touch
with himself
as an artist and a friend.
he made it across the line,
but he was a broken man.