The Drifter is Rob Machado’s follow-up movie to his biopic film Drifting. In it, a troupe of 4 filmers and photographers attempt to capture the 36 year old’s isolationist drive as he rides a smallbore Honda motorcycle through Indonesia. …  Machado decided it was time to leave his comfort zone and find out what he was truly made of by traveling to Indonesia.

His six-month soul-seeking journey is chronicled through his journal – the basis of his heart-felt narration in The Drifter. A beautifully shot, emotionally resonant film, The Drifter documents this major turning point in Machado’s life, during which he comes full circle and ready to take on the next phase in a career in where he’s blazed a path and sealed his legacy as one of the world’s most stylish surfing ambassadors.

Always the cool and laid-back guy, Rob Machado answers 5 questions for us:

Q: … I love the line from the trailer, “Sometimes when you’re most alone, you’re not alone at all.” Yet, you have four filmers with you. Do you do irony?

Rob: Oh, well, ah…okay… at that point in the movie, we were on a outer island and our camera crew actually had to drive two hours to the nearest town, that’s where they were staying, because they had to charge batteries and download cards, all that nonsense they gotta do and I just stayed out there and camped by myself. Yeah, but I ditched my phone. I tossed it on the side of the road. It’s funny cause in the movie it keeps coming back to the phone, just these random phone calls, one from my manager, one’s from the consulate telling me they’ve found my passport somewhere…

Q: In the film, which is fact, which is fantasy?

Rob: Well, I mean, the message we’re getting across is it’s…what’s the line…(pause)… Inspired by the wanderings of Rob Machado. Because, when it boils down to it, it’s not a documentary because there are moments in the film we had to recreate because the guy’s weren’t with me. Something weird’d happen to me and I’d be telling em about it, and they’d be like, shit, let’s try and make it happen again so we can capture it.

Q: Were the children you play soccer with imported talent and how many takes did you need to nail that “happy, simple” look as you play?

Rob: That shot, I played soccer for, like, two hours. I left there with a folded toenail, bleeding. They actually took me to the little medical room and bandaged me up. Once you throw me in those little moments, I just run in. Cool, we’re playing soccer!

Q: Are you going to have a third movie, The Grifter? Do you know what a Grifter is?

Rob: I have no idea.

Q: I saw a Steve Sherman photograph of web comments at the Hurley contest. It said: Rob smokes weed. Have you ever seen people smoking “it” and have you ever “done it”?

Rob: Oh yeah, I get that all the time. Yeah, I’ve smoked it. You know, if you had two rooms and you filled one with people drinking alcohol and one with people smoking marijuana, it’d make for an interesting social experiment. You’d have the guys in the weed room laughing and nibbling food. In the other, it’d be a macho scene with fights breaking out everywhere.

[by Derek Rielly]