Let’s all recall a day when Kelly Slater was the biggest surfer on the planet not for his wave pool or his 11 world titles, but because his alter ego Jimmy Slade earned him dates with every supermodel to grace the cover of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. And those 24 glorious episodes of Baywatch could only be matched in thespian mastery by Shane Dorian’s soft-spoken, melancholic portrayal of Shane (creative character naming) in In God’s Hands.
Officially, that day occurred sometime in 2003. Slater was just over a decade removed from his debut on Baywatch and Dorian’s first silver screen, red-carpet run for In God’s Hands had happened five years prior. Guys like Robert Downey Jr. and Rob Lowe can disappear from the Hollywood limelight that long and still make massive comebacks but as it turns out, Shane and Kelly could not. So they set out to start an acting school right in the heart of La La Land where they could pass on their expertise to younger, aspiring surfer/actors.
Or the whole thing was just a gag skit for their parts in a surf flick that, ironically, never made the cut because the acting wasn’t what one would call “good.”
