Ryan Callinan is a real one. He’s genuinely one of the nicest humans you could ever hope to meet. His surfing ain’t half bad either…He ticks all of the boxes. Airs - the biggest! Tubes - the deepest! Carves - the sickest! It’s all on display in his new film, Beneath A Pear Tree.

“No bullshit, just a fuckin’ banger” is how one friend described it.

Over the course of last season Ryan got together with his good friend Jack Taylor and started filming around home and up and down the East coast of Australia. On tour his season wasn’t going as planned and he missed the dreaded mid-year cut so he pivoted.

Jack came on the road with him a bit more and they had a lot more fun going and checking out some new spots and bagging some hammer clips instead of stressing on comps — leaving Ryan a bit more ambitious about their film project.

He finished the season off in Hawaii by requalifying for the WSL Championship Tour (where he belongs). From there he went home and celebrated by marrying his sweetheart Nina, and the rest is history. Now he’s dropping this “no bullshit banger” for you all to see how incredible those few months were and give you a glimpse of what this year on the CT might look like.

We called Ryan and asked a bit about the trips and the crazy slabs they scored in the flick. He said one wave might have even been the wave of his life. Still debating…but take it from us, there’s no debate, this is some of his finest work to date. And judging by the looks of that slabbing left hander, R. Cal is ready for tour stop #1 at Pipeline. —Brandon Guilmette

INHERENT BUMMER: Yeah Ryan! The new film was so good. Those slabs are serious, dude.

RYAN CALLINAN: Yeah. Yeah, they were [laughs]. We got pretty lucky I guess — we did one trip and everything seemed to just line up. We happened to be in the right spot at the right time, every time, every day for like a week and it kind of, — I mean that's probably the majority of that last section. One good week. Bits and pieces through the movie. But yeah, it just seemed to be one of those magical kind of weeks that just everything worked for you nice. They don’t happen often, So when they do they are pretty special.

Tell us a bit more about the film. Were you always planning on making a film this year?

I film a lot with Jack when I'm home regardless of whether we're filming for something or not. So I guess we just started accumulating clips. And the end of 2021 after the CT season finished, I had like four months at home, so we got a bunch of clips that were a solid base. Then I went back on tour and then fell off and we did that trip and we were like, “Okay, fuck…we got a bunch of banging stuff now so I kind of felt like I put a bit more effort in cuz I had some really good stuff [in the can]. We were probably always gonna bring out something. So we decided to have Jack come to Portugal and Hawaii and just around the events, but made it a bit more fun and exciting chasing waves with a purpose.

So where did ya go?

We did a bunch of stuff up and down the east coast of Australia and then Portugal — around the Ericeira area and we stayed in there basically, but it was like the waves were kind of cooking and it was nice cuz the wave that the comps run at is pretty shit (as you know, [laughs]. So it's nice to kind of hunt some actually good waves and have a bit of fun around that.

Jack had never been to Portugal so it was pretty cool for me to look at the place through his fresh eyes and trying to show him places that I'd been and really liked. That gave me a new lease on the place as well. Same with Hawaii too. Jack had never been there and obviously it was great ‘cause I didn't have the pressure of needing a result or anything so I wasn't super stressed so we could kind of hunt for some fun waves and, and get some clips there too.

Yeah, that whole zone in Portugal is unbelievable, isn't it?

Fuck. It's so crazy. Yeah, it's just so many waves in this short space.

I know. It's funny. And then they pick that one to have a contest at that's so hard to surf.

So weird. Yes, but it’s been good to me though, that place [laughs].

It looked pretty uncrowded from what I could see in the frame of your shots, but like, were you there with anyone or were you kind of just like cruising solo, just you and Jack on these trips?

Yeah, I mean up and down the coast and around home I'm always kind of trying to surf with someone. Usually like Craig [Anderson] or another friend, Louie Dunn who just loves surfing and doing surf trips so I kind of feel like I'm always trying to surf with someone. But yeah, don't want the crew to be too big, that's for sure.

In Portugal, it was just me and Jack. We tried to tee up with a few people, they'd jump in here or there, but it was nice to just hunt on my own program a little bit.

And then Hawaii I was with Craig as well. And yeah, I guess we'd kind of try and find empty places as often as we can, but you know, sometimes it's inevitable that the best places are gonna be crowded so you just gotta cop it. But trying to dodge crowds where we could definitely makes it more enjoyable if you're surfing them by yourself.

Yeah, for sure. What about those big slabs? They look pretty heavy.

Yeah, they can get pretty crowded those waves too. But we kind of happen to pick days that were maybe not like “the best ever. “Oh actually the one day on the right was probably as good as it gets I think — but we just happened to get it. The wind switched in the afternoon and, and there wasn't that many people onto it, which was awesome.

I was riding a 6’10” I think. I've never really ridden a board that big in Australia or almost anywhere [laughs]. So I was pretty keen just to have a look and if I got one or two I was stoked and if it was a bit gnarly then I was happy to just kind of paddle in [laughs]. But I ended up getting a few and then got a bit stupid on a couple and just confidence went a bit high or just saw red and just was going for it. But yeah, I caught a couple floggings for sure, but it was exciting.

Yeah, I was gonna say the end section was like the glassiest water I've ever seen. Like there wasn't one breath of wind, it looked like the perfect weather on that crazy right.

Yeah, yeah. I think we got pretty lucky with that cause it had been pretty big and the wind had come up for most of the day and it was meant to drop off, but you just never know. I think it was an awesome time and the forecasts are pretty accurate, but when the wind's howling and it's onshore you're just like, “Oh, I don't know about this.” But we gave it a go and we happened to get out there and just saw a couple fucking psycho ones and I was a bit like, “Oh we actually just sat out there because it looks scary. But I was stoked. We did and I happened to be paddling, like I kind of just got a couple like nice ones not too big. And then I paddled past Dab and Jack that were filming in the water and Dab just looked and went, “I reckon you could get into those big ones, hey.” And I was like, oh, alright [laugh]. So he kind of egged me on. I just went out and swung on one that no one else really looked at and it just happened. Ended up being the last wave in the whole movie. I dunno if it was, but it felt like at the time, like the wave of my life probably. It's a crazy thing to say but you just don't get that feeling very often. I kind of had that like, “Was it? Was it the best wave I've ever had?” It was pretty special.

Yeah man that one was definitely a psycho one! How'd you land on the name Beneath A Pear Tree?

Nina and I got married in October and it was between a bunch of pear trees and Jack actually came up with the name, which was pretty sweet of him. But yeah, I guess it was just a way that I could kind of add that special day and part of my life into the movie as well. Obviously not many people would have the context to it's a way to put that in there. That was a big part of the year, not just the surfing, but it was a nice way to add it in for me in some little way.

Yeah, beautiful man. What are you reading at the moment?

Fuck, I think I'm going to stop reading it and start something else, but it’s called Mythos [laughs].

It seems good, I don't know, it's taken a bit to get into it. But I'll give it a rest and come back to it. It's just not pulling me in yet.

Yeah, that happens to me with most books actually. <laugh>

Craig just gave me a new one. Hope, Love and Carnage by Nick Cave. I'm just about to start it.

I heard it's a good one.

Yeah, I've heard it's good too. I've also got The Mindful Athlete by George Mumford I'm about to start as well, which I have read before, but it's amazing.

Well nice work on the film. You and Jack killed it!

Thank you very much. Yeah, hopefully I’ll see you in Hawaii.