17 Target on My Thighs #2
Whatever they were—and I suspect they were some sort of amphetamine—I didn’t care.
The happy pills had opened a door for me to feel more focused, energized, and alive.
When I took my pills, rubbed my eyes, and could see clearly, the world was better.
I was better. At sixteen, they were the gateway drug that ushered me toward the good of pharmaceuticals and the downfall of addiction.
They showed me how drugs can change your brain for better or for worse.
They opened up my world, but years later, they’d forever change it as well.
For all the negative influences and bad role models I faced when I was young and suddenly at the top in Hollywood, I still managed to meet people who wanted to make a difference in the world. The first time this happened was on the set of an independent film when I was sixteen.
“Hi, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I was hoping I could talk to you about something,” a voice said while Mom and I were packing up our things on the last day of filming.
I looked up and noticed it had come from one of the crew members, who I’d never met formally but had seen almost daily around the set.
“Yes, how can we help?” Mom answered, smiling.
The man approached us and held out his hand. “I’m Jeff Pantukhoff,” he said. “I know Hayden is an animal lover, and I started a nonprofit to protect some of our ocean’s mammals. I was hoping I could show you both a short film I made. It describes what we’re doing. I think you might be interested.”
My ears had perked up at the words “animal lover,” so I was interested. I nodded my head, and Jeff opened up his laptop.
“What’s your organization called?” I asked. “And what do you do?”
“I’m a marine life photographer, filmmaker, and whale researcher, and my organization is called the Whaleman Foundation, or Whaleman for short. I started it in 1995. Just watch…”
Jeff pushed a button, and a video started playing on his computer. The footage that unfolded transfixed me then, and it has ever since. When it was over, I immediately told Jeff I’d help him out however I could. It was one of the best decisions of my life.
Whaleman’s mission is to preserve and protect dolphins, whales, and our oceans by raising awareness and influencing key decision-makers.
As a filmmaker, Jeff and his team create short films that show the plight of the mammals in our oceans, including what threatens them and how we can help save them.
Its first big victory came in 1999, when Jeff screened a short film called Gray Magic: The Plight of San Ignacio Lagoon to the United Nations.
As a result, Mitsubishi agreed not to build a plant in this Mexican United Nations World Heritage site, which also happened to be the last pristine mating and birthing site for the California gray whale.
Another film he made about orcas helped designate a certain species of these mammals as endangered species in both Canada and the United States.
The idea of giving back, utilizing my platform, and being in the public eye to make positive changes had always intrigued me, but I’d never had a chance to do that until Whaleman.
Almost immediately, I started traveling with Jeff and his team on their shoots so I could appear in his films, and for the first time in my life, I began scuba diving.
It was completely terrifying, but I knew I was facing my fears in a way I never had before.
Under the ocean, I found a strength I didn’t know I had.
With these massive, mysterious animals I grew to respect, I felt like I was doing something bigger and more important than I ever had before.
Did I mention it was terrifying? And that I was swimming with dangerous, wild creatures in the middle of the ocean? I shudder when I think about it, and then I feel pure joy.
A few years after I teamed up with Whaleman, Jeff invited me, Mom, and Jansen to do an open water dive about forty-five minutes off the coast of one of the Hawaiian Islands.
He was filming pilot whales, which aren’t whales but large oceanic dolphins with blunt, roundish heads, like beluga whales have.
Mom, Jansen, and I had received our marching orders to get ready, and we were suited up and prepared to jump in.
“Oh, hey, look over there!” Jeff said, pointing in the distance toward the coast. “It’s a school of hammerheads!”
I froze. I hadn’t even been a blink in my parents’ eyes when Jaws came out, but I knew what sharks did. They stalked blond teenagers, devoured them like candy, chewed up their bones, then spit them out and went back for more.
“Oh yeah,” I answered, turning away. “That’s cool.”
Jeff stopped me. “What are you doing? Get in there! You are not missing this opportunity.”
I looked at Jeff, then at Mom, then at my poor little brother, who I’m pretty sure was in the process of wetting his pants.
“Should we do this?” I asked. Mom nodded slowly.
Jansen squirmed, then shrugged. And before any of us could change our minds, hijack the boat, and drive it back to dry land, we all said our prayers and leaped in the water.
Within minutes, I found myself floating helplessly over a moving school of about fifty hammerhead sharks.
As I pulled in the oxygen from my tank and forced myself not to hyperventilate, I was sure they could sense my paralyzing fear, and I worried that would draw them toward me.
Guess what? That’s exactly what happened.
Two of them swam up to me, their flat, elongated heads right in front of my face.
Then they swished their tails and started circling me.
I decided the only way to get of this mess—which I was sure was going to become a bloody mess in a hot minute—was to keep one of the sharks in my line of sight, grab the top of its two-by-four like nose, and guide it away from me.
I knew that if I splashed, I’d look like a dying fish, and then I’d be toast.
It never came to that. The two sharks eventually lost interest and swam away to join their school. Mom, Jansen, and I scrambled back into the boat.
“That’s it for me!” Mom said.
“Me, too,” Jansen added.
Not long after, I was getting ready for another dive, the exhilaration I felt in the water overtaking my fear of sharks.
Right as I was suiting up and putting on my last fin, a crew member I’d started calling Captain Reaction (because he had the flattest affect of any person in human history) spoke up.
“Just so you know, the oceanic whitetip sharks love to follow pilot whales because they are such messy eaters. They will eat anything, including survivors of accidents at sea.”
I closed my eyes and willed Captain Reaction to be quiet. I was about to go on another dive, and I didn’t want to think about becoming a whitetip’s next meal.
My safety diver and I got into the water for our first shot, and I swam toward a nearby pilot whale. Suddenly, out from the distance came a whitetip. He was monstrous.
“Oh my God!” I screamed underwater, and then I began doing absolutely everything a person face-to-face with a shark should not do, I kicked, flailed, and grabbed my safety diver and pushed him in front of me.
(Yes, I am not proud of this fact.) You think—if you’re smart and prepared—you will be brave in moments like this, and then these moments happen, and you crash and burn.
It’s human nature to do everything in your power to survive, including throwing your safety divers to the sharks.
Thankfully, the whitetip swam away. But the memories of my time with Whaleman stuck with me, and over the course of the next few years, the foundation became a hugely important part of my life.
It gave me purpose, drive, and fed my soul.
Never mind whitetips and hammerheads and Captain Reaction, the ocean became a refuge and Whaleman my passion.
I’ll always be grateful to Jeff and the incredible creatures he’s introduced me to.
He’s brought out the very best parts of who I am.