Floating In A Galaxy Of Stars: Pier Nirandara on Swimming With Sharks In Hollywood And Drifting With Sardines Off South Africa

Jason Elias: 0:08

Hi and welcome to the Big Deep podcast. Big Deep is a podcast about people who have a connection to the ocean, people for whom that connection is so strong it defines some aspect of their life. Over the course of this series we'll talk to all sorts of people and in each episode we'll explore the deeper meaning of that connection. Today I speak with an author, film producer and underwater photographer who shares how the magic of a single moment in the ocean changed the trajectory of her entire life. Hello, this is your host, Jason Elias. Welcome to the Big Deep podcast. In today's episode I speak with award-winning author, film producer and underwater photographer, Pier Nirandara. Pier's connection to the ocean started as a young girl growing up in Bangkok, thailand, with weekend family trips to a nearby beach house. Her time there sparked an interest in storytelling, which led her to writing a trilogy of novels about mermaids when she was just 15 years old and, remarkably, all three novels went on to be number one national bestsellers in Thailand. From there, her path took her to college in the US and a successful career as a film producer at studios in Hollywood. But her connection to the ocean never left her, and I first heard about her in an article in the Hollywood Reporter about a private dive club she had started for studio executives in the entertainment industry, which she called Hollywood Sharks. So I reached out to Pierre and she responded immediately, as she was always open to raising awareness around the world's oceans. And of course, the interview was fantastic. Pierre was thoughtful, funny and kind and over the course of our interview Pierre discussed where she initially found that connection with the water, the surprising parallels between aspects of the world's oceans and her inspiration for literature, and an unexpected life-changing moment she had in a sardine run off the coast of South Africa.

Pier Nirandara: 2:02

My name is Pier Nirandara. I'm originally from Bangkok, Thailand. I'm an author, a film producer and an underwater photographer.

Jason Elias: 2:11

Right. So I was, of course, very excited to speak to you, because not only do you have a deep connection to the ocean, but we also both work in the entertainment industry. So could you talk a bit about where you grew up and when you first remember your connection to the ocean?

Pier Nirandara: 2:29

I was very fortunate to grow up in a country where the water is warm year-round, it's like a swimming pool. We had a beach house that we would spend a lot of time at in Haua Hin, a very local beachside town that a lot of times houses it, or apartments about two hours outside of Bangkok, and I remember foraging for little clams mussels these little I don't even know what they're called in English, but they're almost like tiny prawns that live in the sand and we would bore them out with pieces of fish and they would catch them and then you cook them in Thai style. So that's how I grew up, always by the water. My mom could never pull me out of it. People would always ask like how did you get into scoop dive or how did you get into the water? It's like it was always there and, looking back, it was such a privilege to have, which you don't notice at the time being a kid, but it was a really idyllic childhood in the sense of being based in Bangkok and then getting to run away to the solution for the weekend.

Jason Elias: 3:35

Right, and so you became a bestselling author at age 15, which is truly remarkable considering what I think I might have been doing at that age. So can you talk about how that came about and what inspired you to tell these stories, and what impact did that have on your young life?

Pier Nirandara: 3:56

Yeah, I was 15 when it came out the first novel and it grew into a trilogy. I think it was about the feeling that you get when you're experiencing something larger than life. I wanted to impart that feeling onto someone else and share that feeling of being alive, and that was really what drew me towards writing and storytelling and manifested itself in these trilogy of children's books. It's a fantasy series and it's about teenagers who find out that they've been chosen to become the future ambassadors between humans and mermaids. The books did very well and they were graphic novel adaptations. They've gotten options. The characters and the audience grew up with me, which was really cool. So I got to tour schools and talk about literature and the importance of ocean and storytelling to a lot of Thai kids. So that was a lot of my high school career was doing that. But it was really exciting because at the end of the day, it all came from this love for stories and for the ocean and wanting to impart that feeling on.

Jason Elias: 4:55

I still find that crazy that you did that at such a young age. It's just absolutely amazing. And yet when you tell your story it kind of makes sense how you got there. So you grew up in Bangkok, which can sound so exotic to a Westerner, but which you mentioned for you was simply your hometown, and in a strange way, growing up in such a big city started your connection to books and to the ocean. Can you talk a bit about that and perhaps where you see parallels between your connection to the ocean and your inspiration for literature, even as an adult?

Pier Nirandara: 5:31

I mean, I'm an only child and I grew up in the middle of this huge city, which can actually be quite lonely, so I spent a lot of time with my own thoughts, surrounded by books. The library was the one place that I could go and I didn't have a spending limit, so I literally grew up just surrounded by literature and always in these dream worlds. And when we talk about mermaids a lot of people just think, oh, childish fantasies. But for me, looking back on it now, it was actually the feeling of longing, of the bitter sweetness, the beauty of the transience of the world, the sublime transcendence as the romantics of call it. I think a lot of writers probably feel the same way, and I think the ocean is a really big way that it manifests in that sense of it is this other world that we dip our toes into. It never lasts forever, it's always transient, it's ever changing and ultimately we always have to leave. To me, that's something that's very beautiful and you don't find that in a lot of other avenues of life, I think.

Jason Elias: 7:16

Well, that's beautiful, and, as an artist myself, I find it so intriguing how I, too, find the creative process to be similar to being in the ocean. There's a sense of letting go of something bigger than myself, of trusting the world in a way that something impacting will arise, so that really resonates with me. So with that, you ended up working in media and had an incredible career. But you also mentioned to me before we started, that a deep realization came to you on a dive trip you took and caused a major change in your life. Can you talk a bit about your path in Hollywood and what you discovered that was so moving when you were in the ocean?

Pier Nirandara: 8:06

I always wanted to actually work in publishing but, through a twist of fate, ended up at an internship in LA, actually at a production company, which completely changed the trajectory of my life. I was like, oh my God, this is where I'm meant to be. I want to tell stories. I've always loved films, but Hollywood was just this. I mean, as a Thai kid which is so far off, I finally got my foot on the door and then started at ICM talent agency and then was like mailroom assistant. It worked my way up and found myself at Sony and a major. In all these other companies had amazing mentors, just got very lucky and worked primarily in the book to film department, so working with writers and authors and directors. And then had a experience where I went on a scuba diving trip to South Africa, sardine Run. At the time I was 24 and I was always the good Asian daughter, went to school, got good grades, got a good job, did things my parents would be proud of. I just felt like there was more. There was more out there. So it was quitting my job and embracing something that scared the living hell out of me, which was the unknown. I think a lot of people feel that way, when they're in deep water, people joke like, oh, I just don't know what's down there. And that was what was so terrifying to me. It was the unknown ocean, the unknown life. This travel writer named Rolf Potts. He talks about this concept If you go out with predetermined expectations of what you want, the best that could ever happen is you fulfill those expectations. But if you go out there opening yourself to the unknown, so much more could happen, and I think that that really resonated with me.

Jason Elias: 9:48

Well, I fully respect the courage it takes to see a different life and then take the step to embrace it. That is a step that most, including me, might be hesitant to take. So I give you much respect and I want to return to that trip a little later to get a deeper understanding of what really happened for you. But I also want to talk about how I heard about you originally. There was an article in the Hollywood Reporter, an industry magazine, about your dive club, hollywood Sharks. Can you tell me a little bit more about that, because I just love the idea.

Pier Nirandara: 10:26

Yes, so Hollywood Sharks is a scuba diving club, or a diving club for people who are in the industry, who love the ocean and who dive. There's all levels of divers. You don't have to be a crazy advanced scuba diver to be part of it, and ultimately it's about bridging the gap between the ocean and film, and the goal is to make movies that help with themes of conservation and love for the ocean and the environment, without being preachy, but to also stop making killer shark movies and killer animal movies that vilify creatures of the blue. So much of Hollywood. If you strip away the fame, you strip away the money. Chasing it is creative people coming together to tell stories, and there is something beautiful about that. So I always thought that if Hollywood execs could have tennis clubs and golf tournaments, why couldn't we have our own water society? That's where it came from.

Jason Elias: 11:23

That's so great and I cannot wait to go diving with you All right. So you mentioned this seminal trip to South Africa that changed your life forever, and I'd love to hear a bit more about that story and what it is about that trip in particular that was so deeply impacting.

Pier Nirandara: 11:43

So this was 2018, on the wild coast of South Africa, which historically was known as the Trans Sky, where black people were forcibly removed and put during apartheid. So insanely beautiful landscapes, but tragic history. I'm 24 years old. I'm there for a diving trip supposed to be a week long. The sardine run is the biggest migration in the world. It's larger in scale in number of animals than the Serengeti and the Maasai Mara, more sardines than wildebeest, and every year around June-July time, the sardines migrate up the coast in South Africa, chasing water currents, and with them come the predators that hunt them Sharks, dolphins, whales, birds you can even get penguins there sea lions. I went there on the diving trip that felt like it lasted forever, but it was really only one week long, and I joked that I went from swimming with sharks and Hollywood to swimming with actual sharks, because I remember being on this little rubber boat whizzing up and down the wild coast. It's pouring rain, there's crazy waves and you're looking for diving birds, because when again it's dived, that's a sign that there are bait balls, and that's what we're here to see. And there's one specific day where we find a bait ball and it seems static enough that we can maybe jump in. And I remember the boat pulling up next to the bait ball and I'm in my year, ready to go, and the guide says, ok, ready. When I say jump, you jump. And then, when he says jump, I look over and there's this bronze whaler shark. It must have been over two meters long. That's just feeding on this bait ball. Now there's a shark and the guide yells out isn't that what you're here for? So I jump in and it's freezing cold because that's what the sardines like. They're chasing the cold water current. So once the temperature drops at a certain level, that's when the sardines are running the water is rough. I'm bopping up and down in the cold, cold water. There are sharks everywhere and it's just like pure adrenaline rush. You peer down into the gloom and there's huge sharks chomping on these bait balls and with each chomp comes an explosion of glittering scales coming out of their gills. It's pretty crazy. And I'm there with my camera trying to decide how close do I dare get to these animals, because the one thing you never want to do is swim into a bait ball because you could be accidentally bitten, trying to still breathe through the snorkel, choking on saltwater, being cold, your heart's pounding. You're like that shark definitely knows I'm here, but then realizing they don't care that I'm here. They're not here for me, they're here for the sardines. And around you you also hear the thump of birds bandits that are diving, so every time they hit the water they're like missiles. You hear like the thud, thud, thud, thud of the birds around you that are literally swimming down and eating fish. The dolphins are around, which herd the bait balls into these tight balls, and the thuds actually are what draw the sharks from the blue. And then you might see penguin whiz by and the birdish whale come up and just chomp the whole ball. So everything is working as one major ecosystem. It's just a huge frenzy and you're in the middle of it. But once the frenzy was over, the one moment that I remember was actually the way the ocean looked afterwards. It's glittering with fish scales Because the sharks disappeared, the bait balls gone and there's like an odd sardine here and there that survived, but ultimately you are in the endless blue, floating in a galaxy of stars. The beauty of it is that it's transient. It can never be static. We look for the bait ball, but it disappears, and that's what makes it beautiful. It felt like a microcosm for the larger metaphor of life. The fact that I went out to Africa not knowing what I would find is that I was able to find the right place to live. I went out to Africa not knowing what I would find and discover. I think it was a lot of untangling my own biases of the way that I was supposed to lead my life and it was just a very big change in my not just life trajectory but also my relationship to the ocean.

Jason Elias: 17:31

Finally, we end every interview and every episode with a single open-ended question. We ask everyone we talk to what does the ocean mean to you?

Pier Nirandara: 17:42

To me, the ocean is everything. I've spent my entire lifetime trying to put it into words, this connection to the ocean. I think I'll probably spend the rest of my life trying to do the same type of thing.

Jason Elias: 17:57

Thanks for listening to the Big Deep podcast. Next time on Big Deep.

Susan Casey: 18:03

In order to understand the Earth, we have to know her. She is 98% ocean and 95% deep ocean. So I wanted to go downwards, because the journey inward it's a journey into darkness, it's a journey into the unknown, but it's also a journey into the life force of the planet. And the underworld is, in fact, where the treasures are.

Jason Elias: 18:28

We really appreciate you being on this journey into the Big Deep as we explore an ocean of stories. If you like what we're doing, please make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, please find us on the socials where you can like and comment, because those subscribes, likes and comments really make a difference. For more content from our interviews in our series, photos of every guest or just to get in touch, please reach out at our website, bigdeepcom Plus. If you know someone you think we should talk to, please let us know at our Big Deep website, as we are always looking to hear more stories from interesting people who are deeply connected to our world's oceans. Thanks again for joining us.