The skateboarder broke his femur earlier this month.
Tony Hawk doesn't plan to ever stop skateboarding. ET's Kevin Frazier spoke with the 53-year-old athlete at the premiere of Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off, the documentary about his life and career, and Hawk said he's feeling "pretty good" three weeks after breaking his femur.
While the injury may lessen the public skateboarding Hawk does, it won't stop him from doing it altogether.
"If I’m able to stand on my own two feet then I want to ride a skateboard," Hawk, who used a cane at the premiere, said. "I might not be doing it in public so much going down the line. If I feel like my skills are truly fading then I won’t be doing it on a public level or at an exhibition mode, but I don’t make ultimatums."
"I’m 53. I truly felt like, before I broke my leg, I was skating almost better than ever or better than I have in the last 10 years," he added. "I want to get back to at least some form of that same level of skating."
That answer is no surprise to Sam Jones, the director of the HBO documentary.
"His brother said he's probably going to be the first 80-year-old to do a backside air, and I I completely believe it," Jones told ET. "He just loves it so much."
After putting his trust in Jones, a former skateboarder, to helm the doc, Hawk is more than pleased with the result.
"It's to show the reality of what it takes to do this through the years, the hardships that it requires and the sacrifices you have to make in a lot of ways, personally and professionally," Hawk explained. "People don’t understand [that] you don’t just get on a skateboard and you’re naturally gifted and then all the success falls on you. You've got to work your a** off. You've got to be willing to take the hits and get back up."
The doc is a culmination of Hawk's success, and a way for the athlete to shine a light on all the aspects of the sport.
"I’m honored, but it’s a big responsibility. I do feel I feel like I need to be mindful of that and I need to represent it well. It’s something that I’ve kind of taken upon myself," Hawk said of using his influence for good. "If people are going to put that on me, then I want to represent skateboarding authentically and show all sides of it, not just the glitz and the X Games and things like that, but the grit, and what it takes, and also the diversity. That’s something that’s overlooked too. If you go to a skate park now, it’s a melting pot of race, of gender, everyone’s down, everyone’s supporting each other. I don’t think there is any other sport like that."
Through the making of the doc, Hawk said he learned that "it's OK to be vulnerable." It's a message he wishes he could relay to his younger self.
"I think I would try to encourage myself to figure out my personal issues earlier rather than later, figure out how to deal with being uncomfortable, how to deal with lack of intimacy, the bigger picture stuff instead of hyper focusing on skating and letting that somehow solve all my problems," he said.
In addition to skateboarding, the doc focuses on Hawk's private and family lives, something that Jones thinks will be eye-opening to audiences.
"I think they'll be surprised at how conscientious he is about taking care of his family, and being a good father, and the way he wants everybody to have the experience that he's had with skateboarding," Jones told ET of Hawk, who's a dad of four. "He really cares about skateboarding having this long life after he's done skating. You really, really see it in the way he treats his family and other skaters."
Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off will premiere April 5 on HBO and HBO Max.
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