EP 297: Peter Mortimer (filmmaker) — Dean Potter’s Rivalry with Alex Honnold, His Inner Demons, and The Dark Wizard

The Nugget Climbing Podcast

Steven Dimmitt

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4.2 • 576 Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2026

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Peter Mortimer is an award-winning filmmaker (King Lines, Valley Uprising, The Dawn Wall, The Alpinist) and co-creator of the Reel Rock Film Tour. We talked about his latest project, The Dark Wizard, a new 4-part documentary series now streaming on HBO Max about Dean Potter, which shares the full story of Dean in all of his human complexity—as a visionary, climbing legend, and a tormented soul.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, friends. Welcome to The Nugget Climbing Podcast. It is great to have you here. My guest today is Peter Mortimer. Peter is an award-winning filmmaker. He has brought us so many iconic climbing films. King Lines, Valley Uprising, the Dawn Wall, the Alpinist. He's also the co-creator of the Real Rock Film Tour and had a hand in all of those
0:22.3	amazing Real Rock films. And his latest project streaming right now on HBO Max is called The Dark
0:29.9	Wizard. The Dark Wizard is a new four-part documentary series about Dean Potter. I got a chance to
0:36.2	watch it before this interview. It's incredible.
0:39.8	I can't recommend it enough. It's one of the best films or film series I've ever seen
0:47.1	in climbing. The Dark Wizard shares the full story of Dean Potter and pulls back the curtain
0:52.0	on a very inspiring visionary in climbing and a
0:56.9	tormented and complicated human being in a way that I had never seen before. I thought I knew
1:02.5	Dean's story. I was so wrong. This was such a cool interview. Please enjoy Peter Mortimer.
1:24.0	Peter Mortimer. Thanks, thanks for having me.
1:26.1	Man, you have been directly involved in bringing me so many hours of inspiration and entertainment
1:32.3	and psych over the years.
1:34.3	I started climbing in 2007, went to college.
1:38.3	It was all brand new to me.
1:40.3	A friend took me out, Bouldering and Leavenworth, and then there was a little crappy little
1:44.5	gym in the community rec center at the university I went to.
1:48.8	And there were two guys in my dorm that got king lines.
1:53.0	That was the very first climbing film I ever saw.
1:56.1	I had never heard of Chris Sharma before.
1:58.4	I had never heard of deepwater soloing.
2:00.5	It showed me how cool
2:01.8	bouldering and sport climbing could be. And I was thinking about it before talking to you. I think
	...

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