Nicolas Cage didn’t have the easiest time while training for his new psychological thriller, The Surfer.

The Oscar-winning actor recently told Entertainment Weekly that he not only had limited time for surf lessons ahead of filming in Australia, but was also up against Mother Nature the entire time.

“I have surfed, but every time I’ve attempted surfing, I’ve been pounded to smithereens,” Cage recalled. “I surfed down on Sunset Beach. When I was trying to learn, my teacher gave me a shortboard. I said, ‘Look, I want a longboard.’”

However, the longer board wasn’t much help as he “just got pounded” by the ocean waves and even “got stuck in the rip tide” at one point. “They said they saw my board, they call it ‘tombstone,’ like that triangle top,” the actor explained, noting when the top of the surfboard sticks straight up out of the water.

“I’m climbing up the leash as I’m somersaulting, and I could have died,” he added. “Now I have a young kid, I don’t know if I want to do it anymore.”

Despite the challenges, though, Cage is still open to giving it another try. “The goal,” he said, “is to retire, surf, drink red wine and eat spaghetti.”

The Surfer follows a man, played by Cage, who returns to the idyllic beach of his childhood to surf with his son. However, when he’s humiliated by a group of locals, the man is drawn into a conflict that pushes him to his breaking point.

The film, directed by Lorcan Finnegan, is currently playing in theaters.