THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS' Michael Graziadei (Daniel) will be shooting the curl as star of the indie drama The Outside.

"It's a cool movie about a young surfer who ends up tangled up in the professional surfing industry," Graziadei says of his side project. "It's all about his journey and has some interesting life lessons." Lessons Graziadei got to explore.

"I'm the lead — isn't that nuts?" he marvels. "It's unbelievable and such a big responsibility. I've never experienced anything like it. It's a lot of work. I've been putting in 15-hour days."

Many of those long hours are on or in the water. "All the professional surfing in contests will be done by other people, but there are scenes where I'm paddling out and sitting in the water," previews the real-life surfer. Unfortunately, the project has not been all fun in the sun. "We're shooting in San Diego, so we've been on La Jolla Shores for 3 1/2 weeks and it's been rainy. I've been cold and wet the whole time."

Graziadei does get to dry off twice a week — at Y&R. "Our weekend for the movie is Thursday and Friday, so I can drive back to L.A. and work here those days," Graziadei outlines. "I've been getting done at midnight Wednesday, driving back from San Diego and getting to L.A. at 2 in the morning to come in the next day. Not so nice when I got hit with 50 pages of sides one day! It can be tough coming back here after being in my other character all week and trying to filter it out."

One thing he could not filter out is the dyed hair, but Graziadei isn't complaining — far from it. He is proclaiming, "Blondes have move fun!"