by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Becoming a human wrecking ball, riding on the back of a live alligator with a unicycle, getting a complete head-waxing, standing on the projectile side of a woodchipper and being pelted with squid, fish, a frozen turkey and other sundries. These are just some of the stunts Johnny Knoxville and his merry band of pranksters cooked up on their hit MTV show Jackass—along with a lot of projectile puking.

Before The Osbournes’ potty mouths graced MTV, Knoxville and company (Steve-O, Wee Man and Chris Pontius, among others) redefined what edgy television was and, like rubberneckers at a car accident, people were tuning in in droves. It was Super Dave for real, it was the idiotic inserts from skate and snow vids gone prime time, it was tonic for anyone who felt that watching the Weakest Link lady made them feel dumb. Jackass was the moment of glory that masochistic class clowns had been waiting for—finally, due respect for those foolhardy types (or har-dee-har fool types) who would glady endure excruciating pain and utter degradation to bring a momentary ray of happy sunshine into the lives of their stupid, ne’er-do-well drinking buddies. After all, what are friends for? And dwarves, for that matter?

Anyway, the R-rated feature Jackass: The Movie is set to hit the big screen this month. Alpha jackass Johnny Knoxville took time out to talk the Mirror.

Mirror: How did the idea to turn the show into a movie start?

Johnny Knoxville: Well, the show was only on the air for nine months and then I quit rather abruptly. At that point, we had a backlog of material, but that didn’t really matter because I didn’t think we were doing a film. I just couldn’t see us doing a film with a plot and a narrative. Jeff Tremaine and Spike Jonze, who created the show, phoned up and said, why don’t we do a naughty, 90-minute version, the stuff we couldn’t show on TV, and I thought it was a great idea.

M: Can you give us some highlights?

JK: You mean lowlights? All I can say is that there is a lot of male nudity, men touching men and a lot of things going in and out of holes.

M: Do you get naughtier than that milk-drinking puke contest you had on the show?

JK: Oh God, yes. I wasn’t joking when I said there was stuff going in and out of holes. We have had some screenings where we’ve had a couple of people in the audience puke. We’re not trying to gross people out, but it happens. The movie keeps the spirit of the show and hopefully it will make people think they are riding around in the van with us and being a part of our little crew for an hour and half.

M: Why did you quit the show when it was doing so well?

JK: Well, we went as far as we could go on television and got away with as much as we could—not to mention that Washington really came down on MTV, which in turn came down on us. At that point I saw that we could not do the show the way we had always done it. I loved Jackass too much to do a watered-down version of it.

M: There was a lot of press coverage about kids imitating Jackass or making tapes of stunts to send into the show. In Independence, Kentucky, kids were injured by a car in an attempt to send you a tape. How did you take that?

JK: It was all a bit much. I can’t really explain it. I have a seven-year-old daughter myself, and my wife and I watch the things that she watches on TV. Obviously you should spend time with your kids and have a little dialogue with them.

M: Do you think you were a scapegoat for poor parenting?

JK: I think [U.S. Senator] Joe Lieberman wanted to make a name for himself and went after us. November is coming up and the movie is coming out so I think he’s probably looking for a press agent right now.

Skater stooges

M: Not that you guys originated videotaping stunts and pranks, but we are now seeing the market flooded with this kind of stuff, from Bumfights [homeless people fighting each other] to mainstream stuff like Fear Factor.

JK: We didn’t start the genre but we took it to another level, and all of those shows just take it back down to its previous level or even below that. What is it that crazy Irish poet said? A dog shouldn’t praise his fleas? I don’t care what those people do because they just makes themselves look bad and it bears no consequence on me.

M: Have you ever been slapped with the performance-artist tag?

JK: Yeah, performance art is one thing and performance artist is another. Performance artists are always so goddamn self-important and intellectualizing everything they do. I don’t intectualize anything I do. I’m kind of uncomfortable with that term because it just comes across as highbrow, elitist, pompous and not entertaining. We’re just trying to make you laugh.

M: Would you feel more comfortable just calling it modern slapstick?

JK: Yeah, we’re just like the Three Stooges except we’re doing it for real.

M: What do you think Jackass accomplished?

JK: When we started doing the skateboarding videos and Jackass, we just did it to make each other laugh. That’s as much as we read into it. We got some laughs and got to travel.

M: How did the cast and crew come together?

JK: Well, the cast were all of our friends and we tried to hire as many of our friends as we could because it was like a family. We hung out together all of the time even when weren’t shooting.

Fool school

M: It seems that the reason that Jackass can work as a movie is because the audience actually knows people like Steve-O and Wee Man.

JK: There is a spirit about Jackass that I think sets it apart from everything else. Aside from the stunts and the level of things we do, it’s the spirit. We’re all having fun, it’s not mean-spirited, we’re all friends and everybody knew people like us when they were growing up. People think of it as watching their own friends and it reminds people of their childhood because everybody was doing these things when they were growing up and we were just the first to get it on television.

M: Steve-O seems to be a real nut case. Does he just turn that on for the camera?

JK: What you see on the screen is definitely the way Steve-O is. He’s like that all of the time. He’s a real sweet guy and is actually really smart but just pushes the whole idiot thing to the tenth level. To be honest, I don’t know how long Steve-O is going to be with us.

M: You mean you think he is going to die.

JK: (long pause) Well, what are you going to do—it’s like there is no way you can save somebody from themselves.

M: What are the members going to move on to after the movie has died down?

JK: Steve-O will move on to a casket or do his own videos for as long as he can, Party Boy wants to be a porn star or an ultimate fighter and I think he would be good at both. Bam [Margera] will do his videos, Preston Lacy will go to films—actually Party Boy is in Charlies Angels 2 right now. Wee Man will continue with skateboarding and will probably go into TV or film.

M: What’s next in the cards for you?

JK: I’m acting in this movie about Flying Burrito Brothers’ Gram Parsons called Grand Theft Parsons. Parsons and his manager had this pact that when he died he would be burned out in Joshua Tree. I’m playing the road manager making good on his word. I’m a huge fan of Gram Parsons so I’m really excited.

M: Do you ever have fans of the show come up to you and start punching themselves in the balls or something?

JK: Yeah, all the time. I get, “Will you kick me in the balls?” so much it’s not even funny, or “Will you hit me?” or stuff like that. Girls will come up to me and burn me with a cigarette or punch me right in the mouth. They’ll be like, “I love your show,” and then BAM! right in the mouth, and walk away.

Chaos and concussions

M: How did the stunts and pranks see the light of day? Did you just roundtable them with the cast?

JK: If all of us get together, it’s just chaos and we won’t get anything done. It’s just disaster. We have to isolate some of the guys so it can work—even my father wrote some stuff.

M: So after you have the ideas, then what happens?

JK: We will get the seeds of the ideas and then it will go into a completely different direction. We all have to agree it’s funny first off, or think something is pretty gnarly. We then go to the lawyers and see if there is a way we can possibly shoot it. They usually come back and say no, and then we change some stuff until they say yes.

M: How many times have you been hospitalized?

JK: From the movie, I went to the emergency room three times, and numerous times on the show. In the movie I had a couple of concussions and stitches in my head. I got vertigo from the last concussion, cause I’ve had about five or six concussions over the past couple of years. The vertigo thing would happen if I would lay flat, drive around a curb or tilt my head at a certain angle. Then the whole room would start spinning.

M: How do you get over the fear to complete the stunt?

JK: You just have to pretend that everything is going to be alright. You get frightened because you know it’s going to hurt or you’re going to break something. I guess I have an indifference to pain but I got scared for every stunt.

M: Looking back on all the stunts you’ve done, what are some of your favourites?

JK: I really liked the sperm-bank Olympics. There were about six or seven of us who went to the sperm bank to compete. There were three areas of competition. There was highest sperm count, the volume in the cup and the speed it was delivered. That one came out pretty good.

M: What is the scariest stunt you ever had to do?

JK: One of the guys, Chris Pontius, just can’t stop masturbating. We’ll be in the van and he will just start masturbating and laughing. Well, we were going to shoot Chris Pontius for Playgirl magazine and we’re shooting it and he finishes off the photo shoot by finishing himself off in front of six guys. After he jerks off onto his stomach he runs around naked trying to hug everybody with all of this sperm on him. I had a sprained ankle at the time and couldn’t run. That was easily the most scared I ever was on the show.

M: Now that you are making the transition of becoming an actor, do you think people will always think of you as the nutty guy from Jackass?

JK: I think when I’m an old man I will still have people coming up to me and punching my colostomy bag and saying, “We loved your show.” I think that’s cool. It means it was something me and my friends did and had a lot of fun doing and we were able to make people laugh too. I’m really, really proud of it. :

Jackass: The Movie opens Friday, Oct. 25

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