Knoxville talks of being movie star, Jackass
Nick Strott
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It is a wonder Johnny Knoxville has not been consumed by fame. After all, his television show "Jackass" has been a huge hit all over the world and with the release of Jackass: The Movie this past Friday, he has already left his mark on Hollywood.
However, after talking to him for a while he simply comes across as a guy who loves pulling pranks and performing crazy stunts with his friends before stumbling between bars at the end of the night. The only difference is that now those stunts are videotaped and his alcohol is on the house.
Johnny Knoxville was offered another television show before he co-created Jackass and wrote for a skateboarding magazine called Big Brother. His editor's name was Jeff Tremaine.
"The editor of Big Brother magazine, which is a skateboarding magazine I was writing for, was doing skateboarding videos before I got there and the editor convinced me to film my articles," Knoxville said. "Through the skateboard videos we got a little recognition and I was offered a TV show, but I turned it down."
According to Knoxville, "[I] didn't even think "Jackass" could be a TV show, so we just kept doing the videos."
After hearing about the offer, Jeff Tremaine pitched the idea of doing their own television show, which he later coined "Jackass," to Spike Jonez. Jeff had gone to high school with Spike in Rockville, Md. and thought that he might be interested in teaming up to do the show. "Spike was in to it and that's how it all came about," recalled Knoxville.
The concept was there, but Knoxville then needed a staff. Bam Margera, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Ryan Dunn, Jason "Wee Man" Acuòa, Preston Lacy, Chris Raab, Brandon, Dave England, Ehren McGhehey and the rest of the show's bizarre ensemble all came from similar backgrounds.
"We were doing the Big Brother videos on the West Coast and Bam was doing the CKY videos on the East Coast and Jeff knew Bam because he had interviewed him for Big Brother," Knoxville said. When we decided to do the show we called Bam up and he was in to it, so we got him and all his Westchester, Pa. crew.
"We got some other guys from Big Brother and we got Steve-O out of the circus inside a flea market in Florida."
With a group of guys whose sanity is highly questionable, one wouldn't expect intelligence and creativity to be lacking. And apparently, Knoxville says, there was no set method for developing ideas for the show, though input was sought from everyone.
"We start with the germ of an idea and then it usually mutates into its own virus when we start shooting it, but we do go in with a general idea of what we want to do," Knoxville said. "It can be as simple as someone calling Jeff or I up the night before and saying `Let's do this in a couple days.' Then we'll just get it all ready and make it happen because there's usually a lot of things we have to prepare for.
"Then sometimes a few guys will sit around for the sole purpose of trying to think up some bits, and that usually ends in chaos. We just get ideas at weird times."
After coming up with an idea they choose a location to film the episode.
"Sometimes we'll drive around and find something that looks good. It's best to try and prepare as much as you can ahead of
time because there's a hell of a lot of things that can go wrong and they usually do and that's when it gets real funny."
After a brief, but incredibly successful run on MTV, "Jackass" came to an abrupt end when Knoxville left the show last year amid controversy over the show's influence on its viewers.
"We really went as far as we could on TV and when all the copycat instances arose, Washington came down on MTV, which trickled down to us," Knoxville said. "I saw that we weren't going to be able to do the show like we had been doing it and so I decided to quit. I was always of the position that "Jackass" should last a shorter amount of time than longer anyway because people become [used] to this type of comedy. It becomes less shocking if you do it over a long period of time."
The movie was therefore simply a way for the Jackass crew to bring their vision back, only to the big screen.
"The Jackass movie is going to be a naughty 90-minute version of Jackass the TV show. No plot. No narrative, just one naughty idea after another. [The movie] is what the show should have been. It's the show to the 10th power."
Injuries didn't seem to slow the cast down during filming even when Knoxville almost snapped his neck in a golf cart accident.
"It didn't scare us to that extent. You just move on. I'm kinda indifferent to pain," he said.
Based on the stunts these guys pull it may not seem like they take their health seriously, but the cast always talks about safety before stunts. Even though there is a joke about it at the end of the film, Knoxville seems dead-set against doing any additional Jackass movies.
"I think Jackass is better if it lasts a shorter amount of time. I love it too much to draw it out and do Jackass Part Seven. It's better if we quit while it's still special. [The movie] is the exclamation point on Jackass."
Knoxville confirmed that he once played Danny Zuko in a production of Grease during high school. When asked if he would ever take to the stage again, he replied, "I don't know, I'm not ruling anything out."
Anyone who has ever seen the show can attest to the fact that he "doesn't rule anything out."
He and his castmates' penchant for the outrageous is probably the biggest reason for the show's success. For them though, it was all fun.
"We just expected to do skateboard videos, all the other stuff just happened," he said.
With a show like this, anyone involved is sure to come away with a lifetime's worth of memories, both good and bad.
Knoxville's best memories deal with what happens after filming for the day is finished. "When we get finished with the day and everyone piles into the vans and takes off into the night going from bar to bar and then getting into the van the next day and hearing the horror stories form the night before …that's always good."
His craziest memory is of an especially disturbing incident involving Chris Pontius getting a little too excited after a Playgirl photo shoot. Knoxville said it "was the most frightened and horrified and depressed that I ever was on the show." Any additional detail is too crude to print.
Emotionally traumatizing experiences aside, with Jackass no longer the focus of his career, where will Johnny Knoxville go from here?
"I'll concentrate on films," he said. "Spike, Jeff, and I have a production company called Big House and I'm sure we'll do films together."
When asked if he was interested in directing, he said, "Right now I have no aspirations to, but God knows. Doesn't everyone end up directing? (Laughs)"
"I'm happy doing what I'm doing."