Johnny Knoxville Interview - chrisnieratko.com

Johnny Knoxville Interview

Back in 1997, Johnny Knoxville, known to his folks and friends (full disclosure: I'm one) as PJ Clapp, shocked the typically uncaring skateboarding community by videotaping the testing of a number of self-defense weapons--ultimately shooting himself in the chest with a .38-caliber revolver to test the strength of a bulletproof vest--for one of Big Brother Skateboarding magazine's skate videos. It was the footage of these early stunts by Knoxville, combined with some other silly business by a crew of homegrown stuntmen, that would be packaged and shopped around Hollywood as the brainchild of Knoxville, director Spike Jonze and Jeff Trernaine (then Big Brother's art director), and would become Jackass, one of the highest-rated shows in MTV's history. After a few less-than-stellar film outings followed by a good one (Men In Black II), Knoxville is going back to what he knows best with this fall's release of Jackass: The Movie--making a fool of himself.

All your fame stems from the time you shot yourself in the chest on camera with a .38. How did you come up with that bright idea?

I was watching the news one night, and it showed a guy getting pepper-sprayed. I thought it was pretty funny and I was like, "I should test the whole gamut of self-defense products on myself." I started by shooting myself. I was trying to get a 9 mm but I didn't know anyone who had one, so I had to borrow my neighbor's wife's gun, a .38. I didn't have much money at the time--actually, no money--but my mom gave me 300 bucks for Christmas, so I took that and bought the cheapest bulletproof vest I could find. I called the store and asked them, "Is this a good vest?" Oh, yeah," they said. "Top of the line." I'm like, "Here's what I'm going to do with it: I'm going to put it on and shoot myself with a .38." They said that they couldn't recommend my doing that -- but I did. Once you commit, you've got to go and do it.

Do you think that's still the scariest thing you've ever done?

Any time I deal with bulls it's pretty hairy. With a gun it would be a quick death, but bulls will just camp out on you and not stop.

Knowing how the editing process works with Jackass -- from the censors to your perfectionism -- there has to be tons of footage that didn't make the movie's final cut.

Yeah. We really overshot. It's going to be a really good DVD -- or really bad. Depends on how you look at it.

How much trouble did you get into with the LAPD when you were pretending to be an escaped convict for the Jackass pilot?

Wow. I think I've had guns drawn on me by cops three different times, but that was the first time. I dressed up in an L.A. County prison orange jumpsuit and I was handcuffed, and we went to a hardware store and asked the guys at the counter to help me saw them off. The owner freaked out and kicked everyone out of the store, including my [hidden] cameraman. So I was in there sawing off the cuffs for no one, and when I went outside the cops were coming. Four carloads of cops had their guns on me. The first cop on the scene didn't even put her car in park. She gets out and puts her gun on me, but her patrol car keeps going and hits a light pole, and I was like, "Oh man, we're in trouble now!" They thought I really was a convict, but we talked them down. Still, they wrote one of the girls working on the show a ticket and the owner of the store sued us for loss of business. We tried to use the footage in the movie, but the city of West Hollywood said that if we showed that footage anywhere they would prosecute the girl that got the ticket. I wish they'd written me the ticket-I would gladly take the hit for the footage. So that bit's just shown to friends now.

One scene that made the movie and everyone will get the chance to see is the boxing match in which you get your ass knocked out by Butterbean.

Can you call it a match? I only got one punch in and Butterbean didn't even flinch. He knocked me right out, and I hit my head on the floor and it split like a watermelon.

Then you got to work with Will Smith -- a kick-ass Ali -- in Men In Black II. How do you think you'd fare against Will in a boxing match?

He would beat my ass. He's going to do any guy in the street. He trained for a year and a half, two years [for Ali]. I'm not a very good fighter, anyway. Never claimed to be.

You're also not too good at picking acting roles. You've done a bunch of crappers in your film career.

The first two or three out of the gate weren't very much, were they?

Didn't you do The New Outsiders?

Are you talking about Deuces Wild? That was a piece of cinematic history.

How about Big Trouble?

That was just a cursed movie, with all that happened with September 11. [Due to scenes dealing with an airplane hijacking] the movie got pushed back--it was just one of those things. It was the first big role I had in a big film, but there are things that are more important than a movie. You just do your work and go to the next job. The next one will come out and you'll forget about the last one.

So, why were you so bent on getting the actor Rip Taylor in the Jackass movie?

I love Rip Taylor. And Jackass has a lot of gay undertones. It's pretty much chock full of 'em.

Rip Taylor's gay? [Knoxville laughs] You're a small-town kid from Tennessee who couldn't make the rent five years ago, and now you're working with big name stars--like Rip Taylor--and getting paid big bucks essentially to make a fool of yourself. How does it feel?

It's pretty bizarre. I don't really think about it too much. My parents get more of a kick out of it than I do. It's not that I don't appreciate what's happened, it's just that they really get a kick out of it. My old man wears his Jackass hat everywhere. My mom called and told me he was selling my autograph, but she was just bullshitting me.

Actually, I looked on eBay, and your autograph is only worth 20 bucks.

I'm sure. It's probably next to Steve Guttenberg and Tim Conway's.

Do you think there's any chance of you utilizing your fame to help your daughter's band out?

Oh, the Green Beans? Yeah. I'm going to be a real stage dad, like Brian Wilson's father. Madison is my six-and-a-half-year-old daughter. My mother bought her a miniature Fender electric guitar, and she formed the Green Beans in our kitchen when she was three years old with her friend Malin on drums and her friend Nico on tambourine. They've never really played together, and Madison's only had one concert gig--she sang 'Happy Birthday" to our friend Sophia. Oh, you know what? She said she was forming the Green Beans, and we thought it was funny and we told a couple of friends. So then some producer from one of those Hard Copy-type shows calls, inquiring if Madison's band would like to play on the show. It's so ridiculous.

Everyone asks why you do these stupid things you do. I don't think you need a reason, but someone out there might, so you should probably tell our readers what spawned all this.

I don't really know. I was sick as a kid, with asthma and allergies, so maybe I'm making up for lost time.

And your dad -- wasn't he a big influence on all this?

My old man, he's always cool. Was even back then--largely back then. I've documented a lot of the pranks that he did on workers at his tire company when I was growing up. All of his workers had nicknames--Big George, Big Sam, Ass-Kicking Robert, Box Car, Super Dick.... Big George, who was like 5'8", 320 lbs., the sweetest guy on the planet, was narcoleptic, so he was always falling asleep at work. He'd fall asleep and Dad would go up and put a paper bag over his head and Big George would wake up and think he'd gone blind. And because he didn't go to school, he couldn't read. So one day there's a picture of a gorilla in the paper and Dad showed it to Big George, who couldn't read the headline, and told him that it had escaped from the zoo. At the end of the day Dad goes, "Hey, George, could you go back into that stack of tires and pull four or five off the top for me?" So Big George goes to grab some, and dad had Box Car, his tire groover, in a gorilla outfit down in the tires. Box Car jumped out of the tires and Big George just about beat the living shit out of Box Car before they could pull him off. That kind of backfired on Box Car, but it completely worked for Dad.

Comments

Gatsby Blastyn
13 Apr 2007, 11:41

Chris. Interview me. I once Waffle Ironed my neck... and then ate it.

Michaelo
22 May 2008, 11:13

good interview. Johnny knoxville is awsome!!! cool dude . Good job.

Glen
08 Jun 2008, 18:17

Wow, totally loving these old gems Negrotaco. Keep on keepin on.