Before he walks in, his laugh fills the room. It’s a laugh that tells everyone that Johnny Knoxville has arrived. He is
Johnny Knoxville tries to make a quick get away from a dog in this scene from 'Jackass 3D.' | Paramount Pictures
loud, and everything he says is quickly followed by a joke. It is really hard not to like him from the moment that you meet him.
He appears much older in person than in the videos that play on MTV, and in March of next year he will turn 40. With his sunglasses off, there is a faint look of aging, but this and two children have not slowed him down. He still bounces off walls and is always trying to outdo himself when it comes to stunts.
In front of him is Bam Margera, who quickly sits down with his drink and is ready for some questions. One of the easiest questions for Margera is why he would tell the Jackass crew about his fear of snakes.
“If I could think of my worst fear ever, it would be falling into a pit of snakes…this was like in the beginning of filming (the television show),” Margera said. “I didn’t realize that if you tell Jackass, it just means that they’re going to figure out a new skit for you.”
One of the funniest gags to be featured in the trailer for the new movie, “Jackass 3D,” is when he gets knocked down by a giant hand.
“With the hand that hit me, it was nine in the morning and I know that we don’t start filming to at least 11:30 or noon. So they are like, ‘Go into kitchen, they want to have a meeting with you,’ and I’m like, alright whatever,” Margera said. “Then, all of the sudden, there is this massive hand that nailed me.”
“The pranks you never think are going to happen, you know that something is going to happen but you don’t know where they’re going to come from,” Knoxville said.
The pranks on one another are only part of what makes these two who they are. Both are willing to put their bodies on the line for a laugh.
“The stunts themselves, I found that is easier just to get up there and do it as soon a possible. Roll camera. I’m going to do it. Because if you eye it up and figure up how you’re going to fall and what might happen, it makes you not want to do it even more,” Margera said.
Knoxville is quick to add on to Margera’s sentiment.
“You never know what’s going to happen; we’re trying stuff that has never been done. So I just don’t think about it. I tell them, ‘Just set the cameras. I’m going to go in my car and listen to music. When you need me to come in and be a talking dummy, just tap me on the shoulder.’”
In one of the more extreme stunts, Knoxville gets flipped pretty hard by a bull and ends up taking a hoof to the head.
“Thank God for that hoof to the head because it altered my fall just enough where I didn’t fall on the back of my neck, but took the hoof to my head. I think it altered a little my fall just enough to where I didn’t break my neck. So, the bull did me a favor — the bull saved my life,” Knoxville said.
After years of watching both of these actors taking close calls, they said they have developed their own ways of telling their families what happened.
“It’s better to not tell them what you’re going to do because, if you say what’s going to happen, then they are all nervous. It’s just better to call after the day and tell them that you’re fine,” Margera said.
For Knoxville, “It’s pretty nerve wracking for me, my wife, and my family. They really like the end product. They think that it’s hilarious, but during those six, seven months when we’re filming, they’re pretty scared. And I understand — I don’t want my son or daughter doing stunts. Pranks are fine,” Knoxville said.
The realization that Knoxville is a father is strange. His daughter was able to see the movie with him.
“My daughter was too young to see the first one, and on number two she saw some of it. On this one, I let her see the whole thing, but I made her sit next to me at the screening,” Knoxville said. “I knew everything that was coming up, and if something was objectionable, she had cardboard about the size of a piece of paper. She put it in front of her eyes and fingers in her ears — that was about five or six times — other than that, she loved what she saw.”
Family life and new projects makes the future for these two jackasses seem even more unpredictable than their antics.
“We quit making predictions after the first and second. We said we were through and now we’re making a third one,” Knoxville said.
