If Johnny Knoxville died tomorrow, the world would probably remember him this way: splayed out on the ground, in a slight daze, slowly rousing himself from a fall or collision that was probably more painful than it looked. In Jackass Number Two, Knoxville is seen recovering from his 3,000th or so bad idea, which involved riding an old-timey bicycle—the kind with the giant front wheel and tiny back one—off a ramp. Instead of getting air, the front wheel catches, launching the helmet-less Knoxville over the handlebars and face-first into the asphalt. The impact doesn't faze him much. "My head stopped my body from getting hurt on that," he says.
The scene is one of many, many painful (and/or disgusting, moronic, hilarious) vignettes from the sequel to the wildly successful 2002 big-screen adaptation of Knoxville's similarly popular MTV show. Knoxville—real name P.J. Clapp—ended the show in 2002 to focus on his burgeoning movie career. But the urges returned last year when he appeared on Jackass spinoff Wildboyz with his former co-stars Chris Pontius and Stephen Glover (a.k.a. Steve-O). Soon, he and director Jeff Tremaine had myriad new bad ideas for Number Two. (Said bodily function features prominently in the film, of course.)
Knoxville clearly enjoys himself in the movie, but it's easy to wonder if returning to Jackass says something about his film career, which mostly falls into three categories: forgotten (Big Trouble, Walking Tall, Grand Theft Parsons, A Dirty Shame), unremarkable (Men In Black II, The Ringer), and practically reviled (The Dukes Of Hazzard). Instead of being a small fish in a big pond, maybe the 35-year-old prefers life as Jackass' big fish. The A.V. Club spoke with a seemingly tipsy Knoxville (along with director Tremaine) about Jackass, taking it in the ass, and more.
The A.V. Club: Jeff said topping the first film wasn't the priority for Number Two.
Johnny Knoxville: He was trying to convince me that we should do another one, and I said, "How do we top it?" And he goes, "We don't have top it; we just have to be funny." It seemed to take all the pressure off. It was just a crazy energy going around the set—amphetamines. The guys weren't competitive on the last film to get footage, but on this film they were very competitive.
Jeff Tremaine: It's just an unhealthy way to approach something, trying to outdo your last thing. You've gotta trust evolution, you've gotta trust that the bar is moving, that you don't need to force the bar. It'll just happen. I just had to get everybody back on the ball. I don't think we intentionally outdid the last one. I think we definitely did outdo the last one, but I had the confidence that it would just naturally happen.
AVC: How were the guys competitive?
JK: Usually the guy who writes the bit does it, then there are some that are assigned, and you go around and ask. We didn't use it in the movie, but there's a thing that's going to shoot a huge projectile out of a shotgun… Guys you wouldn't think would do it were doing it in this film.
JF: Preston [Lacy] never did stunts before. All those guys, in this movie they're going for it so much harder than the last. Everyone just had it in them.
JK: Some got it put in 'em.
JF: The only thing people fear more than what's going to happen is not getting footage.
AVC: When you were done shooting, how much raw footage did you have?
JK: So much. We over-shot, we over-wrote. I was sitting at home on days off, banging the table, "I could be shooting right now!" Finally, at the end, Jeff just started sending cameramen to my house, just to get me off his back.
JF: He would never let us stop shooting. He was so amped. He's like, "We're not done shooting. We have this and this and this…" I was like, "We'll shoot it in November," even though the movie's coming out September 22.
AVC: How do you decide what makes the cut?
JK: If there's too much dirty stuff.
JF: We have a great bit where Steve-O threw up again, but how many times do you wanna put him throwing up in the movie? The best ones just made it. The other one's great, and it's ridiculous, and it's not right, but sometimes things get too gross, or there's too much stuff going up people's butts.
JK: Oh, there's never too much stuff going up people's butts.
AVC: Did you have any ideas that were too risky to try?
JF: We had one that we couldn't do because we can't find a plastic surgeon that will agree to release the substance we want, but beyond that, we have not said, "The bar is here. We can't cross this line."
JK: Apparently, the last [plastic surgeon] we tried to get had a problem with cannibalism. I didn't know so many people were so touchy about it.
JF: But when it's yourself, what's the problem?
AVC: A few hotels were thanked in the Number Two's credits. They must be accommodating.
JK: Wrecking hotel rooms doesn't even register. That's not trouble. [Laughs.]
JF: Remember when Steve-O wrecked that hotel room in Indonesia?
JK: I was in the hotel room next to him.
JF: We took pictures of him having sex with… never mind.
JK: He flattened his hotel room, which he usually does—that's not trouble. We went to pay the next morning. [Steve-O] gets his money, and he's like, "All right, dude, how much is it?" They were very angry. They were like, "That will be 500 American dollars!" He'd just leveled everything in the room, and he was upset that it didn't cost more. He was like, "Aw, really?"
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