The Jackass crew is back for more incredibly dangerous, incredibly bizarre, life-threatening stunts in Jackass Number Two directed by Jeff Tremaine and featuring Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Bam Margera, Chris Pontius, Ryan Dunn, Wee Man, Dave England, Ehren McGhehey and Preston Lacy.
Will there be a Jackass 3? According to Knoxville and Tremaine, there wasn't even supposed to be a Number Two.
How did you decide to do another Jackass film?
Johnny Knoxville: “I didn’t decide anything. Those blue eyes [indicating Jeff] decided.”
Jeff Tremaine: “After the first movie, that was it for Jackass. We felt like we left it all out there and did everything we wanted to do and ended that chapter. Then I started a show called Wildboyz with Chris [Pontius] and Steve-O, and that was just so we could travel around. I love animals. I love traveling, so we had this little show we were doing just for fun. Knoxville would periodically come with us. He’s gone on a few of the trips. The last trip we ever went on for Wildboyz was Russia and he was just so willing to kill himself for the dumbest idea that I pulled him aside and said, ‘Hey, if you’ve really got this in you…’ because he clearly did. Every day he was up for just the stupidest, most dangerous thing. I said, ‘Do you really have this in you? Then let’s back it off digital cable and do it for a bigger audience.’”
Who started calling the guys and saying, “Let’s do it?”
Tremaine: “Well, Johnny didn’t warm up to the idea right away so I was like, ‘Look, you don’t have to one-up the last one. All you have to do is be funny. All we have to do is make a funny movie. We don’t have to outdo the last one.’”
Knoxville: “That took the pressure off when he said that. I was like, ‘Whew, hmmm…’”
Tremaine: “Then we both called the guys. Me, Knox and Spike, we got together and we decided all right.”
Knoxville: “We just called all the guys.”
Tremaine: “I think Bam [Margera] and [Ryan] Dunn were the most surprised that the call came in. ‘What?!’”
Knoxville: “There were totally surprised. There was complete silence.”
Tremaine: “They were doing Viva la Bam and had their own world going, their own thing happening. But when we brought it up, they were like, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’ I had no idea it would be that easy to get everybody together.”
How long in the editing room does it take for you to put all this together?
Tremaine: “We start editing the day after we start shooting so all the tapes make it back. I’m not there for it. When we’re shooting, I’m on the road. But every free second, I’m in the edit bay so we’ve been editing since February.
We really overshot this one. This guy sitting next to me would not let us stop shooting. I was, ‘All right. That’s a picture wrap.’ ‘No, it’s not! No, it’s not a picture wrap. Promise me we’re still shooting.’ I’m like, ‘Oh God…’ So I had to break free Dimitry [Elyashkevich]. He’s our cameraman, but he’s also a guy I count on for editing. I had to break him free and send him up to [Johnny’s] house to shoot him farting in his bathtub or running into street signs, just so he’s happy and off my back so I can start editing. It got to the point… I think what the problem was was we had a big stunt that we didn’t do and I promised him we’d do it so the negotiation was, ‘We’ll shoot in November.’ Well, the movie comes out in September but whatever... Get off my back [laughs]!”
Knoxville: “I’m sitting right here!”
How do you rein in all these guys?
Knoxville: “Jeff keeps the reins. It’s a tough gig too, trying to keep guys sober, trying to keep them from committing horrible things. That’s his job.”
What happens when the studio says you can’t do something?
Tremaine: “We don’t take ‘no’ well. If the studio tells us ‘no’, we’re probably going to go shoot it. No’s not a good answer for us. ‘Well, why not? Why not? Why not?’ Eventually you find out and it’s, ‘Well, the only problem is you’ve got to do it like this.’ But we’re rarely told by the studio that you can’t do this or that. “
Knoxville: “The studio completely left us alone. Paramount left us alone; MPAA left us alone. Thank you Paramount and the MPAA.”
Tremaine: “It’s been unbelievably smooth. They never once asked to do another one. They never once approached us, so we just brought it to them.”
Johnny, what’s with you and bulls?
Knoxville: “They’re very cooperative when filming. They’ll give good footage every time.”
How did handle it when the bulls are coming straight at you?
Knoxville: “You’ve just got to stand there and they’ll do the rest.”
Tremaine: “We build these giant, I call them bull guns. Basically, you take a trailer and back it right up to the target and put the target right there and lift the gate up. It’s just going to go straight over and smoke him.”
Knoxville: “Target? We have feelings!”
Did you get gored?
Knoxville: “I got hit a couple of times.”
Page 2: John Waters and the Possibility of Jackass 3
