anderswolleck

Those crazy Duke boys! They are always blowing up police cars, jumping over the ravine and making Boss Hoggs life a living hell. Well thats all in a days work for Johnny Knoxville. As Luke Duke in the new Dukes of Hazzard movie, Knoxville pulls off a charismatic and fun performance alongside Seann William Scott, Burt Reynolds, Jessica Simpson and all directed by Broken Lizards Jay Chandrasekhar.

Check out the official site for The Dukes of Hazzard

Daniel Robert Epstein: How many times did you flash Seann [William Scott] during the shoot?

Johnny Knoxville: As often as I could. These pants just kept falling off the whole film.

DRE: Seann said you threw a salt and pepper shaker at his balls in the beginning of the shoot and after that; he told you This is not going to happen.

JK: Actually that was the last night he went out with me and was one of the first nights of the film.

DRE: Even though this is a pretty nutty movie, did it feel normal to you?

JK: No the stunt guys are gnarly. They put it on the line everyday and it's such a different animal, the Jackass stunts and the movie stunts. In Jackass, I just had to fail. If I successfully did the stunts then it was like let's do it again. Let's do it until we don't get it. But for Dukes you had to train for about a month, at a couple of hours of day with guys who worked with Keanu Reeves in The Matrix and Seann was working his ass off training with Bobby Ore, the best stunt driver in the world for all the stuff he did. Four hours a day and he'd just be drenched in sweat. He got good too. There's one moment when we come out of Cooters garage at top speed and he makes the right hand turn and the brakes went out and he still managed to pull it back on the road. We would have flipped over if I had been at the wheel.

DRE: So you werent jealous over not getting to drive?

JK: No, he had the car, they gave me the girls. He can keep it!

DRE: There are times when youre acting and you have to be afraid in character. I remember in the Jackass movie when you had to be shot with the bean bag and you looked terrified beforehand. Is that the kind of thing you think about when you have to act afraid?

JK: What they didn't show in the Jackass movie was the two shots before that. One hit me on the leg and one goes by my elbow. If it had hit my elbow, it would've broken it in all kind of places. So the pacing back and forth was me angry and scared. Yeah, it was pretty terrifying. There's some horrible stuff that happened on Jackass and it had to do with pain physically than emotional or mental damage. We were shooting [Chris] Pontius for the cover of Playgirl. So we did this photo shoot in one of our producer's backyards and we put him in little cowboy boots, holding toy guns and a hat in this little swimming pool and he was oiled up. At the end of the shoot, he did something that you really only do when you're alone, in front of seven full grown men. It was horrible, absolutely horrible. Then he got up and chased everyone and tried to hug them. It doesn't get much more frightening than that.

DRE: What do you have to think about when you become aroused in [John Waters] A Dirty Shame?

JK: Same thing and I hate myself for it.

DRE: Were any of the actresses a little bit afraid in their scenes with you?

JK: No, I may be a little off center, but I do think of myself as a Southern gentleman and I can't do that stuff in front of girls. I have the Southern attitude of being polite in front of ladies. As my cousin said, Tip your hat to the ladies and put the punks through the wall. But it's usually me who's being put through the wall.

DRE: Did Joe Don Baker know who you were?

JK: I don't know. I kept trying to tell him my name, but he wasn't interested.

DRE: You mooned us in one of the outtakes.

JK: Yeah, it was a bright moon too!

DRE: How did that happen?

JK: The pants just keep falling off. We would use me to white balance the cameras.

DRE: Was that you being hauled around from the back of the truck?

JK: Yeah, that was me part of the time. But it was getting late and it was very cold and I would go up to Dan Bradley, who did the car stuff for The Bourne Supremacy. I said, Dan I'm having a ball but it's getting a little late. Do you think you can get me out of here by last call? He's like, Yeah. I'll get you out of here. I'll be damned if you didn't. It was a fun scene to shoot though. They tether you down to the safe and put you on the wires for when the safe went through the air. It was just one of those movies that was really fun to shoot with the bar fights and the driving. I say it's like a paid vacation. There's no acting involved. You just say yee haw a couple of times.

DRE: Were you a fan of Jay Chandrasekhars previous movies?

JK: I hadn't seen Super Troopers until I was getting ready to meet him. So I rented it and I was just so angry at myself for missing it the first time. It's a classic American comedy. I thought it was great.

DRE: Do you have other roles that you're looking at that involve a lot more stunts?

JK: I would love to do more action films. I have a film coming out in October called Daltry Calhoun that Quentin Tarantino executive produced. Katrina Holden Bronson wrote and directed a really beautiful script that we filmed in my home state of Tennessee. I saw the movie and I'm very excited by it. In the movie I had a baby with a girl 14 years ago and then she took off but now the mother's dying and I'm going to bond with my child for the first time. I have a nine year old girl so it meant a lot.

DRE: When are you going to show your nine year old Jackass?

JK: She's seen some of the stuff when Daddy doesn't get hurt and is not naughty. So I've shown her that two minute tape. She's a very smart girl, but I think I'll wait a couple of years.

DRE: Did you show her Dukes of Hazzard?

JK: Not yet but she can definitely see it. But stuff in Jackass she shouldn't see. Maybe I shouldn't have seen it.

DRE: I read that the jokes Willie Nelson tells in the movie are his own.

JK: They're great because he just tells them with such conviction. All day long he tells those jokes. Its just one right after another. I love that guy so much. You hear Willie do there was a man from Nantucket and he did, there was a man from Boston. Who knew there was a guy from Boston?

DRE: Steve-O told me that people will sometimes just run up to him at a bar and hit him with a bottle. I would imagine those things kind of happen to you.

JK: Yeah and what I do depends on if it's a girl or a guy. If a guy comes up and hits me, I go and hit him back as much as possible. But a girl, you just uncomfortably move on. After she takes a lighter or a cigarette and puts it out on your arm, you're like, Okay, thank you. Also I've had girls go, Oh I love your show then wham! Then they hit me right on the chin.

DRE: Ever regretted Jackass?

JK: Absolutely not. As weird as it is to say, I'm proud of Jackass. It got me here and doing what I'm doing and its just me and all my friends going around the world, being screw-ups and we got paid. Take something you're good at and make it your profession. Well, I'm really good at failing.

DRE: What do you think of Viva La Bam and Wildboyz?

JK: The guys are doing great. I went and shot with Bam and I shoot with Steve-O and Pontius a lot. I love their shows. I just went to Russia with the Wildboyz for a couple of weeks shooting over there. Boy, can they act ugly. Before that I went to Argentina with them. It's such a good luxury. Where are you guys going? Can you get me a ticket and I'll come with you? It's so good.

DRE: How far do you want to push the envelope in the films that you're making?

JK: Well, I got Jackass, the John Waters film and the Farrelly brothers comedy, The Ringer under my belt. So play me or trade me, man. I want to take some chances.

DRE: Would you do another Jackass?

JK: I do miss it. I used to say never, but sometimes, you don't know. The spirit's still there like when we go out and shoot and there's a wealth of ideas that we haven't done and sometimes, I'll still jot something down.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

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