If you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough, and Jackass has been tough enough to endure over 25 years of the dumbest self-inflicted torment imaginable. At the centre of it all is the silver-tongued ringleader Johnny Knoxville, whose unfettered daring and unflappable charisma has led him to shepherd the physical and scatological havoc into comedic mayhem and box-office gold. As the franchise grew from amateur camcorder footage on MTV to higher-budget theatrical affairs, so did its audience, many of whom – this writer included – saw themselves in this bunch of screwballs who were dead set on making one another laugh.
But all good things must come to an end. Jackass: Best and Last caps off a quarter-century of escalating hijinks, a merging of the series’ most indelible moments with new footage that is just as crude and ludicrous as ever. With the final film crashing into cinemas on 26 June, we sat down with Knoxville as he took us through his influences, the wild onscreen feat that never was, and the unexpected poignance of taking Jackass for one last rodeo ride.
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LWLies: What was behind the decision to definitively make this the last Jackass movie?
Knoxville: The short, simple answer is that I feel like it’s time. After that last injury in Jackass Forever with the bull – Mr Pecker Wrecker – and the resulting concussion and brain haemorrhage and all that good stuff, I can no longer ride rockets or get smoked by bulls. Yet we wanted to go out on our own merits and do one last one for the fans, and for us. Jackass was born among friends and that’s how it will end.
Did you find that your injury on Forever affected what kind of role you played in this film?
The fact is that I can’t have any more concussions, so I can’t do certain things. And honestly, that felt very odd. It’s tough reconciling that. But then again, I feel like we were able to work to our other strengths and make a really great film. I don’t only do stunts. I write the stunts and pranks, and orchestrate the set along with [longtime director Jeff] Tremaine. It wasn’t that hard of a pivot.
That’s always been what Jackass has been at its core too – orchestrating that chaos and playing to that collective energy with the whole cast.
Yeah, it was always very chaotic, and that proved to be the same on this movie as well. It’s amazing we get any footage at all.
One of the more chaotic things going on in Best and Last is Larry the Robot. I’m so curious to hear about what it was like working with Larry on the set.
Larry’s not the smartest robot you ever met. I absolutely fell in love with Larry. It was enough of an idea to do another movie for. Sometimes we have those ideas where we have to do another movie just for them, and I really wanted to do another movie to introduce a humanoid-robot Jackass cast member. The comedian Adam Ray was the voice of it and he was amazing.
When did you decide to incorporate the “best of” material within the film?
That was there from the beginning. We thought that would be a good way to do this, because we do not plan [laughs]. Jackass does not plan. It’s a feeling. From the moment we got the feeling – with the 25th anniversary last year – and knowing we wanted to release [a new movie] this year, it seemed like the best way to go about this and get something in the theatres. I’m glad we did it this way, because it’s a strong movie. All our best bits combined with new bits just seemed like a good way to go out, for us and the fans.
How did you go about picking what clips from the past would make the cut?
Tremaine, Spike and I made big, individual lists of our favourites, and we took a look at ones we had in common. We just saw where the crossover was. We took most of it from that, but sometimes, one of us would go, ‘I really think we should put this in,’ and the other two would listen. We screen these a lot – then it’s just people reacting. With comedy, people either laugh or they don’t. If they’re a little more quiet on one bit, then maybe you re-edit it or maybe you drop it.
Where did your own inspirations in physical comedy originate? And how have they evolved over the years?
I got into stunts because I had a daughter on the way, and that was my best guess at being able to provide for my daughter – writing an article on self-defence equipment, and Tasering and stun-gun[ning] and shooting myself in the chest with a .38 while wearing a bulletproof vest. I did it for Big Brother magazine, Jeff had me film it and then he put it in his skateboard video. Then I just kept doing more and more things.
Of course, growing up in the ’70s, Evel Knievel was a huge influence on my perspective on physical comedy. But I think cartoons were the biggest influence, and I would say my father was my influence on pranks. Over the years, around Jackass Number Two, I started getting into Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, and that opened up a whole other side. But, stuntwise, I’d give it to Tom and Jerry.
