For anyone who enjoys the simple pleasure of watching a grown man get kicked in the groin and covered in fecal matter until he vomits, there is no movie more highly anticipated than Jackass 3D.
This celebration of stupidity has been a pop culture institution for a decade, spanning a successful TV series and three movies.
“By chance we ended up with a really extraordinary group of idiots,” Jackass creator/director Jeff Tremaine told Metro during a trip to Toronto with Johnny Knoxville. “If you had told us 10 years ago we would make a 3D movie, we’d probably laugh in your face. I’m shocked by the success to this day. I pinch myself and laugh.”
The legion of critics who despise the group’s undying love of bathroom humour and pain may never understand it, but there is an innocent joy to their slapstick antics that isn’t far removed from The Three Stooges.
“It’s a really primal type of funny,” claimed Johnny Knoxville, who has become a star through the series and racked up a laundry list of injuries. “I’ve been injured so much and some of them are permanent,” laughed Knoxville. “On this movie I got a concussion, whiplash, stitches, and a dislocated shoulder. The worst was a few years ago when I broke my penis trying to backflip a motorcycle. I still have to use a catheter twice a day.”
At this point it seems like it would be difficult to top themselves, but Tremaine was quick to admit that’s never a problem.
“It’s gotten so difficult to make each other laugh that we naturally go to another level just from being together for this long.”
As to whether or not the aging performers have a retirement plan in mind to nurse all their compounded injuries, Knoxville claimed, “Nah, I never think like that. The Three Stooges did it till they were 60.”
Stunts
Knoxville And Tremaine on turning down Jackass stunts
JK: “We’re all willing to do the stunts. The only time that we won’t do a stunt is if the spirit isn’t right. Everyone has to feel like, ‘OK, this is going to suck, but we’re going to do it.’ But if there’s a negative vibe going around the set, we’ll say ‘OK, let’s not do that stunt right now.
JT: And that’s extremely rare. When we get the guys together, it’s usually gold.
JK: “Wrangling the guys is tough. Pontius has his own personal wrangler. … We were shooting the 3-D test … and right in the middle of the scene Pontius just walked out. We were like, ‘Where are you going?’ He just said, ‘I’m going to buy some chewing tobacco.’ So we have someone with him all the time now.”
