Playboy's 20Q: Johnny Knoxville

what does taking a sledgehammer to your nuts feel like? a day at the office for mtv's jackass

Don't bother to point and click. Just when technology threatened to turn shock and gross-out humor into a private affair, MTV throws Jackass in our faces. The cable network's top-rated show entrances adolescents and enrages parents the old-fashioned way, with idiotic stunts, inane pranks and hidden-camera segments. The Jackass recipe is concocted from effluvia and entrails, plus the occasional barbecue featuring unfilleted human sprawled across the grill. OK—there's a fire-retardant suit between him and the meat and the charcoal.

Jackass, obviously not fare for the faint of heart or stomach, is presided over by Johnny Knoxville (his driver's license identifies him as P.J. Clapp), who swears, "This is my attempt to emulate my father." The senior Clapp motivated employees of his Tennessee tire business with mock gunfights and taught his toddler son to welcome customers with a slug to the crotch.

Clapp fils is not sure he lives up to the old man's expectations. Not that he isn't trying. Knoxville was born to the prank, but his detour from a career selling radials took a few turns. He recalls an uncompleted novel, a checkered stint in journalism (he filed reports from the road that were actually written on his back porch), an acting course marked incomplete and hanging out with skateboarding pals. Lucky for him, Knoxville let his inner Dad blossom: He tested self-defense equipment on himself, he sat in a portable toilet that was then overturned by a forklift. He strapped on an artificial penis for a day, and so forth. Friends with video cameras faithfully recorded these antics, which caught the attention of director Spike Jonze. Jonze shaped the tapes into a cassette that duly impressed the suits at MTV. The corporate decision to augment tame fare such as Total Request Live and The Real World with Jackass was a no-brainer—in the virtual sense of the term. Knoxville and his highly skilled troupe of jackasses premiered on the network last fall and the show has been enthusiastically renewed.

Contributing Editor Warren Kalbacker caught up with Knoxville in the lush farm country of southeastern Pennsylvania. "I had been warned that he'd tried his hand at bovine gynecology that afternoon," Kalbacker reports. "And I know what a barnyard smells like. So I was delighted to meet a fastidiously groomed man."

1

[Q] Playboy: Your real name is P.J. Clapp. The Johnny Knoxville moniker suggests that you come from Tennessee.

[A] Knoxville: South Knoxville. West Knoxville is the affluent area, and I definitely wasn't from there. East Knoxville is a little more ghetto. South Knoxville is very working class. I was going to use Johnny Newark, but it doesn't roll off the tongue as well. Knoxville has a better ring to it. I'm a huge fan of all the Johnnies: Johnny Cash, Johnny Thunders, Johnny Rotten. Everyone in my family has a host of names. It's a Southern thing. My nieces' names are Cissy, Billie and Flipper, and we have Little Ronnie, who's also Pork Chop. Then there's Dusty. There's also Crusty and the Dust Man.

2

[Q] Playboy: Did you take to performing weird stunts as compensation for not being able to pick up girls?

[A] Knoxville: I never had that problem. I grew up with two sisters—eight and 10 years older—and they and their friends were constantly around me. I always had a wonderful relationship with women. I'm not compensating for anything. I really have no excuse for the things I do. I'm married, and my wife is supportive, but I once made the mistake of telling her that I was testing self-defense equipment. I was going to pepper spray, stun gun and Taser myself, and our kid was two at the time. I went to the desert in a bulletproof vest and shot myself. It was really tense around the house for the couple of weeks leading up to it, so I never again made the mistake of telling her what I do. Now when I leave for work in the morning, I don't say anything about what's going to happen that day. She will watch footage after the fact and think it's funny, but she'll be happy when—if—I ever stop doing this.

3

[Q] Playboy: Now that you've tested body armor, can you make recommendations for those of us who may have to go into harm's way?

[A] Knoxville: Save up for a good vest. At the time I didn't have a lot of money, so I had to buy the cheapest vest made, which was like $300, and it only takes a certain type of gun and bullet—up to a nine millimeter. You want to go to the $500 or $600 range for a proper vest. For that price you can get one that will take a .44. And, yes, you can get an armor codpiece. It's actually great eveningwear for going out on the town, frolicking with your friends.

4

[Q] Playboy: Are your performances a cry for help or is your serotonin level higher or lower than normal?

[A] Knoxville: Oddly enough, I enjoy it all. I created a show with two friends and we hired all our other friends, and it's a nerve-racking business. There is probably some chemical reaction that causes me to act in this manner, but maybe it's the adrenaline rush or the rush of eliciting laughter when we actually complete something. I would think it's more the latter. I would always watch my old man, how he would command a room and how everyone would laugh. This is my poor attempt to emulate my father.

5

[Q] Playboy: As the son of a tire salesman, can you offer tips on how to negotiate a good deal on our next set of radials?

[A] Knoxville: We'll call Fat Phil and see what we can wrench out of him. He sells new and used tires. Dad's nickname is Fat Phil From Knoxville, the Round Man with the Square Deal. He owns the tire company, and it has also served as his stage, where he would prank his employees constantly and wreak havoc on most who entered there. Boxcar—Woodrow Wilson Johnson Jr.—would regroove the used tires, and when I was five or six, Dad would let me reblack the tires to make them look new. I would make a big mess, but it was a lot of fun hanging out with all those characters, the people who worked for my father: Big Sam, Ass-Kicking Robert, Big George and a guy named Superdick. They called him SD. He was harelipped, but he apparently more than made up for it with his endowment. It seems I've surrounded myself with those characters in my own life now.

6

[Q] Playboy: Were the citizens of Tennessee relieved when you headed to the West Coast?

[A] Knoxville: They were very supportive of me when I moved out to Los Angeles, but they were just waiting for me to make the move and then come back. For the first five or six years my mom and dad kept my room exactly as I had left it. My father and I packed my belongings into this Suzuki Samurai and drove for three days: Motel 6s and truck-stop food—casseroles with Cheez-Its crumbled on top. We almost perished around Kingman, Arizona. A big piece of construction equipment rolled out into the middle of the interstate, and we had to veer off onto the grass. Dad actually flew out and drove back to Tennessee with me a couple months later when I ran out of dough. I worked for a few months to make money and, once again, he drove out to LA with me. We made the trip three times. God bless him for that.

7

[Q] Playboy: Can you set the stunt or prank in the larger context of history and culture?

[A] Knoxville: There was a German who lived around the 1300s—Till Eulenspiegel. I was quite a fan of his growing up. I don't know if you'd call him a performance artist. I guess he was more of a prankster. Eulenspiegel was not very popular in Knoxville. There's a Belgian named Noel Godin, a performance artist who pies everyone in the face. He's still doing it. Then there was Chris Burden in the Seventies, who had someone shoot him in the arm with a .22. He also lay down in an intersection underneath a tarp in midday traffic. And, yes, I was a fan of Candid Camera. We're trying to take all this to a higher intensity.

8

[Q] Playboy: Jackass doesn't strike us as the most original title. Couldn't you have come up with something a little more creative?

[A] Knoxville: Fuckstick. It's a perfect fit. We went through a host of names, not many of which I can recall, after reviewing the tape and the show. We actually tried to clear Fuckstick, but MTV didn't think it was very amusing.

9

[Q] Playboy: Jackass posts the usual disclaimers, warning young people not to try outrageous stunts at home. Would you care to offer another warning?

[A] Knoxville: Yes. We don't take auditions or submissions. We can't. I try to emphasize at every point: Do not try what we do at home. We're taking the hits for the audience. It might look alluring, but there are actually a lot of serious consequences. You're just going to get hurt and we're going to get canceled. As a child I was always breaking bones, just because I was clumsy. I broke my ankles a couple of times apiece, broke my hands, broke my arms a couple, three times. I sprained my ankle just last June. A few sprains from the show, ankles and back, but that's about it, nothing too bad. McGhehey just chipped his tooth doing a stunt—which was good for the show. But it loses its charm if there are any fatalities or incapacitations.

10

[Q] Playboy: Do you have comprehensive insurance and an exceptionally understanding HMO?

[A] Knoxville: We pay a pretty nickel for our insurance. And we have a lot of prepaid legal for the show.

11

[Q] Playboy: We understand you once umpired Little League baseball. What's the secret to making a few hundred calls per game?

[A] Knoxville: I had a lot of blown calls. My strike zone was pretty wide because I was a pitcher in high school. I was a little biased toward the pitchers. I made the hitters be aggressive at the plate, that's for sure. It was the greatest job I ever had. I umpired for eight-and nine-year-olds in the Valley. I loved the kids, so maybe that made me a better umpire. When I first got to LA I was waiting tables and bartending for a nickel. About five years later I got an agent and did commercials for Mountain Dew, Coors Light and ESPN. I was in a Taco Bell commercial with the little Chihuahua. We were eating nachos on a boat, and the dog would ride up to us on this mini gondola. Between shots I would have to feed the dog chicken as a reward. That's my story about the Chihuahua. It was pretty embarrassing. I was never called upon to drop the chalupa. Maybe in the shower with the boys.

12

[Q] Playboy: You attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts—alumni include Jason Robards and Robert Redford. Tell us about your training in classic theater.

[A] Knoxville: The American Academy of Dramatic Arts was my excuse to head west. I moved to Los Angeles—actually, Arcadia. Living was a bit cheaper in Arcadia. I went to this six-week program at the academy. After the first three weeks, it seemed to me that the teachers were just frustrated actors and musicians. I don't know how much they really brought to the table. I didn't go back after the third week. My parents called the school to see how I was doing, and they were told I'd quit. They were less than enthusiastic. They paid all that money and didn't get it back, but I guess that's all part of growing up. Actually, I never did a lot of theater. There's not much Stanislaysky can do for you when you're hitting your chest with a Taser. But I have been working on films lately, and I want to expand that. Ten years from now? Oh my God. I'll probably be sitting on the front porch with a shotgun, because my daughter will be 15 then. I'm so terrified of that day.

13

[Q] Playboy: In a stunt that was called the Poo Cocktail, you locked yourself in a portable toilet and allowed it to be overturned, showering you with human waste. Given your use of an infantile term for feces, have your parents ever mentioned difficulties with your toilet training or other aspects of your upbringing that might indicate arrested development?

[A] Knoxville: It just adds up to funny every time you say it, so we stuck with it. But please don't read too deeply into underlying meanings of the show and what we do. It's truly just for kicks. Today I artificially inseminated a cow. You have to stick your hand up the (continued on page 176)Johnny Knoxville(continued from page 140) cow's rectum and grab its cervix. And I injected sperm into its vagina. Bovine love. I wore a plastic sleeve, but that was the first and will be the last time I artificially inseminate a cow. It had an accident on my hand while I was inseminating it. I'm a little germphobic, believe it or not. I'm a big washer of the hands, and I've been in the ocean maybe two times in the past 10 years because I have a great fear of sewage runoff and of stepping on a syringe. I confront a lot of my greatest fears and try to overcome them. I received the proper shots before the poo cocktail. We had antibacterial soaps on the set that day. Palmolive dishwashing liquid is a little abrasive, but it does the trick. Roll around in that for two to three hours and then roll around in it with someone else for two to three hours.

14

[Q] Playboy: You once strapped on a dildo and went about the activities of daily life in a deliberately unselfconscious manner. Does Johnny Knoxville need that kind of enhancement?

[A] Knoxville: I don't need to be enhanced or augmented. I just didn't have the endurance to keep it up for eight hours straight while we were filming. I'm not Sting, you know. We shot it over a couple days. If you can keep it up that long, you should be in films.

15

[Q] Playboy: In one episode of Jackass, a cast member disrupted a golf foursome. Some who find humor in penis enhancement and close fecal encounters might consider such an act the ultimate breach of taste and decorum.

[A] Knoxville: Yes. Yesterday he was out on the course blowing foghorns on people's backswings. He actually shit in the hole on the 18th green. It's such a proper sport, and some people take it a little too seriously. Golfing is for people too fat to water-ski.

16

[Q] Playboy: Skateboarding has figured in your journey to Jackass prominence. Can you negotiate a half pipe with ease?

[A] Knoxville: The skateboard world has been very good to me. My proficiency level is low. I do a lot of things poorly. When I was 13 or 14 I skateboarded down the hill we lived on and broke my ankle. My father got angry and threw my skateboard into the woods. I didn't go back to it for a number of years. I have a skateboard in my car, but I rarely ride it. For the Jackass pilot they tried to teach me how to ollie, which is just jumping. But I was even more unsuccessful at that than I had been at the downhill slalom that broke my ankle. Skateboarding is bigger than ever right now. You can make a lot of money as a professional skateboarder. They're the rock stars of the day. They have competitions, but it's the contracts they make money on. Shoe companies pay them. Clothing companies pay them. They have their own boards and they get money from that. It's not unusual to make six figures as a professional skateboarder. You go from town to town doing demos. By the time you're 30 you're winding down, much like any athlete. Then you hope you can make the transition into a jackass.

17

[Q] Playboy: People of all ages race around on Razor scooters. Do you care to predict the life of that fad?

[A] Knoxville: It will go the route of the hula hoop and Rubik's Cube. It will be collecting dust in your closet in two or three years.

18

[Q] Playboy: Most pranksters eventually turn out in lingerie. Do you draw the line at something frilly?

[A] Knoxville: I'm not opposed to dressing up in lingerie. I don't do it, although when I was young half my closet was filled with women's clothes, because my mother's closet ran over into mine. Maybe I would sneak a nice sweater or a shirt now and then, a little angora. But we haven't dressed in drag for any of the skits on the show, just a lot of G-strings and male nudity. We did a stunt that we called Body in the Trunk with Pontius, who has the best ass on television right now. We filmed a stunt where we dueled with paint balls and, of course, he was in a G-string and assless chaps, which proved to be his undoing because he took one in the rear that ended the battle. I've never worn a G-string.

19

[Q] Playboy: Do jackasses have groupies?

[A] Knoxville: Jackasses have groupies, but I'm so busy working that I don't get to go out that much. And that's good, because you don't want to get into a situation where someone might throw herself at you. Things have gotten odd lately with all this newfound notoriety. There's a big upside, but you also don't get to see your loved ones as much. It has put a strain on my relationship with my wife. We can't communicate as well, and we're trying to adjust and make sense of all the craziness in our life. I'm sure we'll fight through it. Just have to keep things in perspective. You can't take all this very seriously.

20

[Q] Playboy: Do you have a high tolerance for pain?

[A] Knoxville: Yes. We did a test with cups, exactly what a catcher wears for baseball. I put the cup on the outside of my pants, and we had six third graders kick me in the crotch as hard as they could. From there we moved to a tennis ball machine, set at its highest power, shooting me point-blank in the cup with tennis balls. After that we affixed a sledgehammer to a rope, pulled it up to head height, dropped it and let it strike me in the cup. I took a paint ball to the cup, and then we went up three stories with an eight ball and dropped it down on the cup. That whole cup test was a miserable experience. I hope it won't affect my chances of having more offspring. Oh, I also took a croquet ball to the crotch. This was all done in a period of about an hour, and there was a little bit of swelling afterward. Obviously, my level of odd is a little higher than everyone else's, so I don't look at what I do as that crazy. If I were to stop to think about what I do, I probably would reassess the situation and go fishing.

It's such a proper sport, and some people take it a little too seriously. Golfing is for people too fat to water-ski.