WALKING TALL Q&A with JOHNNY KNOXVILLE

So Johnny. You’re known from your JACKASS days for stunts like crashing into walls, shooting yourself with a gun, putting live leeches on your face and swimming in shit – all the while reveling in the deep discomfort. The question is, why? Call it dimwitted optimism. Man, I've done some very naughty things. In your latest movie, WALKING TALL, you and The Rock become sheriffs who bust up bad guys. Were the WALKING TALL stunts harder than the JACKASS stunts? Oh this was a lot easier! On JACKASS, we did it for real. In WALKING TALL, it was all make-believe. But it was a little difficult in its own way. In the past, I’ve had to fail doing stunts. In this, I had to actually succeed. The stuntmen walked me through and showed me how to do it. So until this point in your life, you could say your aim was always to fail? Yeah – that’s been the idea so far in my life. There’s a scene in WALKING TALL where you get smash tackled into the ground in a football match. Did that hurt? I got the wind knocked out of me a couple of times but it wasn’t too bad compared to going to the hospital or anything. So no broken bones this time around? No, no. It was all gravy, compared to my earlier work. It’s all uphill from there, man! Are you any good at sports generally? I’m good at jumping into bushes. I played baseball and football growing up. I was decent at baseball, alright at football. I like sports but I am kind of uncoordinated. Working on WALKING TALL must have been boring for you, then… No, it’s fun but a different kind of fun. It wasn’t boring. But it wasn’t traveling around the world with my mates. It was still fun. I mean I get to hang out in Vancouver for the summer. Come on! So did they send the stuntman home? No, because I need a stuntman. During rehearsal, they walked me through everything and showed me how to do it. Without them, I would have looked even worse than I did. What was it like working with The Rock? He was a cool guy. I’d heard he was nice but when I showed up he was easy going, funny, seems like a guy you grew up with. There’s no pretence bullshit about him, he’s cool. Did you get him to show you some wrestling moves? I’m not much of a wrestler. He was a big boy. We didn’t get to talk much wrestling. But we got to hang out in Vancouver for the summer. Men grappling was the least of our concerns. In one WALKING TALL scene, you destroy a truck with a chainsaw and sledgehammer. That must have been fun… Yeah, man. That was fun. I would turn up on set and say, “Right, what are we doing today?” That’s because I don’t read the script. And they hand me a chainsaw and say, “Destroy this truck.” I’m like, “Sure thing. I can do that.” And I did. Do you have more fun with JACKASS or making movies? Well, compared to digging ditches, they’re all great, man. Digging ditches is what I’m qualified to be doing. But JACKASS was great. It was just me and my friends. I don’t think anything will ever eclipse the fun of JACKASS for me. But making movies is a whole different type of fun. What’s that tattoo you’ve got on your arm? It’s an American punk band called The Germs. That was their symbol. I have a bunch of bad tattoos. But none worse than this! [Shows off a massive Leon Spinks tattoo on his right shoulder] I just got it. I got it in Austin about ten days ago. It says LEON and it’s a picture of the former heavyweight boxer Leon Spinks. Yeah, good thinking, huh? Was the tattoo something you’d planned for a long time? No, no! I thought of it the night before I got it. I was sitting in a bar, thinking “I should get a tattoo of Leon Spinks on my arm!” I wrote, “Get a tattoo of Leon Spinks tomorrow on your left bicep.” I was pretty well oiled that night. And I woke up and I thought, “Wow! That’s an awesome idea!” I just wish the guy that thought of it could talk to the guy who has to do it. They are two different people. So what’s your interest in Leon Spinks? Was it his outlandish lifestyle? Well, there wasn’t one! [Laughs] That’s the damndest thing about it! I just had a vision! You must have been pretty drunk? Oh yeah… But I wasn’t drunk when I got it. I don’t know why I got it. Did it hurt? No. It just hurt for a second. Here [shows tattoo on inside of wrist] it hurts. Continued on page 2

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