Initially, 3D wasn’t part of the plan. A third movie wasn’t part of the plan. Most of the jokes weren’t part of the plan.
In fact, there wasn’t ever really a plan.
But 10 years after the first episode of the TV show Jackass, which aired on MTV, the guys—mainly co-creators director Jeff Tremaine, executive producer Spike Jonze, actor Johnny Knoxville and cast members Steve “Steve-O” Glover, Jason “Wee Man” Acuna, Bam Margera, Chris Pontius, Ryan Dunn, Preston Lacy, Dave England and Ehren “Danger” McGhehey—have a third movie coming out, four years after the second. And it is, in fact, in 3D.
“I think most of us—we’re ready,” said Tremaine, who’s directed all of the group’s material, including Jackass 3D. “It was Knoxville kind of coming around to doing it again. And I think it takes about four years to recover from a Jackass movie. We’ve sort of proven that.”
For those who’ve never experienced Jackass in any of its forms, the basic concept involves the cast doing stunts of either a daredevil or dirty nature, all for comedy. And frequently, they hurt—production included hospital visits for nearly everyone.
Once the filmmakers decided to attempt a third film, Paramount suggested they try to make it in 3D, but it took Tremaine and the cast a while to come around to the idea.
“We were resistant at first because—the way we do things, we’re a real run-and-gun crew, and to get these big 3D cameras and the extra people that come with all that just scared us,” Tremaine said. “But once we did the tests, it proved that, ‘Just get these guys in front of whatever camera, they don’t care—it’s going to be good.’”
Pontius added that the technology was evolving as they shot the film. Included in their equipment was a Phantom camera—which Tremaine said was the most expensive 3D camera on the market—and that allowed for incredibly detailed slow-motion shots used for a precise instant-replay effect, particularly in the opening and closing sequences. Unlike the rest of the film, which was largely ad-libbed and evolved in the moment, the colossal bookending skits are filmed like a Hollywood movie.
Naturally, one of the biggest obstacles in creating an ensemble movie like this is getting everyone on-board.
“I wasn’t excited about it,” Dunn said. “I hadn’t been around these guys in a long time, I didn’t know if we’d mix together and I didn’t know if I had anything left in me because I’d been relaxing in Pennsylvania. But as soon as we started filming I was way wrong. I had more fun on this movie than any other one.”
This tug-of-war between reluctance and excitement seems to typify for them the filmmaking experience. Couterbalancing the creativity of the stunts and the fun goofing around on set is a constant sense of dread, tied to the pain that makes for a regular workday obstacle.
“I never warmed up to the stunts, never had the yearning to hurt myself,” Dunn said. “Just the yearning to make myself laugh.”
The stunts themselves are diverse and gratuitous, scatologically innovative and sometimes cued by the reactions of uninformed bystanders. But all of the punchlines come only at the expense of the the main group and their friends, which is where they draw the line in plotting skits.
“We don’t want to make anyone else look like a--holes,” Knoxville said. “We’ll make ourselves look like a--holes.”
As for the dread, a number of the guys cited it as an integral part of the process. This also explains why they said Steve-O turned in his top performances to date, because he was feeling that, and everything else, with a heightened level of awareness.
Sober now for two and a half years, this is the first Jackass production that Steve-O’s done since swearing off drugs and alcohol. Other than lending itself to jokes—when he drinks a “sweat cocktail” in the film, someone remarks on how it’s the first cocktail Steve-O’s had in years—the sobriety made him far more lucid, aware and subsequently filled with the full effect of the things he was doing.
“It was important to me to prove to myself and everyone else that sobriety hasn’t made me a lame, boring wimp, you know?” Steve-O said. “Being present and clear-headed, I was dreading doing this stuff so much more than ever before, but at the same time I was more eager than ever before to do it, so just that dynamic really lent itself to a good contribution on my part.”
Tremaine added that this dread is important and that “when there’s no consequence, no fear going into it, there’s no real emotional connection to it.”
If the film is any indication, the lack of substances didn’t stop Steve-O from doing anything, because after seeing what he does do there seems little that he wouldn’t. But when asked what he wouldn’t do, he smiled.
“Make an honest living,” he said.
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