Jackass 3D – people hurting themselves, larger than life!
Calling me from his hometown in California, Chris Pontius, better known by his myriad of Jackass alter egos including Party Boy, Bunny the Lifeguard and Chief Roberts, settles down to chat, both our sentences punctuated by nervous laughter at first, then with more frequency by the irreverent mirth of a grown up kid who holds in contempt anyone who might take life too seriously. He’s instantly charming in a run-of-the-mill kind of way, at ease with his status as Jackass pretty boy but “wary of being just that”.
It’s a slightly awkward moment in conversation for me when somewhat asks what I do, which is freelance writing and editing. It’s a dream job and when people say how lucky I am, I normally make the mistake of telling them I’m tired, and it’s hard work, which doesn’t really hold up when you get to do something that you love. The idea of ‘work’ is a fact often forgotten in the obviously creative industries- hence the need for such an adage- but it’s hardly news for the boys from Jackass, where hard work and sweat is an obvious part of the deal. Even though they are almost surprisingly precocious (not many daredevils have Spike Jonze working for them), the show was only started for a laugh, and they are as shocked as anyone else that three seasons later and on the eve of the Australian theatrical release of Jackass 3D, this is how they make their living.
The truth is, Chris never had a Plan B: “If you do, you only fall back on it. I remember one day I thought to myself, I wouldn’t ever want to be anywhere else. That’s how it is. It’s truly amazing that we do for work and what we do for fun is the same thing and that people seem to enjoy it.”
For an industry that arouses adrenaline, it’s curious that when talking about danger of the stunts that take place in his working life, Chris seems somewhat un-phased by the task at hand with a very team-oriented method of preparing for a scene. “I always want to gear myself up psychologically for whatever stunt I’m about to do,” he explains. “Our ideas have all changed as we get older and what would get us off a few years ago wouldn’t get us off now. Now things have to be pushed a lot further. Individually we’ll come up with an idea, and then you’ll tell one of the other guys and they’ll add an extra element to it. Everything evolves. It’s kind of like writing a song, but I wouldn’t say it’s quite that poetic.
“Like many people I used to always anticipate the future,” Chris continues when asked about the risks faced whilst filming. “Whenever I was doing a stunt I would always anticipate the next thing I was going to do and think about the other side of the hill. Eventually as I got older I realised that I didn’t want to think about the future. When you’re doing so many dangerous things, it teaches you to live in the present.“
This venture into 3D cinema was an experience Chris is glad to have taken part in. “It was amazing. There were so many expectations you want to fulfil, but after the first couple of days the whole crew knew it was going really well. I was blown away when I saw the film. It’s our best movie for sure. Watching in 3D is more sensory and you feel so much like you’re there. The super slow motion makes everything a thousand times funnier. When someone gets hit you see every ripple in the flesh. The camera we used didn’t even exist before this movie.
“In one of the first scenes that was filmed we played wiener baseball and naturally I was naked,” Chris continues in between laughter. “Knoxville pitched the ball to me, so I hit it with my wiener and Bam had to catch it with his mouth. That was the first scene where the technology blew me away. You can see everything. Absolutely everything.” Chris acknowledges that people don’t quite know what to think when they first meet him. The supercharged ball of energy with a thirst for the extreme either endears himself to people or makes them uncomfortable. “People always expect you to do something crazy. The most common situation is when someone will come say hi on the street with a slight nervousness and say, ‘you’re not going to do anything crazy are you?’ I usually just laugh, it’s been going on for so long that we’re pretty used to it and we know how to deal with it. We’re living in Jackass world and that’s what happens in Jackass world. At the very beginning of the TV series the guys and I would all be out at a bar or whatever and people would pour beer all over themselves thinking that we’d like that. That happens less now. It can be an emotional roller coaster at times but no one is going to cry for you.”
As for where Jackass is headed next, Chris reveals that apart from the straight to DVD release of Jackass 3.5 early next year, Jackass 3D is the last planned feature film “but we always say that! You know, times are so hard right now and there is so much going on around the world that no one wants to see violence in movies because there’s enough happening in the real world. People just want to laugh without intellectualising it. It couldn’t be a better time for the movie to come out. It’s exactly the kind of fun people need.”
As our conversation draws to an end I ask where he’s calling next for his remaining press interviews today, Chris reels off the names like cities from a travel brochure: “LA, Chicago, Auckland, Melbourne…” Like or loath what they do, the Jackass crew are great at it, and having only just re-emerged on the world stage they are already keeping one eye on the long (and dangerous) road ahead.
Jackass 3D opens officially on November 4.
