JACKASS 3D Press Junket Coverage: "Who's Michael Bay?"

Last Saturday, I had the chance to attend the press junket for Jackass 3D. The film screened for press the night before, and you can read my review HERE.

A few fellow journalists/bloggers and I had roundtable interviews with the cast. Below is some condensed info about what went down.

The first group consisted of Dave England, Ryan Dunn, "Danger" Ehren, Wee Man, and Preston Lacy. Ryan Dunn was the most easy-going of the group, and all of the guys offered up some candid answers about the process and their feelings about coming back for the third installment.

What goes through your minds when a new Jackass film is announced?

Ryan Dunn: For me, I was apprehensive. I didn't know if we'd get along...it'd been a while. I was unsure of the outcome. But literally, within a half hour of getting back together with everybody, I realized my assumptions were unfounded. We got back into the scheme of things, the engine never stopped running, and I actually had more fun on this movie than I did on any of the previous projects.

Danger Ehren: He's over there worried about whether we were going to be friends or not. I was worried like, "Am I going to die or end up in a wheelchair?"

Ryan Dunn: "...I was more worried about making a good movie than dying. We're all going to die, you know?"

Someone asks if the project was originally conceived in 3D. Ryan explains Paramount made that decision years ago.

Ryan: I didn't know how it was going to turn out with the 3D, either. But it really didn't change much. I mean, the opening and closing of the movie we wrote and choreographed specifically for the 3D cameras and that was great, but the rest of the movie we kind of just did what we usually do. The cameras are bigger, there's more people carrying them around, but other than that it was pretty much the same shooting technique as [the previous films].

Dave England: Right when we finished the second movie, that's when Wee Man invented the whole technology. He went back in his laboratory and worked on it for the next four years.

Who comes up with the various skits/gags/stunts?

Preston Lacy: It's a whole mixture, you know. It started off as just a group of us, but now it's every single person along the way. Even like, the camera guys, the food guys. The more we know each other, the easier that is.

How do you decide what gets cut?

Wee Man: We all kinda decide once something's been filmed. Even if we spend a little money to do something big and awesome, we could film something on the side of it pranking each other that turns out way better. Then in the long run, it turns out once we're putting the movie together what makes all of us laugh and what we think is super awesome. It's not just one person going "cut that, put this." It's everybody's input on it.

You guys are constantly pranking each other. Is there ever a feeling of paranoia on set?

ALL: All the time. Oh yeah.

Ryan Dunn: And it comes home with you, too. You can't trust any of them, because we're all assholes. We'll go that extra mile just to get one little laugh. So to this day, nobody from Paramount, MTV, or the production knows exactly where I live. I have a P.O. Box.

I ask if there is one stunt that the group collectively enjoys, or if everyone has their own favorites.

Ryan: We all lean toward certain ones. We all love the Poo Cocktail Supreme. (Seen in the trailer - Steve-O sits in a portable toilet full of feces and launched into the air via bungee cord.)

Danger: The opening's awesome. It's not a skit, but it sets the tone for the whole movie. The opening is artsy, for us.

The next group enters. It's Chris Pontius, Steve-O, and director Jeff Tremaine.

You guys have always said Jackass is gay friendly. Was sharing another man's sweat the next level of being gay friendly?

Steve-O: I'm glad you asked that. I feel like so much of the work that we've done has been a deliberate attack on homophobia. We've been trying to rid the world of homophobia for ten years now. Is drinking another man's sweat a part of that? I don't know. I think that one in particular was just an opportunity to vomit on the most expensive camera on the planet.

Chris Pontius: Now that I think about it, if somebody says "are you worried about this looking gay?"...I don't know many gay dudes that do this. I don't know ONE gay dude that does this.

The others were saying they were a bit apprehensive about getting back together and seeing if it would all work.

Steve-O: The word is tense. It's tense on the set...the [tension] reached a fever pitch on the day I got my nose broken.

Chris: That was too tense. It was hard to actually do the work we needed to do.

Steve-O: I was going around with this magnifying glass and burning people.

No animals were harmed, right?

Tremaine: No animals were harmed. I think we're finding the animals that really want to do this to people. Giving the animal an opportunity to do its natural behavior. A bull wants to kick a guy and in the rodeo, a lot of times they don't get their opportunity. We just give them a clean shot...that ram was a movie star. That thing was so happy.

The third group enters. It's Johnny Knoxville and Bam Margera.

Was it difficult to - how should I put this? - keep lowering the bar?

Johnny: No, it was easier to write for this movie than any of the others. We have a stack of ideas this high that we didn't even get to. Everyone just got real excited.

What keeps you motivated to keep doing these things?

Johnny: It's just so fun...me and my friends, something we created together, and we've been doing it for 10 years now. The cast and crew have all been together. You do something, it may be scary, but the fun that you have watching afterwards and everyone's laughing...

Bam: The way I look at it is, when we film for 8 months straight for a new Jackass movie, I know that I'm going to wind up with at least two broken bones. I don't know when it's going to happen, but you can't contemplate how you're going to fall and what's going to happen. It's easier to get up there and just do it.

Johnny: I'm more willing to do stunts now than when we first started the TV show.

Bam: We actually had to have an intervention from Tremaine and Spike Jonze to stop doing stunts because they had too many already.

Johnny: Just stop shooting. They got me in a big room and were like, "we're out of time. The editors are bottlenecked with footage, you have to stop."

Do you think it's become more of an artistic endeavor than just pee and poop?

Johnny: We don't intellectualize it that way. We just think of ideas that make ourselves laugh.

Bam: I'm on a lot of airplanes, sipping on red wine and thinking of stupid ideas and when I think of it, I want to make it happen.

I ask if the slow-motion explosion-filled closing sequence was a big "F You" to Michael Bay, saying "Hey, we can do this too!"

Johnny: No. We didn't even consider it.

Bam: Who's Michael Bay?

Johnny: He's a director. No, we were just trying to think of something. Our opening and closing sequences we make them into big productions. We just try to make it visual and funny stuff to do in 3D. Like Bam said.

Special thanks to Paramount for inviting GeekTyrant to the Jackass 3D press junket!