Yes, you heard right. The cast of Jackass (most of them anyway) are headed Down Under for their ‘Filthy Seppo Tour’, and Dazz Hassan caught up with a rather subdued Chris Pontius to talk about the show, the cast, their antics and more.
If you’ve never seen Jackass, it’s a bunch of skate buddies that film themselves doing pranks and crazy stunts. Definitely not for the faint-hearted, as various body parts…..and fluids are often employed in the skits. Chris Pontius a.k.a ‘Party Boy’ is known for stripping down to a G-String, bowtie and cuffs and dancing anywhere he feels the need to party. It’s great to watch the reactions of the unsuspecting punters when Party Boy kicks in!
Chris is a huge fan of Australia, and shared his previous experiences here well before he was famous. “In my early 20’s I went to Australia, way before Jackass, and travelled around a few months. I had a great time and even got arrested once for running amok. It was all cool, and I won the hearts of the Police officers. It wouldn’t have turned out so well in the States. We came back several times for Wild Boyz, and I had a great time in SA. We’re doing small towns, everywhere this time.”
Meeting through their connections within the skateboarding community, the franchise we know as Jackass was quite accidental in its origins. “Yea, skating really brought us together. I was a skater years ago & Jason ‘Wee Man’ Acuna became involved, it sort of attracted all the misfits from the skate boarding world. We made videos and it just evolved from crazy articles, to filming stuff, then tours. It was skate videos with silly stuff in between. Spike Jonze connected us with the right people and it eventually turned into the TV show. People could just relate to it.” The rest is history!
For fans, some of the stunts the guys do look awfully painful, and I ask Pontius if they are always ‘on’, or ready to dish out punishment to their unexpected buddies. “When we’re filming it’s definitely like that. You can’t do it day after day, in normal life. But when we’re in filming mode it’s on. If there’s a chance to get good footage then we’ll have a go. You just have to take it. Our rule is that it’s mainly us guys as the butt of the joke. It’s complete self-deprecation. Others are always welcome to join in though.”
Pontius has never been shy about baring his all on screen, and some of his moments include dressing his (ahem), penis as a puppet and teasing a snake to bite it among other equally daring feats. But surely, as we saw with Steve-O refusing to insert a toy car into his anus in one of the Jackass films, some things must be off limits with even these guys? “My penis has never been off limits (laughs). All those sketches involving my penis were all filmed in one day (the snake, mouse trap, etc.). They even put a balsa wood penis over mine and et a woodpecker have ago at it- the woodpecker made it through the wood and penetrated.” Pontius reveals much more about his privates during our interview, the details of which I’ll spare from our avid readers J
Given that all Jackass films have tried (and succeeded) to outdo each other in their extremity, I ask how the cast come up with bigger and better things each time. “It’s natural evolution, we’re trying to make ourselves last firstly, and the bar is always raising. By the end of the last jackass we had so many unused ideas, there’s no limit to it really.”
Pontius reflects on his previous Australian experiences. He’s yet to be bitten by a Great White Shark but wants a scar to match Rodney Fox’s, because it’d be a cool talking point. He’s been attacked by Cassowary’s, and deliberately stung by Scorpions on his tongue. “Oz was the first place I was stung by a scorpion. There are different types and I wondered- how does the venom taste? I got stung and my legs weren’t co-operating with my brain in a partial paralysis. Venom sucks! That’s one of the things I learned in Australia!”
Thankfully there won’t be any scorpions or live animals in the Filthy Seppo Tour that will feature Pontius, Jason ‘Wee Man’ Acuna, Preston Lacy and Dave England, and it will be more of a tell all on the Jackass phenomenon with the odd prank thrown in. “It’s part storytelling, part stunts, some audience involvement, there’s naked ladies with Wee Man’s bit. We have a part where audience members take part, I don’t want to give anything away but we can’t do what we wanted to do with cattle prods or stun guns.” Thank God for that!
As for the character of Party Boy, Pontius shares the origins of the guy ‘whose fortune is to party.’ (See here) “Party Boy came about when we were in England & a friend found the thong in a thrift store, someone gave me cufflinks and a bow tie and I had this idea to do it. I knew the Party Boy name was going to haunt me for life and I was kinda nervous having to lap dance on random dudes. But I realised I’m in control here because nobody wants a near naked dude grinding on them. Party Boy has all the power!” Surprisingly enough, he has thus far escaped serious retribution from unsuspecting punters although there was the incident with the humourless Japanese Rockabillies that made the deleted scenes reel. “They’re the only ones that pushed Party Boy- I’m a lover not a fighter.”
For those familiar with the Jackass team, they come across as a dysfunctional unit with an outrageous sense of humour. They occasionally argue & disagree, but are mostly harmonious and have a great relationship and sense of family. This was evident when one of the cast, Ryan Dunn, was tragically killed in 2011. Pontius takes this seriously, and has a strong message about driving recklessly. “It took a long time for that to be real, it didn’t feel like he was gone. I had a hard time discussing until I went to the cemetery, then it felt real. We all miss him tremendously and I enjoyed watching his stuff on camera more than anybody. Unfortunately he drove like a race car driver, as lots of boys like to. It’s a lesson that he should have learned already having previously been in accidents. It’s something that is always going to happen if you drive that way. He was driving a Porsche with too much power. I miss and love him so much but he unfortunately drove that way. The world’s at a loss for losing him and he’d always want us to carry the torch.”
For all his antics, shenanigans, and tomfoolery, Chris Pontius is a cool-headed, sensible guy who is able to see things through clear eyes. I’ve throughly enjoyed our chat and am impressed at how articulate and sensitive he really is when not sporting a G-string and bowtie. Still though, he is funny as hell and loves to party!
Really looking forward to this show-Saturday 22 October at HQ Adelaide!
http://hq.oztix.com.au/default.aspx?Event=66756
By Dazz Hassan
@DazzHassan
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