Interview w/The Rock, Johnny Knoxville, and Ashley Scott
March 28, 2004


Okay, we're back with another News from the Junket Circuit, chatting it up with The Rock, Johnny Knoxville and actress Ashley Scott. Johnny Knoxville pretty much talked about everything else he's doing in life besides Walking Tall, so he's last as he's doing a zillion things next (including acting, but also involving his new record label). First up, we've got the lovely Ashley Scott who plays Chris Vaughn's (The Rock) love interest, Deni in the movie whose next film finds her heading underwater with director John Stockwell...

Ashley: I just finished a movie called Into the Blue with Paul Walker and Jessica Alba - I did Dark Angel with her - and Scotty Caan and Josh Brolin.

Q: You filmed that somewhere really horrible, right?

Ashley: Yeah, it was awful! It was a terrible, cold stormy winter in Nassau, Bahamas. It was awesome! It was really great. I learned how to scuba dive and got certified and swam with sharks. I'm petrified of sharks, so it really helped me conquer that. I play a character named Amanda and she's just a tricky little trickster. She's a lot of fun - a totally crazy party girl that is sneaky. It was really good and was a lot of fun

Q: Do you strip in that movie [Ashley plays a stripper in Walking Tall]?

Ashley: I might as well be. I run around in a bikini.

Q: No making out with Paul Walker, I take it.

Ashley: Nope, Scotty Caan!

Next, we chatted with the man himself, The Rock aka Dwayne Johnson. I'd met Rock once before on the Santa Monica beach for a Mummy Returns DVD event and he was a great interview - something I attributed to the fact that he was still new at doing neverending press. Wrong-o. He was just as cool at the Walking Tall junket as he was then. Great interview, great guy.

Q: Is Be Cool a real departure for you? You play a gay, country singer...

Rock: A gay villain? Yeah. It's so funny because Elmore Leonard wrote it and when he wrote it in the original draft, it's 'Chili Palmer - who's John Travolta's character - looks across the room and he sees Elliot Wilhelm, Samoan, 30, can raise one eyebrow. Trying to act. Wants to be the real thing. And is gay.' I was like, 'Wow, that's interesting!' I didn't actually speak to Elmore, but according to those who talked to him, he's like, 'Oh, no - I wrote that based on The Rock. Not necessarily the gay part, but based on him - never ever thinking he would play the role.' Before you know, here I am playing the role.

Q: How's that experience been?

Rock: Oh, it's been fantastic. I get the chance to work with John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Vince Vaughn - it's great.

Q: It's also not an action role, right?

Rock: Yeah, there's no action in the movie. It's fantastic because again, you get to test your comedic timing off some really, really good actors. It's a blast.

Q: Is it a way for audiences to see beyond the action stuff?

Rock: Yeah, for sure. I took the role because it was a great opportunity to work with great actors, take a role that you wouldn't necessarily expect me to play - being a bad guy, being gay, poking fun at myself and raising my eyebrow to John Travolta like, 'I got talent!' It's a lot of fun.

Q: You also physically transform yourself...

Rock: That was important, too, to take a role like this and try to transform myself as best as I possibly could. Afro, the goatee is a lot thicker.

Q: Do you know when you start Spyhunter?

Rock: Yeah, you bet - in July. Can't wait. I was just up in the room doing an awesome, secretive meeting. We took out all the concepts and what it looks like - the car. It's a movie based off a videogame. It's with Universal and the videogame is about a hunter of spies, hence the title. The car - it's this awesome car. GM is making us this amazing car that breaks off into a boat into a three-wheeler into a motorcycle. It's really incredible.

Later, he brought up his passion project - King Kamehameha...

Rock: When I do King Kamehameha, which is based on the story of the King of Hawaii, he was like Braveheart - only worse in terms of his viciousness and his temperament.

Q: When is that happening? Rock: Hopefully, probably, maybe 2005. There's no rush for that for me. As an actor, I just want to be ready. The script is ready and they're just working on it and tweaking it and making it right, so there's no rush.

Q: Are you developing anything else at the moment?

Rock: There's a comedy that I'm excited about that I might do after Spyhunter called Skiptracer and it's from the writer of Big Daddy, Stevie Franks. It's very, very funny. It's an action-comedy with a lot of comedy. It's a two-hander, so it's a buddy movie and my buddy is a nine year-old girl.

Q: Do you know who they're going to cast in that?

Rock: I don't know. They were talking about Keisha Castle-Hughes because we're of the same descent, but I think she's a little older.

Q: Is the 'Theme from Peter Gunn' going to be a part of the Spyhunter movie?

Rock: Yeah, it has to be. A version of it - a contemporary version. But it's great.

Q: Is Spyhunter a more serious role?

Rock: It's like Mission: Impossible was for Tom Cruise. Like that and it is smartly written.

Q: A franchise-starter?

Rock: It's a possibility. Q: Are you producing Kamehameha or how did that ball get rolling?

Rock: I bought the...

Q: The rights?

Rock: No, they already had the rights at Columbia, but they weren't going to do anything with it. I don't know why, but it's really an amazing story that hasn't been told - probably because they haven't found the right guy who can pull it off. Not just acting, but who could be believable as Kamehameha. That would be like what Ali was to Will Smith for me. Not that I'm looking to get nominated, but that project that you hold.

Q: Who'd direct that?

Rock: I don't know. Somebody awesome.

Q: You have anybody in mind?

Rock: I mean, oh, sure. Steven Spielberg! I don't know. There are many.

Finally, we have the chatty Johnny Knoxville who plays Vaughn's best friend, Ray in Walking Tall.

Q: What is more challenging - doing [Walking Tall] or working with the Farrelly Brothers on The Ringer?

Johnny: The Farrelly Brothers...yeah, The Ringer. That was one of the coolest experiences of my life. I don't know if you know the premise, but I fake like I'm mentally challenged and enter the Special Olympics because I have to pay off this guy's surgery. My uncle has to pay off his bookies, so he convinces me to do it, which on the surface sounds like it could be mean-spirited, but it's not because all the mean stuff happens to me. It's a Farrelly Brothers film, so it's really sweet and we cast real mentally-challenged actors in the roles and they're brilliant.

Q: How do you play a mentally challenged character who isn't really mentally challenged?

Johnny: Yeah, it was tough because we had to find a balance where it wasn't hard to watch. You don't want to watch someone - over-the-top - for an hour and a half, so we had to make it subtle and I think we did. Apparently, they had a screening last night and it went great, so I'm very happy about that one - and the John Waters film I did called A Dirty Shame.

Q: How is that?

Johnny: It's like working with one of your heroes. He invited me to lunch about two and a half years ago and said he's writing this film and he's writing the character for me and would I be interested? Then he pulled out all these fetish mags and goes, 'By the way - this is what it's about.'

Q: He put you in that because he saw you in a fetish mag?

Johnny: No, no, no - the movie is based on...(laughs) it's no based on anything. It's about a town full of sexual deviants and they battle the neuters for control of the town and I play the head sexual deviant.

Q: Perfect.

Johnny: Yeah - perfect! It's one of the naughtiest and funniest things in years and he's so sweet and brilliant. You go to his house and there are books stacked eight to ten in each chair - there's no place to sit down - just because he reads constantly.

Q: What's your fetish in the movie?

Johnny: My thing is I go down on every girl in town.

Q: This was typecasting, then...

Johnny: Yeah, yeah - right. Oh, you mean in the movie??? Yeah, so that was my thing...(keeps laughing). Sorry ladies and half the men.

Q: How did you find Waters as a director? I don't think you'd usually find 'Johnny Knoxville' in a John Waters movie...

Johnny: I think you would. I don't think it's that big of a stretch. He's got a really...his sense of humor casts aside everyone else's and ours was, too. Mine. So, I don't think it's that big of a stretch.

Q: What else are you working on?

Johnny: I'm getting ready to do Lords of Dogtown. It's based on the documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys. Catherine Hardwicke, who directed Thirteen, is directing it. I took a small role in that. I had an idea for a film which I'm producing with the Linson's at Paramount. I wanted to do a movie where it's a turf war between two hot dog vendors. It's a comedy. It's just an excuse. I'll be starring in it, too. Just going back and forth with somebody for an hour and half, so I've been busy.

Q: What's taken Grand Theft Parsons so long to get to the big screen? Has it got distribution?

Johnny: Yeah, in England it did - in America, it didn't. We shot it real quick with not a lot of money and it came out looking like that - just to be honest. After that film - I didn't think I did that great of a job either - I got an acting coach named Cameron Thor and he worked with me on this and The Ringer and the John Waters [movie]. I've learned so much since then. After Gram Parsons, I tried to step it up a little.

Q: Are you surprised, due to Jackass, you were able to develop as a fairly consummate actor?

Johnny: "Consummate!" I've been lucky because it would've been easy to get pigeonholed as that guy, but I get all kinds of scripts. I've gotten lucky enough to do a couple of different things, so it's a blessing as weird as that is to say that 'Jackass has been a blessing.'

Q: Have you been offered tons of money to do another Jackass?

Johnny: No, because they knew that was it for us. Jackass - it's a hot potato and I think we got out of it pretty scott free and everybody's kind of glad - not us - but the higher-up's.

Q: Do you even think Jackass could exist today?

Johnny: No. Jackass couldn't exist today. Not with the F-U CC coming down on everyone and the climate. Hammers are coming down all over town.

Q: Is there a genre you haven't done or would like to tackle?

Johnny: You know what? People send me a lot of romantic comedies, but I really couldn't name the last good one. Does anyone want to jump in with the last good romantic comedy?

Q: Eternal Sunshine...

Johnny: Yeah, that's...Eternal Sunshine, I haven't seen it, but that looks...

Q: Intolerable Cruelty.

Johnny: I haven't seen that.

Q: You just haven't seen them!

Johnny: (laughs) Yeah! I'm going to go see Eternal Sunshine, though.

Q: Do you play a real person in Lords of Dogtown?

Johnny: I play Bunker Spreckels He was a surfer and was heir to the Spreckels sugar fortune. He inherited $50 million when he turned 21. He was a real gnarly surfer. He poached Tony Alva from the team and really no one could do anything about it because he was this tough guy. I had friends, too, so...

Q: Were you familiar with the whole Dogtown thing?

Johnny: Yeah. I wasn't a skater, but I came from skateboard videos, so I did know the history of it.

Q: Did you have to learn surfing?

Johnny: You know what? Not yet, but I was in Indonesia recently and I surfed for the first time there. That was one of the cooler things I've ever done.

Q: Working?

Johnny: I went over there with Steve-O and [Chris] Pontius because they have a show called The Wild Boys and I shot some episodes with them. I don't know if you know what it is, but it's a nature show where they go out just get bitten by animals. They've been bitten by 25-30 animals a piece on that show.

Q: Jackass with animals?

Johnny: Um...a little, yeah. That's fair.

Q: Heath Ledger said he'd be hanging out with Skip. Will you be hanging out with Bunker?

Johnny: He's dead. I can go channel him. No, I'm going to talk to Tony and those guys because Tony was really close to him. So, I'm definitely going to do that when I get back from New York.

Q: Does Catherine encourage you guys to do that?

Johnny: Yeah. I would want to do that if they didn't, but I'm going to spend some time with Tony and try to see what this guy was really like.

Q: Do you know why the first season of Jackass isn't on DVD?

Johnny: Lawyers. Fucking lawyers.

Q: What's the problem?

Johnny: Um...I don't know. The first season, we got to do whatever we wanted and I guess - looking back - some of it was objectionable to the lawyers. Most of it was objectionable!

Q: Who's lawyers?

Johnny: MTV's. So, you'll never see it. If I were you, I'd just buy a bootleg off line.

Q: They're repeated on TV?

Johnny: I think they show 8 of the 24 - the same 8. The rest are a little objectionable.

Q: Aside from the hotdog movie, is there anything else you're vying for?

Johnny: I'm reading a lot of stuff and in the past couple of weeks, I've gotten some really great scripts that I'm excited about doing, but it's so far from the process of starting that it doesn't really make sense to talk about. I did start a record label! Roger Alan Wade (points to t-shirt)! My first artist. He's an old hillbilly singer from Tennessee - my first cousin. He's written for Willie [Nelson], Waylon [Jennings], Johnny Cash - got a couple of gold records for songwriting. He's just singing honkytonks in Chattanooga and he'd come out to L.A. and get loaded and I'd put him in front of a 4-track and he'd start singing all his songs, just him and his guitar like, 'Gone Back to Whorin'' and 'Butt-Ugly Slut' and 'Fryin' Bacon Nekkid.' He's got a lot of cool songs, too, with the funny ones, but he kind of mixes them in like at "Live at Folsom Prison," Johnny Cash would sing 'Dirty Old Egg-Sucking Dog' and then 'I Still Miss Someone.' That's his thing. I took him on Stern with me once and Stern loved him. I sent the tape to Stern and Stern played it on the air and he said, 'We've got to get this guy on the show!' And we got Roger and Stern was pretty nice to us and let us play. Songs like 'I'm Gonna Shoot You in the Ass With a BB Gun' - you know, love songs.

Q: How old is he?

Johnny: Early forties.

Q: What's the name of the record label?

Johnny: It's Johnny Knoxville Records. I started an imprint on Melee Records, which was part of DreamWorks, but then they got sold. So, Melee doesn't have a new deal yet, but as soon as they do or someone else steps up, we're going to release it there. I just took him to the South by Southwest thing in Austin and he did great.

Q: Do you have any other acts?

Johnny: No, he's my main act because I'm really going to try and go out there with him because once I get his foot in the door, he can stand on his own.

Q: Do you see yourself as a musical entrepreneur?

Johnny: Yeah, when I believe in something, I'll stand behind it. And Rog has been my hero forever.

Q: Are you going to be producing more stuff?

Johnny: Yeah, we produced Jackass and I'm producing the hot dog movie with the Linson's. I do want to generate my own material and it helps if you're calling the shots, too. We'll see.