Johnny Knoxville
Johnny Knoxville (born Philip John "P.J." Clapp on March 11, 1971 in Knoxville, Tennessee) is an American comic actor, best known as the co-creator and principal star of the MTV series Jackass. He starred with Seann William Scott in the Jay Chandrasekhar adaptation of The Dukes of Hazzard. He has also worked with director John Waters in A Dirty Shame and starred in Daltry Calhoun, written and directed by Katrina Holden Bronson and produced by Quentin Tarantino. His most recent film, The Ringer, casts Knoxville as an able-bodied office worker who joins the Special Olympics to pay for a surgical operation on his gardener.
Having moved out to California to become an actor, at first appearing in commercials and as an extra, he soon fell back on writing, pitching an idea to test self defense equipment on himself to several magazines before it was picked up by the Jeff Tremaine helmed Skateboarding Magazine, Big Brother. The stunts were filmed and included in Big Brother's "Number Two" video. Gaining notoriety in the skateboarding scene, Knoxville's antics became a staple of Big Brother, who's colorful cast of contributors also included Chris Pontius, Steve-O and Dave England. Eventually Knoxville, Tremaine, Sean Cliver and Dave Carnie produced a pilot, using Big Brother footage along with footage from Bam Margera's CKY videos, pitched the series to various networks with help from Tremaine's friend and Film director Spike Jonze. A deal was made with MTV and "Jackass" was born.
Prior to the MTV show, he turned down an offer from Saturday Night Live to do similar stunts for them on a weekly basis. However, later in 2005, Knoxville hosted SNL.
Knoxville has a wife, Melanie, and a daughter named Madison, whose name is tattooed on his chest over his heart. He purchased a cabin from Johnny Cash shortly before Cash died. Knoxville is the cousin of Roger Alan Wade.[1]
Knoxville also participated in the Gumball 3000 for the Jackass TV series along with fellow Jackass stars Steve-O, Chris Pontius, as well as the Jackass director Jeff Tremaine.
He is currently slated to appear in the John Madden directed adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel, Killshot.
Filmography
- Desert Blues (1995) - Bob
- Coyote Ugly (2000) - College Guy
- Life Without Dick (2001) - Dick Rasmusson
- Big Trouble (2002) - Eddie Leadbetter
- Deuces Wild (2002) - Vinnie Fish
- Men in Black II (2002) - Scrad/Charlie
- Jackass: The Movie (2002) - Himself
- Grand Theft Parsons (2003) - Phil Kaufman
- Walking Tall (2004) - Ray Templeton
- A Dirty Shame (2004) - Ray Ray Perkins
- Lords of Dogtown (2005) - Topper Burks
- The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) - Luke Duke
- Daltry Calhoun (2005) - Daltry Calhoun
- The Ringer (2005) - Steve Barker
Upcoming:
- Killshot (2006)
- Hawaiian Dick (2006)
- Jackass: Number Two (2006)
Trivia
- Nearly died from a combination of the flu, pneumonia, and bronchitis at the age of 8.
- The stage name is an homage to his home town.