Johnny Knoxville (born Philip John Clapp on March 11, 1971 in Knoxville, Tennessee) is an American comic actor and daredevil. Knoxville has been featured in a number of films, but is best known as the co-creator and principal star of the MTV series Jackass and its subsequent films.

Career
After graduating from South-Doyle High School in 1989 in Knoxville, Tennessee, Clapp moved to California to become an actor, and at first appeared in commercials and as an extra. Not getting the big break he had hoped for, he began writing and pitching article ideas to various magazines. He also attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts on a scholarship, but dropped out within two weeks.

An idea to test self-defense equipment on himself was picked up by the Jeff Tremaine-helmed skateboarding magazine Big Brother, and the stunts were filmed and included in Big Brother's Number Two video. Knoxville's antics became a staple for Big Brother, whose colorful cast of contributors also included Chris Pontius, Steve-O and Dave England.


Jackass

Eventually, Knoxville, Tremaine, Sean Cliver and Dave Carnie produced a pilot that used Big Brother footage along with footage from Bam Margera's CKY videos, and with help from Tremaine's friend, film director Spike Jonze, they pitched a series to various networks. A deal was made with MTV and Jackass was born.

Knoxville also participated in the Gumball 3000 for Jackass along with co-stars Steve-O and Chris Pontius and Jackass director Jeff Tremaine and producer Dimitry Elyashkevich.

Prior to Jackass landing on MTV, Knoxville and company turned down an offer from Saturday Night Live to perform similar stunts for the show on a weekly basis. (Knoxville eventually did host SNL in 2005.)


Other credits
Knoxville has been in several feature films. Among his most high-profile roles:

He starred with Seann William Scott in Jay Chandrasekhar's 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.
In The Ringer, Knoxville was cast as an able-bodied office worker who joins the Special Olympics to pay for a surgical operation on his gardener.
He played a two-headed alien in Men in Black II, which also starred Will Smith.
He is currently slated to appear in the John Madden-directed adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel, Killshot.
Knoxville also starred in the movie Lords of Dogtown as "Topper Burks".
He was featured as a guest voice on an episode of King of the Hill.
He guest-starred in a Season 3 episode "Prank Wars" on Viva La Bam, in which he and Ryan Dunn trashed Bam Margera's Hummer, among other pranks.
Knoxville made an uncredited appearance in the 2000 movie Coyote Ugly.
Knoxville appeared as a supporting character to The Rock in the 2004 remake of Walking Tall.

Family and personal life
Knoxville has one daughter named Madison. She can be seen in the credits for Jackass Number Two. On February 1, 2007, Knoxville and his wife of twelve years, Melanie, filed for legal separation. Shortly afterwards, they filed for divorce They were married on May 15, 1995.

Knoxville is 6'1" (1.85 m) tall.


Filmography
Desert Blues (1995) - Bob
Coyote Ugly (2000) - College Guy (uncredited)
Life Without Dick (2001) - Dick Rasmusson
Don't Try This At Home: The Steve-O Video (2001)
Big Trouble (2002) - Eddie Leadbetter
Deuces Wild (2002) - Vinnie Fish
Men in Black II (2002) - Scrad/Charlie
Jackass: The Movie (2002) - Himself/Irving Zisman
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
The Devils Rejects (2005)- Cop (uncredited)
Daltry Calhoun (2005) - Daltry Calhoun
The Ringer (2005) - Steve Barker (Jeffy Dahmor)
Jackass: Number Two (2006) - Hims

Johnny Knoxville: Rectal bleeding... another first for Jackass.


Chris Pontius: I can't believe I'm fishing with Steve-o as my bait!

Johnny Knoxville: It's gonna hurt a lot, but it's just loud.


April Margera: Why would you burn him in the first place, Dunn?
Ryan Dunn: 'Cause it was funny...

Chris Pontius: I'm so glad I'm not the star of this movie.

Johnny Knoxville: If your asshole can't see the camera, the camera can't see your asshole


Johnny Knoxville: Hi, I'm Johnny Knoxville, and I'm going to the moon!

Johnny Knoxville: [first lines] Hi, I'm Johnny Knoxville, welcome to Jackass!"

Bam Margera: Please God, don't let there be a "Jackass 3".

Dave England: Oh God! Oh... Oh... Oh God!... my ass hurts so fucking bad!

Chris Pontius: [after drinking horse semen] I'm ashamed of myself. I really am. I'm completely ashamed of myself.


Chris Pontius: [after drinking the horse semen] I'm completely ashamed of myself.

Ryan Dunn: [after Johnny Knoxville falls head first off the penny farthing bicycle] You didn't land it.

Johnny Knoxville: [Johnny Knoxville hands his fake grandson a flask] Don't hog it all you little prick...

Steve-O: All right cast me out, goddammit!

[Bam has just been branded with a penis-shaped branding iron]
Bam Margera: You gave me a hologram dick! There's three solid dicks, there's one half-assed one right here, and then you gave me a set of balls.
Johnny Knoxville: But a sweet set of balls!
Bam Margera: Rad... I'd rather rip my dick off and throw it in the river than to do that again. Goddamn!

Johnny Knoxville: [while Bam is in trailor with Cobra] You crying?
Bam Margera: Yeah.

Ehren McGhehey: [while in the trunk of a taxi cab] Get me out of here!

Steve-O: [chuckling] You just pleasured a horse.

Ryan Dunn: Ooh my hip! I think I just gave birth!

Johnny Knoxville: Someone brought crabs to the party!

Ehren McGhehey: Where I'm going, I don't need luggage

Jay Chandrasekhar: C'mon!

Chris Pontius: [after Matt Hoffman attempts to jump the English Channal on his bike] He didnt even make it to Germany!

Johnny Knoxville: That long hair don't cover up your red neck.

Steve-O: Dude, Wee Man, I would never use a card throwing machine on you!

Johnny Knoxville: [after taking a fall] My head stopped my body from getting really hurt on that.

Wee Man: What are thinking about, Preston?
Preston Lacy: I wish all of that water was gravy and all those cars were giant biscuits.
Wee Man: [laughing] Are you hungry?
Preston Lacy: I was just saying...
Wee Man: Oh, all right!

Chris Pontius: Water-based lubricants, friend or foe? You be the judge.

Johnny Knoxville: [after getting shot by riot explosive] Is this ok?
[Points to face]
Johnny Knoxville: Then we're ok.

Ryan Dunn: [Johnny Knoxville is about to be launched with the rocket] This is not a good idea.
Bam Margera: Yes it is...

Dimitry Elyashkevich: [Johnny Knoxville is ready to be launced on the rocket] 5... 4... 3... 2... 1!
Bam Margera: Later!
[Presses the launch button]

Johnny Knoxville: Hey Ehren, maybe you'll finally get laid after this movie!

Chris Pontius: [after completing Medicine Ball Dodgeball] That was fun. Let's never do that again.

Bam Margera: Here we are at some random-ass ranch and this is the Brand. And it's gonna suck!

April Margera: [after seeing the brand on Bam's ass] You're going to have that for life!
Bam Margera: No shit!

Bam Margera: [before the Riot Control skit] If Knoxville goes in there, I'll French kiss him.

Steve-O: I just had a leech chomp my eyeball. YES!

Johnny Knoxville: [while gagging after Pontius drinks the horse semen] I never puke ever, and I really almost puked then.

Phil Margera: [after seeing Bam's brand] He should have made it bigger and more realistic, that puny thing's embarrassing!

Ryan Dunn: [after the riot control test] Son of a... Fuck you!
Bam Ma

I've Heard Things On the Internet About Jackass 3 But Not Sure If True Heres What It Says: In the middle of the scorching African savannah, a blindfolded Johnny Knoxville sneaks up on an African lion in the throws of mating passion and attempts to negotiate a threesome while coated in tiger semen. The stunt was originally planned to feature Paris Hilton instead of the lion, but was deemed too dangerous.

- The gang gather round a table and play Russian roulette with Aids-infected crack needles. Steve-O unfortunately contracts the killer disease, but in a hilarious twist, Bam Margera steals his treatment fund and uses it to buy a gigantic penis statue with ‘Steve-O is a fag’ written on it, and erects it in his parents’ front yard.

- Bam travels to Mecca where he performs a tailgrab off of the holy Ka’aba monument, revealing a cartoon image of the Prophet Mohammed smoking grass on the underside of his board to the horrified praying Muslims below.

- Dave England has his ribs surgically removed, allowing him to bend over and eat his own cock and balls. The rest of the team then force him to attempt sex with a Brazilian prostitute at gunpoint, laughing and pointing as England desperately struggles to penetrate the hooker with a gaping, bloody cavity where his genitalia should be.

- The boys travel to Rwanda, where Preston Lacy and Wee Man engage in a hot dog eating contest just a stone’s throw away from the line to a food tent, serving emaciated villagers rice and maize. Preston emerges victorious but throws up on a nearby African child. This sends Johnny Knoxville into a fit of hysterics before he flies off in his solid gold helicopter.

- Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Tony Hawk, Wee Man and Maya Angelou helm a in-depth discussion in which the topics of the dumbing down of network television and the nature of reality TV are furiously debated at length, while Party Boy dances naked on the table to loud house music.

- The gang set up an elaborate prank in which Bam’s parents are purported to have been killed in a car crash. A sombre-faced Knoxville informs the MTV wild child of the bad news, cracking up as Bam breaks down in tears, renounces his wasted life and vows to become a better man for his departed mother and father. During the funeral, fake corpses are catapulted out of the coffins to Bam’s eternal horror, only for the real Phil and April to come skateboarding into the service to a thrash metal soundtrack.

- Ryan Dunn sneaks up on an unsuspecting Preston, pulls down his pants and anally rapes him with Wee Man’s head. The guys burst into laugher when the little man emerges, bloody and brown, but minus the sailor’s hat he was wearing when he went in.

- A hidden video camera placed in Ehren McGhehey’s bedroom captures every single act of masturbation he’s performed over the last four years, footage of which is cut together and projected on a 50ft high screen in the centre of his home town, where family members and old girlfriends have been invited on the promise of ‘a nice surprise’.

- Steve-O is injected with a fatal poison and told that the antidote lies in a vial at the bottom of a swimming pool full of urine and faeces. The crew break into riotous laughter after ten minutes of frantic thrashing and retching, when an exasperated Steve-O emerges a broken man, realising that there is no antidote, and he was in fact injected with orangeade.

- Ryan Dunn is left in a Chinese water torture device for three months with only a video camera for company, to which he's forced to reveal his darkest, inner-most thoughts. When he’s finally released, director Jeff Tremaine takes great pleasure in revealing to an emotionally drained Dunn that the camera never had any film in it, and that he had sex with his mother not ten minutes ago, asking him if his fingers smell familiar.

- Bam wakes up to find that his mischievous friends have tattooed a large picture of Ernest star Jim Varney fel