He became a star for his fearless stupidity but now Steve-O is attempting his wildest act yet - stand-up comedy. The Jackass stunt clown talks to Scott Kara.
Two days before TimeOut was set to interview Steve-O he was arrested in Canada. Concerned the interview may not go ahead we contacted his publicist, who assured us everything would be fine. After all, the star of stunt television show and film franchise Jackass, now an in-demand stand-up comedian, is
used to being arrested. He's been done for everything from drug possession to disorderly conduct (for peeing where he shouldn't have) in his time. So his arrest at Calgary airport last month - on the basis of a warrant filed in 2003 accusing him of assault with a weapon - was seemingly just another day in the life of this 36-year-old class clown.
The thing is, in recent years Steve-O has gone from a self-destructive, unhinged drug fiend (more on that soon) to a good boy who is completely sober, so being chucked in the slammer came as a surprise.
"I just celebrated three years of sobriety. It's my third [sober] birthday," he says sounding chuffed. "But here I am getting arrested in an airport, and it was a real experience sitting in that jail cell for 12 hours completely sober," he laughs.
"I had no idea that there was a warrant out for me and seeing that there was, I'm just glad they sorted it out," he chuckles again.
This misdemeanor will not affect Steve-O's visit to Auckland for this year's Comedy Festival to perform his show Too Much Information at the Auckland Town Hall on May 13. His wild and wayward life, which escalated after the success of Jackass, makes good fodder for his stand-up routine and he also combines stunts such as his trademark trick of stapling his testicles to his leg.
"I feel I'd be letting people down if I didn't do a bunch of stunts and this wild and painful stuff that I'm known for. So I do stand-up at the beginning and stunts and tricks at the end. It's really like a variety show."
Yes, his humour is puerile and mindless. What did you expect? That's what Jackass made it's name on.
"It's based on experiences I've had. I talk about the notoriety and how it's changed my life since Jackass came out. And how everyone started treating me differently," he says with a hint of tongue-in-cheek glee as he goes on to relate a series of sexual escapades he's had with a train of willing girls.
But he's also confessional and open about his past, which has been a sordid journey of partying, drugs excess and psychiatric problems before friends eventually staged an "intervention" because they were so worried about his welfare. There is footage before he was sober of him on nonsensical rants during interviews akin to Charlie Sheen's recent outbursts.
"I was doing drugs to the point where I was watching people walk around my apartment who weren't even there," he remembers.
Finally he got his act together when Jackass co-star and friend Johnny Knoxville (and many of the show's other key players) staged the intervention, after which he was hospitalised.
"They stopped me from hurting myself after they helped me injure myself for roughly 10 years," he cackles.
However, for a guy who has made millions out of making people laugh with the stupid things he says and does, Steve-O took a long time to be able to laugh at himself.
"It did take me a little while, man, especially the sobriety thing because the circumstances that led me to [being hospitalised] were not funny at all. That is not a funny situation. But from where I stand now, imagine how hilarious it is the fact I've been clean and sober since the day Johnny Knoxville stepped in and pulled that intervention on me. You know that you've got a serious f****** problem when Johnny Knoxville is your interventionist. But I'm able to look back on that now and see the humour in it."
He's quick to point out that being sober has not changed his personality, his sense of humour, or altered his pain threshold. "I have no problems whatsoever stapling my balls to my leg and I set myself on fire at all my shows."
What being sober has changed is his focus and he says his current show is a vast improvement on the 2004 show he brought to New Zealand when he was "taking slugs of tequila and drunkenly rambling".
"It's a great blessing to be this new, improved version of myself. It's still a raunchy show, and it's not like I'm some sort of angel, because it's a filthy rotten show that's faithful to the brand I've created."
Steve-O (real name Stephen Glover) believes he was born into his chosen profession of being a clown.
"I was born with an unreasonable hunger for the spotlight and that manifested itself in all sorts of ways. At school I remember being in the lunchroom consuming salt by the handful to try to win the approval of my peers."
When young Stephen was 15 he nicked off with his father's video camera and started making skateboard videos with his friends. "And I never really put down a video camera again. I've been pretty much filming myself for the last 21 years."
He tried university ("I couldn't make it to class"), then attended clown college, and went on to work in a circus, during which time he started recording his daring (and quite often stupid) stunts.
"I just thought, 'I'm going to be this crazy guy with the video camera and try and make a living that way'. And I never had a back-up plan and I felt pretty resigned to the idea that I would die trying. What I felt like I was scrambling for so frantically was to accumulate video footage to be discovered after I died, which I kind of think is what my attitude was."
He sent his videos to a guy by the name of Guy Tremaine, then editor of skateboarding magazine Big Brother who would later become the director of Jackass, which became an instant hit on MTV. But stand-up, reckons Steve-O, is by far the scariest thing he's ever had to do in front of people.
"I started doing stand-up well over four years ago. Someone had invited me to the world famous Laugh Factory and they requested that I get up on stage and do something crazy. I looked around and thought, 'there is nothing crazier that I could possibly do than try stand-up comedy'. It was terrifying. The most outrageous stunt. It made stapling my balls to my leg seem like nothing."
LOWDOWN
Who: Steve-O, the Jackass star turned stand-up comedian
What: Too Much Information, the life and times of Steve-O with some dangerous stunts thrown in
Where & when: Auckland Town Hall, May 13
