The World's Smallest Interview: A Talk With Wee-man
We have a wee chat with Wee-man to talk about Jackass, being politcally correct, and his favorite stunts.
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By Chris Radtke March 10, 2011 |
| 4 | Finding the Right Person For the Right Stunt |
Don't let our mothers hear us, but we still want to be one of the Jackass guys when we grow up. We've been celebrating the release of the Jackass 3 Blu-ray all week, with a rundown of our favorite stunts and by talking with Steve-O. Let's end with with a cherry on top - a conversation with Wee-man.
UGO: So, the stunts that involve your, um, special abilities, do you come up with them?
Wee-man: It depends on what it is and what we're doing, you know? Different people write different bits and once they write it they go: "That's good for Dave," or "that's good for Bam," or "we should do this to Wee-man," you know? You never know what's going to happen once you show up to do something. Everyday different people show up to do different things, and sometimes something that was written for Dave is done better by maybe Flounder or Bam. It all depends.
UGO: Do you feel weird when you see how far you have all come, you being one of the originals?
Wee-man: It's pretty trippy. All we were doing was messing around and filming stuff. Next thing you know its on TV. Next thing you know we're making movies. We were happy with just making one movie, and then we made another, and now we're at a third. It's insane, once we thought the snowball was big enough, it just keeps getting bigger.
| 3 | Politically Correct |
UGO: What do you call yourself?
Wee-man: Well I didn't come up with my name, but everybody calls me Wee-man.
UGO: Well, what do others of your height... I'm a little embarrassed. I don't know what to call you.
Wee-man: Challenged? You don't embarrass me, you should have told me I was head midget in charge!
UGO: All right! You're somebody whose taken your unique size and empowered yourself. Do you feel a responsibility to be this role-model and show others that you aren't challenged by anything?
Wee-man: I don't feel a responsibility to it. I think it's more, like, it's just who I am. Also, I don't know, I think it's just like a Napoleon complex too. Just because I'm short doesn't mean I can't do something or rule the whole world, you know what I mean? That's kind of what I think I am, and I know and I admit that I have a Napoleon complex.
UGO: How do you deal with being so famous and being a public figure?
Wee-man: You have to roll with it, you know what I mean? Because I am a public figure. You do a job to make people laugh and all that, and so when they do meet you in person, no matter if you're having a bad day or whatever, you have to roll like the people think you are and how they perceive you in the movie. I admit that people come up to me and it surprises me right in the middle of eating dinner. Like, I'll have a mouthful of taco and people are like, "Wee-man! Let's get a picture!" and you have to do it, you know what I mean?
UGO: What would be your dream project to do now?
Wee-man: What would I want to be in? I don't know I'm already doing everything I've wanted to do. I have a restaurant, and I wanted one of those. I'm traveling the world. I'm actually doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. I guess President, not just President of the country, but President of the world.
UGO: Would you be a benevolent leader?
Wee-man: Yeah, one world leader.
UGO: Are there any stunts where you look back and ask yourself why you did that?
Wee-man: No, not really. Everything's been pulled off and done pretty well, knock on wood.
| 2 | Favorite Stunts |
UGO: So when you got stuck to Preston with crazy glue, how did you get yourselves free?
Wee-man: That took like a week to come off, I had it on for a week. Everytime I took a shower I had to peel off another piece here or pick up another piece there.
UGO: How do you feel when you see people's horrified reactions when you pull some of your pranks.
Wee-man: It's fun, you know, once you know you got the bit and you got someone to do that, you want it again. Just like when me and Preston did mini-Preston, and he handed off the dog to the guy to walk his dog and I came out and grabbed the dog. You can see in that guy's face he was thinking like, "Oh shit, did I take drugs today? Am I seeing things?" You can just see he's questioning himself. "Oh f*ck, am I okay? Because I just saw a little guy after I just got handed something from the big guy." You know you nailed a bit when that happens.
UGO: The scene with the bar fight, how did it snowball to such a big occurrence?
Wee-man: I think Tremaine, the director of Jackass, wrote it a long time ago, and we just never did it. He couldn't figure out how to put it all together, but he always had it in the back of his mind. Then this time we finally just did it, you know what I mean? We were in the right place at the right time, we did it in San Pedro, which is a shipping yard, navy area, like 2 o'clock day time slog. So, they were all drinking when we all came in.
UGO: So they saw the camera, did they know it was staged?
Wee-man: I couldn't even answer that question. I have no idea, because I thought they would get it just by me walking into the bar. Then I thought they would get it when the boyfriend walked in like, "Yeah right what's going to happen here," you know what I mean? Just to let it go all the way to the paramedics was insane.
