Anyone who has ever kept up with the Jackass crew knows that there are things the cast are willing to do and things even they – intrepid explorers that they are – are totally unwilling to say yes to. While the newcomers for Jackass Forever may have been the low men and women on the totem poll, newbie Rachel Wolfson recently revealed she went in with a pretty open mind, but there were two things she absolutely wasn’t going to do on set. Be forewarned, we’re about to be talking about butt stuff.
Surprisingly, of the two things Rachel Wolfson refused to do on set, only one of them actually related to saying yes or no to a type of segment. The other actually had to do with her settling into a mindset while filming was going down. She recently sat down for an interview with Uproxx in which she admitted stunts and gags are decided very last “moment,” so she set a plan in her mind for what she’d be willing to do in advance.
You don’t really find out what you’re doing until that moment. I mean, there are certain scenes that they might ask right before you do them, ‘Are you comfortable with this?’ And I just wanted to always come from a place of yes. I told myself before I did Jackass that I was going to say yes to pretty much whatever they asked, as long as it wasn’t butt stuff. But I didn’t think they wanted that. And also that I wasn’t going to cry on site.
One who is not familiar with Jackass might be inclined to wonder why Rachel Wolfson would be worried about “butt stuff,” but those of us who have been around the block know this is a very real concern. There’s the Steve-O butt chug from Jackass 2. Or that time Ryan Dunn did the whole “toy car” up his butt bit, for example. So, that’s a very real thing to put a limit on ahead of filming Jackass Forever, and that’s exactly what Wolfson did here.
As for the crying, I have no idea how she made it through without tearing up even a little. The two most memorable stunts Rachel Wolfson is involved in during the course of Jackass 4 are a stunt in which she licks a taser -- you can see that one in the Jackass Forever trailer -- and another stunt in which she lets a scorpion bite her for “botox” purposes. So there was pain involved. In fact, she called the taser feeling "very uncomfortable" in the same interview, though she handled it like a champ on camera.
Yeah. I mean, it’s definitely uncomfortable. Imagine sticking your tongue into a socket.
I think a tear or five would have been understandable. Yet that was a big no for the newcomer.
I think it is worth mentioning that there are lots of women, myself included, who have been huge Jackass fans for a decade plus. I don’t want to get too sentimental or emotional about seeing a lady actually join the cast and do some of the actual stunts. (If she can hold off on crying whilst a scorpion bit her, I certainly can whilst typing.) Regardless, it was pretty cool to see Rachel Wolfson do her thing and be funny about it too.
She’s not the only Jackass cast member to set some limits either. I couldn’t believe Johnny Knoxville – and minor spoilers – did the bull thing for the fourth movie, which left him with brain damage. However, the longtime face of the franchise also did say he was personally afraid of “cold water” and didn’t like those sorts of stunts. He also revealed that Steve-O – who put bees on his junk in Jackass Forever – refuses to bungee jump, of all things. So really, everyone in this franchise has their own list of dos and don’ts. Sounds like Wolfson fits right in.
