Judd: In the writers’ room on Larry Sanders, we would always have this debate: Would you rather work with someone who is easy and not as good or someone who is a pain in the ass who is a genius? There were writers in that room that would say, “I’ll take the easy guy, life’s too short.” I was always like, “Nah, you’ve got to go with the genius.”
Spike: Or you are really lucky if they’re a genius and easy to direct, like Meryl Streep or Rooney Mara. They are easy and amazing and they work in a different way. I don’t even understand it. Somehow they are both emotionally in tune, totally real in the smallest moments and completely directable and able to make the smallest or biggest adjustment from take to take.
Judd: It’s not pure pain. But some of those pure pain people are remarkable.
Spike: Like Gandolfini. He was so raw. It was so exciting to work with him, but it was intense, too. Scary even, because he would get so upset at himself if he did something that felt false. But what he gave me and that character and the movie was a piece of himself. He breathed his life into the film with all his heart and pain and sensitivity. I loved that man.
Judd: Do you ever think, like, you’re like the guy in the BMX shop, for so many people? That they look at you as somebody who doesn’t follow the rules and lives in this fully creative world and does things differently, and promotes “newness”?
Spike: I’d be flattered if I was.
Judd: Was Maurice Sendak like that as well?
Spike: For me, for sure. He’s a real artist. And to be able to have the kind of friendship and collaboration I had with him was like—you know, a gift for life. He’s somebody who’s unafraid to be honest in all its messiness. The same thing with Charlie Kaufman. Being friends with Charlie and being able to work with Charlie is hugely inspiring.
Judd: It’s like you continue to find that person. When you think of Maurice Sendak, is there a thought or philosophy that immediately comes to mind?
Spike: I met him when I was twenty-six and we worked on a movie that didn’t end up happening. And at that point, I really don’t think I understood what being an artist meant. He would talk about it often and I would nod. And over the years, we stayed in touch, we stayed close, but it wasn’t until the third time he offered me the book that I had the idea I was talking about earlier. I was like thirty-three, and that’s when we started working together. And we became close. I just think he was an artist till the day he died. I think now I know what that means in terms of living honestly and creating honestly. Actually, Maurice and Charlie remind me of each other. They’re very similar people in terms of their willingness to throw down against anything they think is bullshit. They are not careerists; they are making what they are making because they have to. Out of all the people that have influenced me, those guys are two of the biggest.
Judd: What about something like Jackass? How do those guys, and that experience, fit into what you’re talking about?
Spike: Similarly. I mean, funnily enough, the two guys—so it’s me and Johnny Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine that created the show and later the movie, and we are really close, too. I met Knoxville in my early twenties out here in L.A. when we were both figuring out what we were doing. And Jeff I’ve known since I was twelve. Jeff introduced me to the Ramones, took me to my first hard-core shows in D.C. He was two years older than me. And when he was sixteen, he had a car and we’d build ramps together and skate.
Judd: He sounds like the coolest guy in the world.
Spike: He was cool. Oh, Jeff was cool.
Judd: You’re twelve and have a cool fourteen-year-old who showed you all of that stuff. That’s a big deal.
Spike: And then I helped Jeff get his first jobs out here. One of them was at the skate magazine where I was working, Big Brother.
Judd: Is that where they did the first Johnny Knoxville getting shot?
Spike: Yeah, it was all through the Big Brother videos. I introduced Knoxville to Jeff. At the time he was doing extra work.
Judd: A professional extra?
Spike: And he also landed a Taco Bell commercial. And he was like, “I got a Taco Bell commercial!” We were all in our mid-twenties and I introduced Jeff to Knoxville and they started doing stuff for the Big Brother videos. And a few years later, it was Jeff who had the idea to take that and make a TV show out of it. It just came out of what we were already doing. It was natural, what made us laugh in skate videos. We thought if we can get twenty minutes on national TV and do whatever we want, we were getting away with murder. We thought it would last eight episodes. And we got an eight-episode order from MTV! That was all we thought we would do. We had no idea anyone would care; we were really just doing it because we thought it was funny. And then as soon as it came out, it just blew up. Knoxville was on the cover of Rolling Stone two months later and we got to make another fourteen episodes. We did the show for a year, twenty-two shows total, and then we canceled the show ourselves, which was unheard of.
Judd: For your own safety?
Spike: No, we did what we wanted to do. We also felt like MTV wasn’t really promoting it that much because they were so nervous about it. They were really into it because it was so successful but they were also nervous about it and getting shit for it. And it just felt right to end it. We ended it on a high.
Judd: What was the criticism? That it was bad for our culture?
Spike: I mean, yeah. It was the downfall of Western civilization.
Judd: It wasn’t just that it was something that kids have done forever.
Spike: Certain age groups would view it as nihilistic. So anyways, we ended up canceling it. But they didn’t want us to cancel it, obviously. So we said, “What if we do a movie as our last episode?” The movie was so fun and we had such a blast doing it.
Judd: What a great fraternity of people that is. The camaraderie of it.
Spike: We’ve been through life together. We’ve done so much together now. I’ve known Jeff for over thirty years. That’s crazy. I’ve known Knoxville for twenty years, and a lot of the guys—we’ve been through it together. And we have a lot of it on tape, too.
Judd: It may be the funniest thing ever. I remember watching a little bit of it with my daughter—and she was too young to watch it. I was surprised at how dirty it is. But I couldn’t resist showing it to her. I don’t know if she was nine or ten at the time, but I’d fast-forward past anything bad. The next thing I know, someone’s balls are on the screen and she’s laughing as hard as I’ve ever seen her laugh in my life. I mean it just brings such joy to people. When you watch it, you think: I never laugh this hard. Like, nothing can get me to this place of total hysteria where you fall to pieces laughing. That’s a real gift to the world, and it cannot be underestimated.
Spike: We just stumbled on it. I don’t think we had any idea.
Judd: It makes you feel like you’re fifteen again. The friendship and craziness and that tension before they do crazy things—it’s that nervous energy that really brings you back to middle school. In the best possible way.
Spike: That’s what it’s like when we’re out there, feeling it. We are laughing. We are laughing more than anybody else. We just think it’s the funniest thing in the world. You can’t force that kind of chemistry, and we’re very protective of that. We only do it if it feels right. It was fun to do the last one, Bad Grandpa.
Judd: I watched that with my eleven-year-old. I was like, My daughter can handle seeing balls. When you’re watching Bad Grandpa there’s a moment where the big, long ball comes out and, as a parent, you think, Okay. It’s probably going to go away in a second, so I’m not going to cover her eyes. And then you think, Wait, what’s wrong with testicles? Is there anything wrong with seeing a testicle when you’re a kid? And then you just say, Fuck it, she’s laughing too hard. This was one of the great father-daughter moments, watching this ridiculous movie. I mean, God, we laughed so hard. I took pictures of her laughing, it felt so momentous.