When you picture Johnny Knoxville, one thing that almost certainly doesn’t appear in that image you just conjured up is an Oscar. We say that with all due respect, of course; it’s just that the Motion Picture Academy doesn’t traditionally pay any attention to things like Jackass: The Movie and its (soon-to-be) four sequels. In fairness, 2013’s Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa did get an Oscar nomination, but it was for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. It also lost to the Matthew McConaughey-Jennifer Garner drama Dallas Buyers Club.
But if you can believe it, Knoxville actually made a movie in his pre-Jackass days that won three Academy Awards. That’s right, at just 20 years old, Knoxville was featured in the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, starring Gary Oldman and Keanu Reeves. Don’t remember seeing him in there, do you? Well, the reason is that Knoxville served only as Reeves’s stand-in and photo double.
Johnny Knoxville’s Pre-‘Jackass’ Career Included an Oscar-Winning Francis Ford Coppola Movie
In those days, Knoxville was working as an extra and just happened to get the call for the gig. He even had the pleasure of being directed by Coppola personally in a couple of scenes. Obviously, though, in the final cut, Knoxville’s hardly noticeable unless you know where to look. Take the sequence in which Reeves’s character is shown shaving in front of a mirror, for example. That’s the back of Knoxville’s head you can briefly catch before Reeves cuts himself with the razor:
At the following year’s Oscars ceremony, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was nominated for four awards. While it lost Best Art Direction to the Anthony Hopkins film Howards End, it took home the Oscar in all three other categories. When all was said and done, the movie walked away with the Academy Award for Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Makeup, and Best Sound Design. Nothing else Knoxville’s been involved with has won an Oscar to date.
To hear Knoxville talk about his time working on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, you can check out a clip from his 2024 appearance on Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum below.
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