Jonathan Bennett

Interview By: Dan Deevy
DanDeevy@TheCinemaSource.com

What could possibly be more fun for a young actor than playing a dashing, cuter then cute country boy who spends his days driving fast cars and his nights chasing fast women' Why, getting paid to do it of course!

It was an absolute no-brainer for newcomer Jonathan Bennett (Mean Girls)when the opportunity arose to play a young Bo Duke in the latest incarnation of the three decade spanning phenomenon, The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning

'Ohh of course, I was a huge fan,' he begins, 'I grew up watching it, so when the opportunity came up to play Bo I thought; I get to slide across the hood of the General Lee and jump in the window'!' Done.'

As simple as that sounds to those of us who have never tried it, the skills of being able to pull that off seamlessly are harder to come by than one might think.

'You would think it's so easy to jump into a car window, but I'm 6'2', so to jump up and try to get my legs through the window around the steering wheel past the gear shift, it's not easy. My legs are like 6 feet long I think!'

Unfortunately for Jonathan before even getting to the window he had to conquer the hood! 'Ohh yeah and then sliding across the hood, you think there's gonna be some kind of wax or something that's gonna help you get across' No. The hood of a Dodge Charger is like seven feet or something ridiculous, it's like the widest hood you've ever seen and me trying to get my fuckin' clumsy legs up and slide over does not happen easily.'

One wonders how his predecessor, an even taller 6'3' John Schneider was able to pull it off for so long. 'Well he did it for what, 47 years' So you probably get used to it then. We had five weeks to learn how to do it.'

And in that five weeks producers did their best to teach Jonathan all that he needed to know to look good both getting into and speeding away in the legendary super charged, General Lee.

'I remember the first time we did it they took us out to a driving track and had me practice driving and learn ways to make the General Lee look really good when you're peeling out and things like that. And we also practiced sliding across the hood,' he says, 'The first time I did it I just cannon balled right on top of the hood. I just ran, jumped up and fell smack in the middle of it and the hood just caved in! I looked at the prop guy and he said, 'don't worry about it we have more hoods,' so he went and replaced it. So yeah, it took me about a good probably 30 times before I actually got across.'

Some actors will walk away from new projects knowing how to speak a different language, how to ride a horse, play a sport' for Mr. Bennett his new skills are far more useful. 'I don't even get into my Yukon without sliding across the hood if I'm on the other side of the car,' he says. 'I don't even bother opening any doors anymore either, I slide across the hood and jump straight through the window.'

On the upside all of the extra physical activity is toning his already tight body, 'My ass is starting to look really good because of all the hood sliding,' he admits.

Speaking of looking really good, everyone knows that if you're gonna be playing Bo Duke you better be ready, willing and able to show the goods. Jonathan had no problems doing that when it came to his first shirtless let's all jump in the pond scene, it was waiting until the following January to film the underwater sequences that had him a little gun shy.

'Now here's the story,' he begins excitedly, 'We shot the movie in June and July in L.A. and I kept saying to the director we don't have any footage of me finding the car under water, we don't have any footage of me finding the car under water. Sure enough I get a call in January, 'We need you to do some re-shoots' on the underwater stuff.' And I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!' he exclaims. 'Because what better time to shoot underwater scenes than in January'' he jests. 'We couldn't have done it in June when it was 90 degrees we had to wait 'til January. So it was the coldest I think I've ever been in my life.'

Luckily for both Jonathan and the movie, somehow his inner Olivier came through and he made it look like the most pleasant swim ever captured on film. 'I don't know how that worked,' he laughs, 'I think that's what they call movie magic.'

Truth be told, the real magic came in when they some how miraculously were able to film what he was doing following take after take of not getting it.

'After about the tenth time of the director saying, 'No, no, we didn't get it, we didn't get.' I finally said, 'let's figure out how we're going to get this because umm, my balls are up in my stomach right now and if I keep doing this I don't think I'm going to be able to have children.' So we finally got it and it ended up looking good in the end. My advice though, is don't ever do underwater shots.'

Another non-car related skill set that Jonathan had to acquire for this film was learning how to be a real professional about wearing women's clothing in the middle of the summer without losing his cool. His co-star Randy Wayne seemed particularly disturbed by this; to the point where you begin to wonder, 'I think the lady doth protest too much.'

'Well, the problem is Randy loves dressing up in drag in his off time so he had to pretend like he didn't like it for the film.' (I knew it!) 'No I'm kidding,' he continues, 'Let me tell you why it's awful. Let me set the scene - Monrovia California, July 2006 one of the hottest summers in California history' stockings' bras... about two pounds of make up... a wig' a gertil' fake tits' panty hose' it's awful' it really sucked, I'm not gonna lie.' And on a non-physical level the experience left Bennett with some disturbing knowledge that he'll carry with him for the rest of his life. 'Every time I looked in the mirror all I could think of was that I looked like my mother. I look like my mom in drag.'

What does a sweet little lady from Ohio say when she sees her pride and joy, her bright eyed little boy dressed in drag' 'Her response to every project I've done is always funny to me so I always want to hear what she says. I didn't tell her about the drag or any of the sex stuff in the film so when she saw it she was like, 'That wasn't really you wearing a dress was it'' And I was like, 'Yeah.' And she was like, 'No, that wasn't you! Was it'' 'Yeah!' 'Ohh' you have really good legs.'' With a shaking head of laughter Jonathan finishes with, 'Thanks mom' aren't ya proud''

Thankfully for mom one scene that she didn't have to watch was the signature homoerotic skinny dipping scene that all good Dukes stories have. 'It was cut out of the film!!!' he yells. 'It wasn't a skinny dipping scene it was a fuckin' car wash scene! If you look in the outtakes you'll see all these clips of me and Randy shirtless wrestling on the hood of the General Lee. There's a whole scene of us shirtless washing the car and then the script called for us to get into a wrestling match. At one point the director yelled cut and me and Randy were just kind of sitting there intertwined, wet on the hood of the General Lee in the sun and we just looked at each other and we were like, 'Wow this is the gayest thing we've ever shot!'

You could tell from watching the film and the behind-the-scenes features that there was no shortage of camaraderie among the actors; particularly between Jonathan and Randy. 'Right before they would yell action there was always someone getting punched in the nuts' whether it was me or Randy there was always someone getting punched. That was our thing to try to mess each other up for the take. We were playing Bo and Luke in 90 degree heat we had to keep ourselves entertained some how.'

Being welcomed into a long standing franchise like The Dukes normally has the advantage of in house tutelage from those who have come before you. Sadly for Jonathan though this was not the case. 'I haven't met John Schneider. I would love to I haven't done that yet. He's embarrassed by my performance I'm sure so he just doesn't wanna talk to me,' he laughs. 'No, I have no idea.'

Jonathan admits though that he would like to follow in Schneider's footsteps by either eventually playing Tom Welling's dad on a show, or by owning a General Lee of his own. 'I do wanna buy a dodge charger eventually. But to be honest I don't want one that's gonna be a pain in the ass and need to be fixed all the time, so I want one of the ones we used on the film where it looks like Dodge Charger on the outside but on the inside it's really a Volkswagen Bug.'

Cruising around in an iconic car or not, Jonathan admits that as of late he is being recognized a bit more often. 'Absolutely,' he begins, 'Ever since all the movies I've done started coming to DVD and you're in everybody's homes nonstop' it makes it harder to go to the mall,' he jokes.

But, on the downside, his public isn't always exactly sure why they are adoring him. 'It's never ohh you're Jonathan Bennett! It's, 'we went to high school together!' No we didn't. 'Ohh we have the same friends!' No we don't. 'How do we know each other'' We Don't,' he laughs, 'They never know who I am they just know they know me somehow' you're 'That Guy' from 'Something'; Which has always been a dream of mine to be.'

Jonathan certainly isn't holding for applause he's got several projects in the hopper almost ready to go. 'There's a couple films that we're closing right now, but I don't wanna say what they are because it'll jinx it and then I won't get it. But there's a couple really cool films that should be a lot of fun some pretty big comedies so one of those we'll be doing next year I'm sure.'

In the mean time you can check out Jonathan in The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning on DVD March 13th and also in the romantic comedy Love Wrecked starring Amanda Bynes, Chris Carmack and Jamie-Lynn DiScala also hitting stores on March 13, 2007.

'Yeeeeeee Hawwwwwww!!!!!!'