B.L. Your camaraderie in Kangaroo Jack makes the movie. When you first met, did you guys hit it off immediately?
J.O. We pretty much hit off right away. I had met Anthony a couple times in L.A… us Hollywood types tend to run in the same circles.
A.A. Yeah , you know.. Skybar, Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles.
J.O. Yeah, and "The Mansion"…
A.A. Woo-hoo, "The Playboy Mansion."
J.O. He’s been to The Mansion. We had our first meeting with Jerry Bruckheimer
(the producer of Kangaroo Jack) and it was a crazy meeting. We literally walked out of that room and on to a plane to Australia.

B.L. How exciting is to get a call from Jerry Bruckheimer?
A.A. He had his people call me. That’s how the big guys do it. They never pick up the phone unless there is a problem, so his people called me. (Looks to Jerry) Did you get a personal call from him, Jerry? It’s okay if you did, I won’t be offended.
J.O. No, I got a call from one of his "peeps" and I said, "Yeah, you know what, I’ll get back to you on that." No, I didn’t do that! I hung up the phone and I wet my pants and then I called up my mommy and said, "Jerry Bruckheimer wants to see me for a movie."

B.L. You know when you agree to do a Jerry Bruckheimer film there is going to be plenty of action. Were either of you a bit nervous about that prospect?
J.O. We’re a couple of young, athletic guys and so when you get to do a Bruckheimer movie you get to take advantage of that. I must say that Anthony and I did do the majority of our own stunts.
A.A. True indeed.

B.L. What was the most difficult?
J.O. The cliff side for you was pretty tough.
A.A. Yeah, but I didn’t actually go over the cliff. I had my stuntman do that because I’m no fool.
J.O. But you were on the cliff and you got cut up.
A.A. I was hanging on the cliff and I have some scars to show for that but it was well worth it. That was difficult, yet fun and sexy and exciting.

B.L. How sexy is it hanging from a cliff?
A.A. I can’t tell you what I was thinking about while I was out there!

B.L. You went to Australia to shoot this film, was it a culture shock?
A.A. Yes, because there are only about 33 black people in the whole country. Well, okay, the Aborigines are black, but in Sydney there are hardly any black people. It was fun and it’s a beautiful country and we got to enjoy it. We got to spend three months in the Outback and six months total in Australia it was great.
J.O. It’s a great country and I met a lot of Canadians there actually. There are a lot of Canadians passing through travelling. You can tell the Canadians because they have Canadian flags all over their bodies! Hey, we’re NOT American. We’re tourists. Look at me!

B.L. What happened with you, Jerry, when you got hold of some Australian beer?
J.O. I had a little bit of trouble with the Australian beer. The first night I went out and I’m good for a few beers. The Australian beer is of course twice as potent as any of the stuff that we drink over here in North America and I found that out the hard way.
A.A. Yeah, after about two Aussie beers Jerry was barefoot and buck-naked from the waist up. I am not lying, he was dancing the Macarena on top of the bar two days into our trip to Australia. I had to wrestle him down and take him home. That’s the kind of trouble we got into.

B.L. How much beer did you drink?
A.A. I don’t drink beer; I’m a wine connoisseur. I like the White Zinfandel. Actually, there’s this great Australian wine that you can get at Trader Joe’s for about $2.

B.L. Did you guys have any other encounters there? I understand that you couldn’t get used to driving on the "opposite" side of the road.
J.O. Yes, driving took me a few months to actually get behind a wheel. These people drive on the other side of the road and maybe they come here and think that we drive on the other side of the road. I would only take cabs there and even when I was in a cab I would be freaking out screaming at the driver. He’d be like, "What’s the matter with you, mate?"

B.L. Lots of animals in the film, but camel riding must have been up there in your top 10 lifetime experiences.
A.A. It’s like riding a humpbacked whale.

B.L. You’ve been on a humpbacked whale before?
A.A. No, but I hear it’s akin to riding a camel.
J.O. Anthony used to work at Seaworld. He was the guy who held the fish and went ahhhh, ahhh
(makes seal noises).
A.A. No, but I have been on my aunt’s back as a child and that’s like riding a humpbacked whale. I remember sitting on the camel back and thinking, "Wow, this is like riding my Aunt Vern."
J.O. No, it was pretty nasty, man. We actually had to go to camel jockey school.
A.A. Yeah and we’ve got the certificate to prove it.
J.O. We were doing it man, go watch this movie and you’ll see us working those camels. They do have camel races in Australia, we could legitimately run in there.

B.L. What about the kangaroos, any major encounters with them?
J.O. They are just completely untrainable and you can’t reason with them whatsoever. I’ve been around some crazy dogs where you can say, "Hey boy, calm down boy." You say that stuff to kangaroos they’ll go berserk. They’ll kick you. I’m from New York, my idea of wild animals is like, cockroaches -- you can step on them. You can’t step on an eight-foot tall kangaroo. Kangaroos are a lot like deer, but deer on crack.

B.L. I hear you guys had an encounter with a koala bear.
J.O. Yeah, Anthony and I saved a koala bear. We were driving to location and we saw this little koala bear and we thought it was hit by a car because it was struggling to get to the side of the road and we carried it out. Actually Anthony did, I didn’t go near it because I thought it was going to attack me.
A.A. That’s me, a regular hero!