As the star of “Jackass,” the MTV series born in 2000 that turned into a blockbuster movie franchise, Johnny Knoxville has badly injured every part of his body, from his head to his limbs to his — uh, groin area. But while making “Jackass Forever,” the fourth Paramount film that follows a beloved ensemble of dudes (and one woman) who attempt painful stunts involving blunt objects and dangerous animals, Knoxville finally hit a wall. Or rather, a bull — it ran him over.

Knoxville had been building toward the no-holds-barred stunt for weeks while shooting the movie, which opens in theaters on Feb. 4. “I was trying to do a magic trick in a bull ring,” Knoxville explains over a breakfast in West Hollywood in December, days before omicron made people go into hiding again. “I wanted to prank an animal, and that’s what we came up with.” But the bull didn’t find the joke funny,...