Kevin Smith doing his Silent Bob Impression for "Clerks II"
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Born in Red Bank, New Jersey on August 2 nd, 1970, Kevin Smith’s films are either loved or loathed, there is no middle-man. His in-your-face, pushing-the-envelope style of filmmaking may paint its own confused picture of what the man behind the original favorite “Clerks” may be like in real life. The truth is that he’s an average Joe meets filmmaker that is equally as comfortable shooting bizarrely hilarious conflicts within Mooby’s fast foods as he is with sitting down and chatting about every day life with anyone.
Can you talk a little about the challenges of making this film? What concerns did you have about losing fans of the original film?
There’s always a bit of trepidation in terms of f#cking with a sacred cow and it’s weird because I don’t consider it a sacred cow. I do recognize that it’s the first one we did and the one that put us on the map. They attach a lot of labels to it. To me it’s “well that’s the one that they sit around talking for ninety minutes” which pretty much describes anything we’ve ever done. But there’s a bit of trepidation where I was saying “Well if I f#ck it up, not only will they hate the new one and hate the old one. It would have been the thing that held me back from making it but that wasn’t a good enough reason. You get to a point where you say “I can’t do anything else, this is a story I really, really wanna tell.” So I was more dialed into it and any sort of fear just kind of slipped away. It helped to stay away from the movie for a while. Like I didn’t go back and watch Clerks before I started working on the script or anything. It was four hours before the first day of shooting, we were supposed to start shooting at six o’clock in the morning and it was two in the morning and I was still awake and I said “Maybe I should watch Clerks now.” I was kind of glad I did because it demythologized the whole thing. I watched the movie and I didn’t think about old things people had said about it, I just thought about what it was.”
Kevin Smith after the interview for "Clerks II"
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What was Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson’s reaction of towards making this? Were they hesitant?
“They were, and you could imagine that both of them would be “Yes, please let’s do it” but none of them were really chomping at the bit. Brian was more interested in doing the Clerks cartoon instead. When I said “Dude, I’m thinking of doing a Clerks sequel.” He said “Oh, you mean the cartoon?” I said “No, live action.” And he was like “Oh…I’d prefer to do the cartoon.” Then I said “Really, instead of being on camera?” then he was like “Yeah, I guess that would be fun.”
Jeff was the hold out. Jeff was like “I don’t know dude, that exists in its own perfect little bubble, people liked that first movie, why would you want to f#ck with that?” Kind of had the same fear that I had but was more pronounced about it. I think over the last twelve years he’s had a rocky affair with being Randall, you know like sometimes it’s cool but five years down the road people are like “Hey man, weren’t you in that movie Clerks? Why aren’t you acting more?” And this is a guy who never wanted to be an actor. He was a guy I knew in high school and even in high school he wasn’t in the plays or anything like that he was just a dude who I thought had a cool voice and I was like “Yeah, I could totally see you in that role.” So he never saw himself in a career in cinema then to have a bunch of people say “How come you don’t do more?” It just got to be a lot. He was like “Dude you ruined it for me, I can’t even put on a baseball cap anymore because if I do people are like “Randall”…” So after twelve years he came to peace with it. Then I came to him and said let’s do it again and he said “Dude, I just made peace with that, you want to start it up again!” So I told him “let me write the script. Read the script, if you like it cool, if you don’t we won’t talk about it again.” Brian dug it and Jeff I was waiting on for a day then he called me and said “Dude, it’s funny. I’m glad you didn’t just rehatch the same jokes, I like where it goes and it’s kind of touching too.” I was like “so you’re in?” and he was “I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but now I’m more concerned about you. Why would you want to do this, you seem to be set and on your way in your career, doesn’t this feel like you’re going backwards?” I said “I don’t think so because the movie is about going forward.” Even up to about the third day of shooting Jeff was still kind of on-the-fence, he would come in but he would still have reservations and doubts. At the third day at the end of production I went up stairs, because we had this editing suite at the Days Inn Motel right next to the movie set. I went upstairs and cut the first three days worth of footage. I spent the whole night doing it, didn’t go to sleep. So the next morning I grabbed Jeff, Brian and Rosario and said “come upstairs I want to show you the scenes I cut last night.” The scene was the one with Dante and Becky in the back office where he’s painting her toenails. All three of them had different reactions.” He moves on to say that at this point Jeff Anderson was on board.
Kevin Smith writes, directs and returns as Silent Bob in "Clerks II"
Copyright© Movie Jungle International, INC. All Rights Reserved.
As far as the characters of Clerks go, is there anyone in particular that you’d say you base them on?
“Yeah like Dante and Randall, when I wrote the first flick and definitely with this one, are kind of based on two parts of my personality, Dante being the guy I was a lot closer to back then and Randall the guy I would have rather been. Like the dude who was just like “F#ck this job, f#ck these people. A guy who was free enough to spit water in somebody’s face and not care about the consequences. Back in the day I tend to be more like Dante, more responsible. There’s a hint of my friend Brian Johnson in the Randall character. For Clerks to the plot point for Dante leaving and Randall wanting to stay kind of came with my relationship with my producer Scott Mosier. Every once in a while since 1996 he would be like “you know I don’t think I want to produce anymore. I feel like I want to walk the earth, travel, see things. I don’t want to work in the movie business my whole life.” And me desperately trying to hold onto him so much so that like we’ve had a discussion similar to the one that Dante and Randall have in the jail. I was like “Dude, if I knew that you would just flake on me and sh#t I wouldn’t have started this whole thing with you. I’m in it for life and you’re thinking about leaving.” That just leaves me in an absolute loss because I can’t do my job unless Mosier’s there. So there’s that. And Jay of course is based on Jason Mewes when he was about fourteen to sixteen years old.”
As far as Jason Mewes’ previous drug problem, were you concerned about that?
“He had a massive drug problem.”
Were you concerned that it might resurface?
“No, because by the time we started shooting Clerks II he had been clean for about two and a half years at that point. So I felt like he was on a great path. I can’t say that he’ll be clean forever but he’s definitely in a better zone and keeps it all in perspective. So there was never a fear that “Oh man, we’re making this movie and Mewes is gonna fall off the wagon.” That wasn’t there and I don’t have this fear that Mewes will fall off the wagon in general.”
Kevin Smith doing his Silent Bob Impression for "Clerks II"
Copyright© Movie Jungle International, INC. All Rights Reserved.
As far as Lesterfiend and Pillowpants go how did you come up with that? And you might rag the Lord of the Rings films but what did you think of them?
“I like them, I think they’re incredibly well made. You can’t argue with the craftsmanship but I don’t know, I was never a big hobbit guy. I tried reading the Tolkien books when I was in grade school and they’re just kind of boring. So when those movies came out I was like “wow they’re really well made” and Peter Jackson did a fantastic f#cking job of them but I just don’t give a f#ck about little people and ogres and wizards. I mean I like Star Wars because when I was a kid, that was my religion, but now I’m an adult I don’t give a f#ck about hobbits.” So it was kind of easy to crack on that one. But Lesterfiend grew out of the Pillowpants thing and Pillowpants came out of thdis discussion I was having with my friend Brian Johnson one day. Brian is one of the funniest people I know so anything that I say that makes him laugh I kind of make a mental note of. We were talking about something and I dropped Pillowpants in between the discussion and he thought it was hysterical and I kind of kept him growing and turned him into the troll.”
In a world were everyone gets offended so quickly and labels so much as racism you manage to add comedy to it. Would you say everyone takes life too seriously and judges to quickly for the most part?
“It’s a tough call. I fully realize that when you make a movie where there’s a massive “ass to mouth” conversation or a donkey show, you realize that you can only go this far (*leveling his right hand to his forehead), you’re not going to reach everybody. It’s not like my mom’s like “What movie are we going to see this weekend? Oh yeah let’s go see that ass to mouth movie!” So you kind of realize you’re eliminating your audience but that’s cool by me because I kind of like the idea of making movies where only a certain amount of people get into it. It’s not an elitist feeling it’s just like I get that not everyone shares my sense of humor but there are a lot of people that do and those are the type of people I like to make movies for. It would be nice if everyone would not be offended but I guess you need that line out there otherwise you can’t really cross it. Crossing it is what kind of makes you funny sometimes. So if everyone was comfortable with Pillowpants and ass-to-mouth it would be tough to make something humorous.”
As far as future projects go, will there be another Clerks or are these poor guys taking a break?
“If I ever thought about making another Clerks it would be way down the line. Even if this movie did insanely f#cking well and in some weird universe made $400 million and Weinstein Company was like “we need you to make a sequel like f#cking tomorrow,” I couldn’t do it. I don’t have that many Randall and Dante stories lined up in my head. I think if I hit my forties though and feel like telling a story about what I felt it would be like to be in my forties then I would immediately go to Dante and Randall. Clerks II for me was what it was like for me to be in my thirties and Clerks was me feeling like what it is in my thirties. Maybe in my mid-forties and sh#t if I had an idea for it I’d think about, but I can’t imagine going back to it right away.”
"Clerks II" - Copyright© The Weinstein Company.
