Street roots
Aug. 15, 2014
“I knew Jason was funny and I wanted to
put him into the movie. I wrote it pretty
much as Jason was at 16 years old. I wanted
to put somebody next to him so he wasn’t
talking to himself and they didn’t even have
to say a word because Jay was a
motormouth, so I called that character
Silent Bob.”
Originally Smith intended to play Randal
— “which is why Randal has all the best
jokes” - but after casting Jeff Anderson in
the role, Smith decided to be Silent Bob.
“I’ll stand next to Jay and that way I can
direct him within the scene and I don’t have
to memorise any dialogue.”
To Smith’s surprise “Clerks” received
critical acclaim and was soon picked up and
distributed by Miramax. He maintains that it
was simply the result of a lot of hard work
and the determination to see a project
through.
“I’ve been telling people for 20 years now:
there’s no difference between me on stage
and ybU in the audience except that I tried.
You can’t sit there and wonder: ‘How come
the world’s not coming to me finding my
brilliance?’ They can’t know that unless you
show them what you can do. When I saw
Richard Linklater’s film Slacker, I was like:
‘Well, here’s a guy in Texas who’s just doing
it. He’s not waiting for permission. He just
made a movie with his friends. Maybe I can
do the same thing.’”
Nor does Smith wait for everything to be
absolutely right, pointing out that “Clerks”
isn’t perfect, with its occasionally fluffed
lines and wonky camera work. But it’s got
great charm.
“So many people just wither and die on
the vine, going: ‘I gotta get it perfect.’
“Clerks” is an excellent example of why it
doesn’t have to be perfect Clerks looks like
shit - but man, there’s a fun idea at the
centre and it was doing something you’ve
never seen before at that point”
Smith went on to make slicker fare, many
. o f h is film s c ited as fo rm atiy e. c u lt classics.
T h e tw o th a t follow ed “C lerk s” — “M a llra ts”
a n d “Chasing Amy” — both feature a pre-
Cult film m aker Kevin Smith talks about being a slacker-done-good and his latest
animated film , “Jay & Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie”
BY MARISSA BURGESS
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
“Who knew, dude?” exclaims director
Kevin Smith, as he talks about the small
cameo role he gave himself in his 1994
debut feature “Clerks.” “I had no idea I was
punching my ticket for the next 20 years.”
Silent Bob, the mute character he is most
recognisable for, has gone on to become one
half of View Askewniverse, the fictional
universe created and used in most of his
films since.
“People call out at me in the street:
‘Silent Bob!’ That was a happy little accident
where I just thought, if we’re going to do
this, I at least want to be in the thing.”
In the two decades since, Smith has built
up a large and impressive body of work, a
cult following and made many more cameo
appearances alongside his old friend and
sidekick Jason Mewes as Jay.
The last big screen liver action film they
appeared in was “Clerks II” in 2006, but this
week both Smith and Mewes (live) and Bob
and Jay (in animated form) are out on tour,
bringing the Jay & Silent Bob Get Old
podcast to the live arena as well as a
screening of an animated adventure, Jay &
Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie.
The podcast, ordinarily filmed in front of
a live audience in the States, started with
Mewes, the now 40-year-old actor, talking
about his former drug addiction and sexual
adventures. It’s a dark topic but Jay and Bob
(who isn’t silent in this instance) aré skilled
and hilarious in their storytelling, and it
works as comic therapy for Mewes, who has
now been sober four years.
In the podcast’s infancy, however, Mewes
hadn’t had much experience of public
speaking.
“I used to be scared to sit next to him
because you never knew what was coming
out of his mouth,” Smith recalls. “Now he’s
a veritable raconteur, there are times where
he’ll take over the show. He knows how to
craft a story and work physicality into it. It-s
a joy to watch. Sometimes I’m just sitting
and enjoying the show that he’s doing.”
The double act’s true-life «story starts
back in the New Jersey Quick Stop
convenience store where Smith, then in his
early twenties, was working. Already nursing
a love for comic books, film and writing it
was there he met Vincent Pereira who he
later worked with.
“He was the guy who would mop up at
night and he was the first person I ever met
who said: ‘I want to be a director? I thought
directors were born in Hollywood.”
Smith decided to give it a go himself,
gathering a group of friends and amateur
actors together and staying up all night to
film using his work premises as a se t The
result Was Clerks, a day in the life of Dante
and Randal, two young shop workers who
banter and philosophise about life and spout
refreshingly frank talk about sex all within a
sharp and witty script - a cult classic. The
characters’ friends and customers drop in
and out — one of them played by Mewes,
then in his teens.
Beniffer and Good Will Hunting Ben Affleck,
who has recently been announced to play "
the next Batman. Post-Hollywood, Affleck
did go bn to make further appearances in
his old mate Smith’s films, but not without
hassle.
“That was always the difficult one, getting
Ben. Ben would always be like: ‘Dude, I’m
totally gonna do i f But then he’d get on to
his agent and his agent couldn’t stand us
because we made the movies where Ben
had to take pay cuts or didn’t get paid at all.
That was always problematic - if we want to
do it with Ben, we have to wait But it was
cool because he sold me his house very
inexpensively in Los Angeles. I’ve been,
living in that house 12 years,” laughs Smith.
Dealing with agents is just one of the
many things that Smith finds frustrating
about filmmaking.
“Podcasting to me is so much easier and
so much fun because I can sit there and tell
you a zillion stories and I never have to say:
.‘Quick, get me Ben Affleck!’ It takes
storytelling to its absolute, bare, basic roots.
“Punching through water is what I feel
like it is for me to make films. S p e ak in g in
pictures is not my first language. Telling you
a story with my mouth - that is my first
language. If I were a painter dude, I’d take a
canvas and splash paint across it and you’d
know how I was feeling. If I was a sin g e r I
could open up my mouth and blast a tune.
‘Oh, feel the pain of what it feels lik e to be
Kevin Smith! Or the joy of what it feels like
to be Kevin Smith!’
“Somebody once said a painter needs a
brush, a musician needs an instrument but a
filmmaker needs an army, or something like
that. It’s true.”
But despite his frustrations with the
movie industry, the director has filmed
“Tusk,” a horror film about a missing
podcast journalist, which is released this
year And with the much anticipated “Clerks
III” in the pipeline, he’s not likely to be
giving up filmmaking any time soon.
www.street-papers.org/ The Big Issue in the
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