Kevin Smith Playboy Interview
Made for just over $27,000 back in 1994, Kevin Smith's first film, Clerks, helped take independent film into the mainstream. The tale of a couple of overly clever, underachieving convenience store clerks had virtually no plot or action but lots of pop culture-strewn dialogue. While far from stylish, the black-and-white film filled with blow job jokes established Smith as someone with a definite voice—kind of a Catholic Woody Allen from Jersey.
There were high points (Chasing Amy, Dogma) and low points (Mallrats) among Smith's next four films, but all spoke with the same everyman voice. These were films driven by the sort of ideas people hash out over beers at three in the morning. Smith's willingness to make detailed references to his personal passions throughout his films made him something of a hero to comic book geeks, Star Wars fans and anybody from New Jersey. While other art house directors were referencing high-minded auteurs, Smith was putting it down for defiantly lowbrow filmmakers like John Hughes and John Landis. It's not that he didn't know his Fellini from his Kurosawa, it's that he wasn't afraid to admit The Breakfast Club and Animal House mean more to him. In a segment of the industry that often prizes elitism, Smith's career has been a triumph of egalitarianism.
Then came Jersey Girl. The film—with Smith mainstay Ben Affleck in a rather conventional Hollywood melodrama about fatherhood—utterly lacked cynicism. Heavily influenced by his marriage to an ex-USA Today reporter and the birth of a daughter, Jersey Girl took a brave step away from Smith's filmmaking comfort zone—no snarky diatribes, no Jay and Silent Bob and few laughs. Released at the high point of the Bennifer backlash, Jersey Girl took a critical and box office beating.
So when Smith describes his latest film, Clerks 2, as "kind of like Clerks and Jersey Girl mixed," there's reason for concern. In reality, it's a pretty apt description. The sequel transposes the slackers from Clerks into their 30s, their dead-end jobs and unbelievably foul mouths intact. The plotline is fairly conventional. Whereas the sentimentality of Jersey Girl felt "manipulative," Smith admits, "Clerks 2 has as much sentiment, but it's tempered with ass-to-mouth jokes, so you get away with it."
In person, Smith talks like a character in his films—his long, winding, gloriously lewd monologues are rarely censored, occasionally insightful and usually entertaining. Chain-smoking on a couch in his Atlanta hotel room, Smith spoke to Playboy.com openly about the Lois Lane factor, dissing Prince and finding his own dick.
PLAYBOY: In 2000, you said there's no reason to do a sequel to Clerks. So what happened?
SMITH: Yeah, I did say that. I also said I'd never do these characters again. I also said I was gonna lose weight. These are all things that to varying degrees I never accomplished. [Laughs] We knew going into the movie we were going to open ourselves up to the "more money, less funny" review, which we were terrified we were going to get on Mallrats. But on Mallrats, they found far more vicious things to say. I had trepidation about doing Clerks 2 solely based on the fact that I said that I wouldn't. The first time I talked to my producer, Scott Mosier, about it, he said, "Yeah, so. If it's good, why not?" And I was like, "Because I said I wouldn't." And he said, "Well, that ought to teach you to keep your fucking mouth shut. You changed your mind. So what?" And I said, "People on the Net will just shred me." And he said, "Well, you never did a Fletch movie. You're not doing Green Hornet. You told me when you were a kid you wanted to be a Jedi. You never became a Jedi. This is just yet another thing you're not living up to." His point was it's not a good enough reason not to do it.
PLAYBOY: To what extent do you feel like you use your films to work out personal issues?
SMITH: All the time. This movie's no exception. Dante wanting to leave and Randal wanting to stay, that's kind of my mindset about the stuff I do. Part of me wants to move on and part of me is like, Don't move on. Sometimes you have to find a happy compromise. The thing I always get is, "Man, you need to grow as a filmmaker. You've got to change and challenge yourself." I don't believe in that. I'm like, "Don't you get it? After 12 years, this is what I do." It's not about me wanting to do something bigger or better. This is what I want to do. I make the movies I want to make. If you feel like they're all cut from the same cloth, well, of course they are, because they're all made by the same person. The other charge I get is that I play to my audience too much. Every filmmaker plays to his audience. Steven Spielberg plays to Steven Spielberg's audience. Steven Spielberg's audience happens to be everybody in the world. My audience ain't everybody in the world. It's people who are into ass-to-mouth jokes mixed with a bit of sentimentality.
PLAYBOY: Your wife has a big role in Clerks 2 and your daughter has a cameo. What do you say to charges of nepotism?
SMITH: I say that it's cheaper than sitting down for a serious portrait photo at JCPenney. I could do that or I could just keep throwing them in the flicks and get to watch them grow as I grow. I've put all my friends in the movies, why wouldn't I put my best friend? It's not like those dudes are professional actors. I dig my wife so it's a no-brainer to throw her in there. With my daughter, it's just nice to throw her in, so as she grows up, we can see what she looked like.
PLAYBOY: So at this point, the Weinsteins are basically just funding your home movies?
SMITH: [Laughs] Exactly. Very vulgar home movies that the Weinsteins back. And that's been the grand trick of it all. I'm not really making mainstream entertainment or even indie films, I'm just making home movies.
PLAYBOY: How has being a father and a husband changed you as a filmmaker?
SMITH: Well, if I hadn't had a kid I would've never made Jersey Girl. So I guess the kid's to fuckin' blame for that.
PLAYBOY: I'm sure you'll never let her forget it.
SMITH: [Laughs] Yeah, believe me. When she gets older, I'll be like, "Worst thing you ever did to me was Jersey Girl." But it hasn't really affected the work. Some people ask me, "Will you ever show your kid your movies before she's in her 30s?" We've already shown her Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back and the language washes over her. Even in our day-to-day, I never feel the need to govern my tongue around the kid. I tell my kid now, "Learn to curse at an early age and learn to do it well, because you can make a very good living off of it." It's had this weird adverse effect—where some people would assume she'd be a potty-mouth, she doesn't curse.
PLAYBOY: You married someone who came to interview you. What hooked you?
SMITH: The Lois Lane factor of being interviewed by this chick journalist. When they told me I was going to be sitting down with someone from USA Today, I'd met a lot of USA Today journalists and they all looked like my mother. When she showed up, Chris Rock had just left my room because we were rehearsing Dogma, and I could've sworn that Rock sent a hooker to my room, just to test me. So the interview went well and afterwards we sat around talking for two hours. I never imagined she was interested in me though. I thought she was just being polite, as most journalists are, until they get out of the room and then they fuckin' crucify me. Then we started e-mailing, and then from e-mail to the phone. It was never like, "I want to sex you up." We were building a friendship. I was hoping one day she might want to fuck me but didn't imagine she would in a million years. Then, after the Independent Spirit Awards in '98, I went back to her place and we sat around talking. At one point, she lays down with her head in my lap, face-up. If it was face-down, I would've thought, She likes me, but she's laying face up, so I wasn't sure. So I'm thinking, I wonder if I tried to kiss her, what she'd do. Then I started panicking because I'm like, If I lean forward to kiss her, my gut is going to push her head off my lap. [Laughs] Finally I just went for the kiss and she met me halfway, but I had to do the major suck-in before I went in. It's an awkward position to kiss somebody in, 'cause it's almost like trying to suck your own dick. I haven't been able to do that since I was like 18.
PLAYBOY: What did she see in you?
SMITH: We just had a really great conversation and that's what our relationship's predicated on. We do fuck an awful lot, more so than most married people I know, and I can't take credit for being the constant instigator. She just thankfully happens to like sex with dudes with small dicks. But we talk an inordinate amount. That's what you do when you're shaped like I am. You talk a lot. It's not like she's like, "Take your shirt off, let me just admire your pecs." We've been married for seven years and I still don't think she's ever seen me with my shirt off. I'm terrified once she does it'd be all over. Our relationship was born in conversation and continues on in conversation. That's a cool thing, because one day, my gut is going to become so big that I won't be able to find my dick, so I'm going to need to be able to speak to her.
PLAYBOY: You were married at the Skywalker Ranch. Was it as geeky as it sounds?
SMITH: You know, you'd think so, but when you get up there, you'd be hard-pressed to find anything Star Wars-related. It's not like you pull onto the joint and there's a giant AT-AT or a bunch of Ewoks in the shrubbery. So in theory, it's geeky. It's geeky when you tell people you got married at Skywalker Ranch and they're like, "Dude, you loooove Star Wars!" But it's just a really beautiful ranch.
PLAYBOY: Language and dialogue have always been central to your films. Do you feel like it's important that your characters sound like real people or that they say interesting things?
SMITH: I think it's a mixture. The weird compliment you get from people is, "Wow, your characters sound just like my friends." And I'm like, "Really?" Because that's not how real people talk. Real people don't speak in monologues. Conversations between me and my friends aren't these eloquent verbal tirades. It's like, "What did you do last night?" "Got laid. What did you do?" "Tried to get laid. What do you want to do now?" "I dunno." It's never that deep. So I tend to write dialogue the way I wished people spoke. I don't care if it doesn't sound like real life.
PLAYBOY: You've been labeled by some as a closet misogynist. Are you?
SMITH: I never understand that. I'm pretty proud of my female characters. They're very strong. Just because some of my male characters are very male-centric—the Jay character particularly is the one that gets you the misogynist tag. But for me, there's no negative or malicious edge to Jay. He's a creature of the id. There's no filter. I've also been labeled as a homophobe and I'm like, "Dude, I make some of the gayest straight movies ever made." I've always fancied myself as a pretty gay dude who's just one cock in the mouth shy of being gay. I live in a pretty gay world. My brother's gay and married to a man. Clerks 2 is probably the gayest movie I've made to date. Some people will still say it's homophobic. I think of it as homoerotic. If anything, the seven flicks I've made—well, maybe six, because there's not a lot of it going on in Jersey Girl—they're really about male romances that just don't happen to cross the line. Most of the guy friends that I've hung out with forever, we've done everything together except fucking cross that line physically. It's like I've dated those dudes. I've just never gotten physical with them because ultimately I like pussy too much.
PLAYBOY: Do you think that's why guys get jealous when one of their buddies goes off and gets married?
SMITH: Oh, absolutely. I've always been pretty good about if I got into a relationship still maintaining ties with my boys. But life moves on at a certain point. It can't constantly be the frat house relationship. I've been lucky enough in that we've been together eight years, and out of those eight years, my friend Jason Mewes [who plays Jay in Clerks] has lived with us for about seven of them. Finally, one day recently, my wife put her foot down. She was like, "As much as I love Jason, it's really time for Jason to get his own place."
PLAYBOY: You talk a lot of shit about a lot of Hollywood folks like Tim Burton, Jon Peters and Prince. Does that ever cause you problems? Do you run into these people again?
SMITH: First off, when I talk about people, my wife is like, "You're burning bridges." And I'm like, "I don't mind burning bridges I never want to cross again." I never want to walk down that Jon Peters bridge again. And oddly enough, I heard from friends that Jon Peters saw the Evening With Kevin Smith DVD [in which Smith skewers the Superman Returns producer] and was flattered by it. He thought he came off rather heroically in the story.
PLAYBOY: Doesn't that say something about his eye for story.
SMITH: [Laughs] Yeah. It does. It really does. I saw Tim Burton at the Howard Stern Show once [after poking fun at him on the same DVD]. They were trying to set it up so we ran into one another. And I said, "I'm sorry, dude. They expect us to fight." He's like, "Why would we fight?" I was like, "Exactly." That was that. I told that Prince story on the DVD and Prince took a shot at me in Entertainment Weekly. On one hand I was offended, but on the other hand, I was like, "Wow, he fucking took a shot at me!" The author of the article called me up and was like, "Do you want to comment on this Prince story. He took a shot at you." I was like, "Get the fuck out of here!" And he was like, "We were in the midst of this interview and apropos of nothing, he brought up Jersey Girl and said, 'Did you see Jersey Girl? That's what happens when the potty mouth don't work for you no more.'" I was pretty flattered. So I took a shot back: "It's cool he didn't like Jersey Girl, 'cause I fucking hated Crystal Ball." Then I hung up and was like, "Fuck. What I should have said was, 'This coming from the director of Under The Cherry Moon?'"
|
