It’s hard to have grown up in the ’90s and not be familiar with Kevin Smith‘s brand of slacker comedy. Between 1994 and 1999, Smith basically became the spokesman for a misfit generation of geeky basement dwellers with his films “Clerks,” “Chasing Amy,” “Mallrats,” and “Dogma.”
READ MORE: Kevin Smith Responds To Martin Scorsese: “Who Is Jesus If Not A Superhero?”
What bound all of those lo-fi 90s movies together, beyond their DIY, stitched-together spirit, sophomoric jokes, and (arguably unearned confidence), was their zealous enthusiasm about geeks inheriting the earth and chutzpah-y, can-do-it worldview. And tons of dick jokes. Smith, like Richard Linklater before him, demonstrated to an entire generation of audiences, that you too could make a movie if you were willing to max out your credit card and carried a plucky attitude.
Although each film had different characters and completely different situations, Jay and Silent Bob were omnipresent. Jay (as played by Jason Mewes) spouted curse words faster than a gangster rapper and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) well, he just stood there, taking in Jay’s fat jokes and societal venting. The stoner duo would always show up to provide humor and, in the case of Silent Bob, some much-needed wisdom.
They were such a hit with Smith fans that, despite their limited screen time, Smith decided to give them their own full-fledged movie in 2001 with “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” a satirical look at Hollywood as seen through the eyes of these eccentric, goofball slackers.
READ MORE: ‘Clerks 3’: Kevin Smith Reveals The Meta Plot To His Long-Awaited Franchise Finale
Eighteen years after ‘Strike Back,’ “Jay and Silent Bob Reboot” is arriving in theaters, with Mewes and Smith back in their respective roles. The film is a return to form for the 47-year-old Smith, who has been struggling to find a groove of late in the post-“Dogma” phase of his career, where he was mostly working on B-movies and low-rent Hollywood vehicles. Admittedly, some of these detours worked (“Red State,” “Tusk,”) while others most certainly didn’t (“Yoga Hosers,” “Cop Out“).
Recently, I spoke to Smith about going back to his roots, the constant tackling of new genres, and how Seth Rogen made him become the stoner, he never thought he would be.
This is a movie where you go back to your roots.
It started five years as we were close and about to shoot “Clerks 3.” One of the locations we had secured was a mall, so I was like, hey wait a sec, why don’t we secure that mall and make “Mallrats 2” as well. I called up my agent and asked if we could make “Mallrats 2,” but he said that was Universal-owned, and the only way we could make it was if Universal wanted to finance or co-finance it. I took that as a yes, so I went out to scout for locations, got the money for it, and then my agent tells me that Universal needs to read a script. I gave them the script. The following day my called calls and says he was wrong and that there is a problem. Universal has a library, and they are very protective of it, so the only way to actually do it would be to contact Focus Features President Peter Schlessel. The problem was that Schlessel remembered what I did at Sundance when I had a “Red State” auction at Sundance, where I invited people to come but didn’t actually auction the movie and just sold it to myself. Schlessel was peeved because he missed a Jets game for that. And so, based on that bro, Schlessel said no.
So “Mallrats 2” doesn’t get made. Universal did pitch it as a series, but nobody was biting on our pitches. So I was just frustrated at all this back-and-forth and was like, “Hey, we partly own Jay and Silent Bob” we had asked and got ownership of the characters from Miramax. Jason Mewes has always asked me about making another “Jay and Silent Bob” movie, but my answer still was, “if you stay clean, then maybe we can make another movie.” This was a project built up around Jason’s sobriety [ed. Note: Mewes struggled with drug addiction for years], Jason became my best friend only in the last ten years. We’ve spent a lot of time on the road; I began to trust him more, and so we built up businesses together, went touring here and there. Jason’s changed a lot, he’s actually a father, and he’s the best father I have ever seen.
While all of this was happening, you also had a heart attack.
It wasn’t painful at all, I just couldn’t catch my breath, but the doctors said it could have totally killed me. I had 100% blockage on LAD across the heart, and so the doctor was like 80% of the time, the patients that have this kind of artery blockage die. I was part of the 20% because the doctor did an incredible job. So I am laying there in the hospital bed, thinking of this 80% brush with death, I am looking back on my life, and you know what, bro? I was ok with it; I had a great life, career, parents, wife, and kids. If I died at 47, I would have been content with what I had achieved. I was okay with dying. However, something bothered me, if I actually was about to die, then the last movie I would have made would have been “Yoga Hosers.”
Not a good testimony to your life.
Not a good testimony at all. All that movie says is he clearly didn’t expect to die, and that is why he made it. Suddenly, I wanted to live; I told the doctor, “please, save me!” The primary mission now was to be alive to make the next movie. My old man had a heart attack and then he had another one, and that took him out. I went vegan, I have no more blockage, but I still have that weak ticker because of my genetics. And so, the next heart attack I may have may be lethal. So I needed to give everything I had with this movie, I wanted to represent on the screen everything I was as a filmmaker, a podcaster, as a human being, etc. So the film got much richer, and then when we got Ben Affleck to participate, I was like “holy shit, now we’re in the next level.”
You’re content if this is your final movie then?
Oh yeah. It was just such a crescendo of closure, man. I was closing circles left and right while making this movie. When I now look at the film, I am like, “Now, that is a gravestone.” If you watch this movie, you can tell who precisely this fucker was. This is just a very ornate gravestone. Clearly, Kevin Smith was the biggest Kevin Smith fan in the world. It’s just a better movie than it would have been a couple of years ago.