On the other hand, Fiorentino says making Dogma was somewhat frustrating. “Kevin Smith works in a different way. He gave line readings. If someone tells me what to do I immediately think I’m bad and I don’t know what I’m doing. I lose all security. It’s not one of my better performances because of that.”

Surprisingly, she would collaborate with Smith again. “I think he’s a genius writer. He’s young and I think he learned a lot. He started asking the actors questions. Up until that point, he hadn’t worked with veteran actors who know their stuff.” Hey – didn’t he work with Shannen Doherty in Mallrats? – Eddie Roche

Ben Affleck Cleans Toilets To Prepare For New Role

BEN AFFLECK has been bought down to earth – he has taken on a new job as a toilet cleaner. The actor who is in intensive training for his upcoming role in Pearl Harbor (2001) has spent the past week being put through his paces at a real life bootcamp. But Affleck says his experience of the army has been nothing compared to his best pal MATT DAMON’s preparation for Saving Private Ryan (1998). Affleck says, “We thought it was going to be an actor kind of boot camp where they teach you how to salute… It wasn’t quite like that. it was more like the first 20 minutes or Full Metal Jacket (1987) but it was extraordinary… I don’t think I scrubbed a urinal in my entire life.” Affleck jetted out to Hawaii to film the multi-million dollar( pound) movie last weekend. British actress KATE BECKINSALE will play the nurse his character falls in love with.

“And one last thing: each year at Wondercon, Dini has brought a new un-aired Batman or Superman (last year he premiered A Fish Story for example). This year, however, he instead brought one of the episodes of Clerks: The Animated Series he had helped co-write (the 2nd one with their reminiscing to the 1st episode). Frankly, I don’t know why ABC passed on this. All 300 or so people in the room were literally rolling in the aisles none-stop for the entire 24 minutes, it was that funny. ”

To Clerk or Not to Clerk? That is the question, with conflicting reports about whether director Kevin Smith’s much-awaited Clerks: The Animated Series will ever make it on the air.

Controversy has swirled around the project since ABC moved the premiere date from February or March to May 31 after Michael J. Fox announced May 24’s Spin City season finale would be his last show. Clerks would take over in Spin City’s time slot after Spin’s season finale.

The move didn’t sit well with Smith, who was very vocal about his displeasure in being scheduled during the “dry gulch that is the summer,” a move that, Smith says in a post to his official Website, will ensure the show’s failure.

More recently, Smith has been telling fans at his public-speaking appearances that he doubts the show will ever make it on air at all, and he’s investigating the possibility of Miramax (another ABC/Disney affiliate) purchasing the six episodes of the cartoon and releasing them theatrically.

But here’s the official word from an ABC rep: Plans for the May 31 premiere are still a go. All I know is that I’m dying to see the episodes–the sooner, the better.

Smith screened a couple of them during the aforementioned speaking engagements, including a “flashback” installment that has Dante and Randal riffing on everything from Saturday-morning cartoons to how much The Phantom Menace sucked.

Patrick Swayze Has No Sense of Humor One more note about the Clerks ‘toon: Episode three of the show features Randal freaking out about a new pet store that opens in town. And the pet shop is manned by “down on his luck” actor Patrick Swayze, who eventually leaves his job after telling Randal and Dante that he’s gotten a part in the latest Adam Sandler movie. The really funny part, though, is that, according to the News Askew Website, the show originally had the Swayze character admit that he had been fired from the pet store, but it was changed when Swayze threatened to sue. Apparently, his reps, who did not return phone calls to comment, were concerned that the suggestion that he was fired from a pet store would be damaging to his career. Two words: Father Hood.