Few subjects off-limits for filmmakerPublished in the Asbury Park Press 05/15/05
BY MARK VOGER, STAFF WRITER

For a second there, it looked like Kevin Smith was in real trouble.

The Shore native and filmmaker behind “Clerks” and “Jersey Girl” was on “The Tonight Show” hawking his new book, “Silent Bob Speaks: The Collected Writings of Kevin Smith,” when he launched into a risky bit of banter about how he would have written and directed “The Passion of the Christ.”

As Smith described his fantasy version, in which ninjas swooped down to rescue Jesus, there was nervous laughter from the audience and, worse, a frozen smile on the face of Jay Leno.

Recalls Smith (whose next film will be titled “The Passion of the Clerks”): “That was about the sixth, seventh time I’ve been a panel guest on “The Tonight Show.’ You do this pre-interview process, where you give them an idea of what you want to talk about. So he (Leno) kind of knew I was going to go into “The Passion of the Clerks’ vs. “The Passion of the Christ.’

“But it’s such a conservative period in our country right now that I think for a moment he was just like, “Wow, this could really go badly.’ ”

For a moment, everyone seemed nervous ? that is, except for Smith.

“I had done that story so many times at college gigs and what-not,” he says, “that I knew it would totally work as long as I got to the punchline.”

That punchline had one of the ninjas say of the crucifixion: “Not on my watch!” The result was a roar of audience laughter ? and a relieved Leno.

“So it worked out,” Smith says, “but I think there was a moment where he was kind of like, “Oh, (expletive), this could really go south.’ ”

Smith’s “Passion” bit was tame compared to the contents of “Silent Bob Speaks,” which Smith compiled for Miramax Books at the suggestion of Miramax Films honcho Harvey Weinstein, who has distributed Smith films.

“The contents are a bunch of columns I did for a British magazine called Arena a couple of years back,” Smith says. “After that, I did a column called “Developing the Monkey’ for a movies-comics-TV Web site (www.psycomic.com), basically talking about the casting of “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.’ I started doing online (journals) when we were making “Jersey Girl,’ but it didn’t last very long; I just got wrapped up in the picture. The rest were just sundry magazine articles I’ve written over the years, including one for New Jersey Monthly.”

“Silent Bob Speaks” is not for the squeamish. When Smith describes the regrettable side effects of so-called “fat blocker” pills, he spares no unpleasantries. He writes frankly about being diagnosed with morbid obesity; being at the receiving end of a “lap dance”; his disdain for Britney Spears and Reese Witherspoon; his wife posing nude for an oil painting; and, yes, the filmmaking process.

How will screen stud Ben Affleck, a frequent player in Smith’s films, react when he reads about Smith’s “heterosexual crush” on him (along with descriptions of acts that can’t be shared in polite company)?

“He’s seen that before,” Smith says, “so he’s kind of way-familiar with that quote. You know, he’s kind of charmed by it. He realizes that I wouldn’t have a shot in the world with him, even if he was gay and I was gay.”

It begs the question: What is off-limits for Smith?

“Basically, other people’s lives are kind of off-territory for me,” the filmmaker says.

“To me, nothing is out of bounds with the exception of talking about somebody else’s trials and tribulations. Because some of that stuff, I guess, would be private ? that people share with you that really isn’t yours to tell.

“But my stuff? As long as it’s my life, then I’m kind of OK with talking about it. The problem that you run into is that sometimes your life is other people’s life as well, like (Smith’s wife) Jen. But I just don’t know how else to go about it.

“I feel like I could talk about my life and anything that goes on in my life. I’m doing that to an even greater degree at our Web site (www.viewaskew.com) right now than in the book. There’s a section of the Web site called “My Boring-(expletive) Life,’ where I literally do everything that’s happened in my day. That tends to get very detail-oriented.”

For Smith, all of this public confession has yielded a dividend.

Says the filmmaker: “I think I have a much easier time with my own trials or tribulations by expressing them publicly anyway.”