…”In next week’s episode, Smith makes fun of Affleck. “That’s what friends are for,” says Smith, sprawled out on a couch in Vancouver, where his seven-day promotional tour launched this week.

“I once asked [Affleck] if it bothered him, all the jokes I make about him. He said, ‘Don’t you think I would’ve said something by now? But I think that’s really cute that you asked me.’ “

Smith asked Affleck to play a cameo alongside him, but his friend refused.

“When we were shooting that episode, it was right at the point when Surviving Christmas was coming out. He was just like, ‘Dude, I am getting my ass so kicked in the press right now. You know I love you and if you tell me this is the most important thing in the world to you and you’ll hate me if I don’t, of course I’ll do it. But please, I’m begging you. If I show up on a Canadian teen soap opera, they’ll just have a field day. It’s going to take away from everything you love about the show because they’re just going to talk about this.’ “

Smith understood and instead asked Alanis Morissette, the Ottawa-born singer who he cast as God in Dogma. In next week’s episode, she plays a lumber-jacket wearing high-school principal in the film that Kevin Smith and his perennial sidekick Jason “Jay” Mewes are shooting at Degrassi High.”

…””After it was all set up and I got there to the Degrassi set, I thought, ‘It’s never going to live up to the hype. It’s never going to make me feel as good as when I watched the show.

I’ve met people, you know. I used to like Chevy Chase so much. I loved all his movies and his body of work. I never knew him. And then I met him and you know, there’s some people you should just never meet.

“Prince was like that too. I shot a documentary with him and it was a disaster.

“So I was kind of worried that the Degrassi experience would be like that. That afterwards, I wouldn’t even like the show anymore because of the disastrous guest spot. But I couldn’t be happier. It was probably one of the best on-set experiences I’ve ever had — second only to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which was such an enjoyable shoot.”

Back to class?

With the Degrassi episodes now behind him, Smith has started — albeit slowly — to move on with his non-Canadian career.

His next project is The Passion of the Clerks, the sequel to Clerks which he refers to simply as “Clerks 2.” And he’s currently writing the second draft of the action-adventure The Green Hornet for Miramax — a project he was going to direct until he realized helming a franchise-friendly blockbuster isn’t for him.

Yet none of these projects invokes quite the same passion in Smith as Degrassi.

In fact, he even approached creator and executive producer Linda Schuyler about having an ongoing role on the series.

“I told Linda, ‘How about in the Degrassi reality, Jersey Girl tanked so badly that I can’t work in film anymore — which isn’t that far from reality — so I get a teaching gig at Degrassi High?’ She was like, ‘You know, the guest spot is enough.’ ”