In a recent interview with TV Guide Online comedian Chris Rock admitted that playing the forgotten, black 13th apostle wasn’t difficult – he just had to pick up on the cues of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon who play the fallen angles Loki and Bartelby in the film.

“I just played off the other actors,” Rock said. “I locked into the part, and once you make the leap that we are apostles and angels and everything, then it all seems real.”

“I stuck fairly close to the script because I really liked the script. I really respected it. I respect all of Kevin’s movies, especially Chasing Amy.

“I wanted the part. I wanted the part bad. Kevin was very worried that I would start ad libbing. I said, “You know Kevin, I am a professional comedian. It’s okay if I ad lib a little. If Salma [Hayek] starts ad libbing, then you’ve got problems.”

“Kevin’s really cool and a really good director. He runs intense rehearsals. Yet it’s really light on the set. Rehearsals are like boot camp. You are up, it’s like 9 to 5, and, you do every scene over and over. “Do it again. Again. Again!” He blocks everything in the room. There are diagrams on the floor. So when you get to the set you know exactly what you’re doing.

“And Kevin is great as Silent Bob. He’s very silent.”

On the November 11 edition of the ABC show, “Politically Incorrect,” host Bill Maher interviewed “Dogma” director Kevin Smith. In doing so, Maher blasted Catholics: “Catholics practice what they want to practice. They go to see the Pope ’cause he’s a big celebrity, but they go home and they masturbate, they practice birth control.well they do.”

When someone remarked that a lot of people are not attending churches or synagogues these days, Maher stepped up his attack on Catholicism: “But if I may pause to correct something, you shouldn’t, I don’t think, lump in the synagogue with the Church. They’ve operated very differently, OK. The synagogue-and I’m not Jewish, but I was raised Catholic-was never as corrupt as the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church, which is people, not God running it, OK, hugely corrupt, did horrible things through history, maybe OK because they were that powerful.”

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, issued the following statement on this matter:

“This is not the first time that Bill Maher has proven to be an anti-Catholic bigot. Not surprisingly, the audience laughed at his comments, showing how utterly acceptable anti-Catholicism is these days. Indeed, Maher’s remarks prove that it is anything but politically incorrect to bash Catholics on ‘Politically Incorrect.’

“If ABC had as low a tolerance for Catholic bashing as it does other expressions of bigotry, it would terminate Maher immediately. At the very least, the Catholic League wants an apology. We await the network’s response.”

Jake Busey (afterparty)
Dash Mihok (of The Thin Red Line; sat with Alanis at afterparty)
Gwyneth Paltrow (screening + party)
Jason Schwartzman (of Rushmore; afterparty)
Jennifer Tilly (screening only)
Luke Wilson (afterparty)

In a side note, Gwyneth left moments before Salma and Edward did. Also, the screening took place at the Harmony Gold Screening Room on Sunset, while the party took place on Dominick’s on Beverly Blvd. (NOT Sunset).