…Rosario Dawson suggested that when they were shooting under the original title, there was even more religion in the film. “There were a lot of times where Kevin was going for a record amount of times you could say Jesus,” she said. “Sometimes a sentence, but definitely in the movie. And sometimes he’d do a scene and be like, ‘OK, do it faster and you say Jesus before that line, you say Jesus after that line and if you can say Jesus in the middle of your line that would be great. And if you want to put a couple of curses in there, go. Action!’ It was pretty funny. It was a very relaxed setting I must say.”

“…My feeling is like I didn’t get into filmmaking to make movies like Green Hornet or big movies. The movies that inspired me to be a filmmaker were Slacker and Hal Hartley’s Trust, Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, movies about people who relate and talk to one another. They’re all conversation. That’s what made me want to be a filmmaker and I never said, ‘I’ll do those movies until I get the chance to do a big movie.’ I just don’t really have an interest. I like watching big movies, don’t’ want to make one myself. After 12 years, I wish people would kind of get the heads around the notion of this is it. this is all. This is as talented as I get. I can’t do any better than this.”

But Smith can’t win. If he makes a more mainstream, heartwarming tale like Jersey Girl, critics say the d*ck and f*art joke guy has no right to enter that territory. “Yeah, it’s weird. Like on Jersey Girl you get the reviews where people are like, ‘This is the movie Dante and Randall would have made fun of.’ Or ‘Guy who made Dogma shouldn’t be making this movie.’ So I don’t know.”

“…As a producer, Dawson also admires the empire Smith has grown with his devoted fan base. “I have a lot of respect for Kevin. He started out with the first Clerks, it was in black and white, it was very artistic, it was at the height of new independent film and new artists and directors coming on. He brought such a fresh new voice to filmmaking which was awesome. But he’s also maintained that over the years. He’s definitely always known that his audience is smart and that rather than watering down and trying to be successful and making a bunch of movies he thinks everyone will enjoy, he makes movies that he knows he really enjoys, his friends really enjoy and probably his fans enjoy. And that’s good enough. That integrity for what he’s done for what he’s done has really carried his fans for so many years. And he had me there excited to read the script when it got sent to me.”