On 15th September 1997, I interviewed Clerks director Kevin Smith for Total Film Magazine. The interview that appeared in Total Film issue 11 (December) was a truncated affair, cut short by the fact that we had to include other features in the magazine. True Smith fans may now browse the transcript of the tape. This is what he said, this is the order in which he said it. Bear in mind that there’s a lot of plot-revealing information about his latest film, Chasing Amy, in the middle. Enjoy.
Cam Winstanley (Features Editor)

Exactly. For that reason we take a lot of heat because we’re not New York. New Yorkers fancy themselves as metropolitan. People from New Jersey are seen as wannabees or something.

They’re inner city New Yorkers who come to our neck of the woods. Somebody said recently that they’re called that because they’re beneficial in the summer – they bring in commerce and stuff, but you get New Workers coming down, they’re some of the rudest fucks on the planet.

Chasing Amy’s the closest we’ve got so far to a career, with the guys writing and drawing comic books and making a living. I was really interested in doing that this time around because in Clerks they’re minimum wage slaves, in Mallrats no one really works and I was kind of interested in giving the guys a job in this flick where they’re making a viable living doing something they enjoy. For a very brief time I was wondering ‘Should they be film makers?’ but that was too close to home, and who needs to see another movie about making a movie?

Hopefully, the older I get, the more I’ll want to talk about what’s interesting me at that time. Stuff like this – if I’m still doing it when I’m forty – shoot me. I don’t want to be King Slacker when I’m forty. If this is still going on in my life then, definitely – kill me.

Yeah, and Chasing Amy’s kind of just an extension of that. This movie was just a nice way to exorcise the demons of insecurity so that I would never have to talk about that subject again. One would imagine it has to be out of my system by now. If it’s not, then I feel sorry for me. It was kind of the idea of taking that little discussion from Clerks that was played for laughs and making a whole movie about it, only exploring it a little deeper.

Was he always doomed? No, I think that if he had lived in ignorance of her past, he probably never would have gone down that road. If Holden had never found out that she’s been with guys, and it really wasn’t a crucial factor or anything. Like if anybody else has learned that fact, I don’t think they’d have cared as much as Holden did. But that’s why it was important that she was a lesbian. People ask me ‘Why is she gay, it’s not really about her being gay?’ and no it’s not. It’s a very illustrative point to have her be gay because he’s a typical 90s male right? He considers himself very liberal and has no problem with her lesbian past whatsoever. But when her heterosexual past comes into play, that’s when the dude completely wigs. And you wouldn’t be able to stress that point if she’d been straight.

This is what it was about to some degree. Yeah they are really good mates, and do I think Banky’s gay? No, but I do think he loves his friend incredibly, and I do think he’d do anything to get back to the microcosmic life they were leading before. He wants to smooth things over, he doesn’t want to lose his friend. So would Banky go cruising for ass? No. Life comes down to moments and there’s a moment where he could clear everything up. But he just as quickly rescinds it – Alyssia’s like ‘No’ and he’s just like – phew.

I wish I did, but I don’t. Nothing that adventurous. At one point I had rug burn on my back, but it never lasted, it went away.

Oh absolutely. People in America don’t talk about it all that much, but it just comes down to who you’re with. Every so often you come across wonderful, wonderful wonderful women who are just one of the guys and you can talk to them like one of the guys. And there’s not this kind of gender hangup thing where you just sit there and you’re not like ‘Oh my God, does she think I’m coming onto her?’ And you’re just comfortable talking about. It’s necessary, because in order to improve as a lover, one always has to be constantly asking the important questions of the opposite sex. Because they have all the answers, right? There’s a famous set from a comedian where he used to talk about how women will tell their friends and their sisters and their mothers what guys do wrong. And it’s just like – why don’t you just tell us? We’re the ones that fuck you. Plus it’s basically one of the only things we’ve got to talk about in life. Sex is ever fascinating, ever changing and it just takes up so much of our time. And it’s one of those things we’d rather talk about than do. Doing it takes too much energy, talking about it doesn’t take nearly as much energy and is usually more fun.

Yeah. Which ought to be genius. I expect it to be good.

He was in two movies by friends of mine where he played characters that weren’t really that close to Jay and he was good. But he hasn’t done anything that’s been really seen as one of them’s cutting now and the other’s on the festival circuit. They’re two movies that we produced. But other than that, no. I mean, he takes calls but it never pans out – he never goes to the audition or whatnot.

It’s weird. At one point he was moving furniture, at one point he was roofing houses. Now he works at the comic book store that I own in town. So people come from states all around to come and see the store because it’s Jay and Silent Bob’s comic store and kind of a little Mecca. And people get there and there’s Jason behind the counter and people just like wig out. It’s pretty funny.

Alanis Morisette – the singer – she loved the movie and hated Jason, she said that he terrified her for some reason. It’s funny because the usual reaction is that people love him because they know someone just like him. There’s an identity factor because people keep saying to me ‘I know a dude just like Jay.’ So apparently there are more of him out there.

…wonderful.

I know, isn’t that neat?

Well Jeff was a guy I knew at high school. We weren’t really friends per se. And when I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t play Randall, because that’s how I’d written it but I was never going to be able to memorise all the dialogue, I recruited Jeff to play it. Jason is definitely is, was and always will be a very close friend of mine. And Jason Lee was just a dude who came in for audition over a period of the whole audition period. We thought he was brilliant although at first we were like ‘This dude will never get the part, but he’s a nice guy, so let’s bring him back.’ So he kept coming back and there was something interesting about the way he did the dialogue, it wasn’t quite there but it could be worked on. We bet on him, and it paid off.

It did, it went right in the shitter.

Yes and no. During the screenwriting process, the studio pulled out anything that made it stand out. They were just – trim this, tone that down, take it out. That scene in Chasing Amy where they’re comparing sexual scars? That was originally in Mallrats and the studio said take it out because no one’s going to find that funny and they’ll be offended and walk out.So during the screenwriting process the reigned it in a bit but when we were making the movie, we’d agreed that okay, this was the script, so they never bothered us then or during editing. We actually cut the first half hour ourselves without the studio saying a word. So it’s hard to sit here and say that the studio fucking bastardised that movie because in the end I made it. I could have stood up and said ‘This is not the film I want to do’ but at the point we went into production, I’d agreed to it. But there was a thing that made sense to the studio but didn’t make sense to me. The went ‘Don’t you want this movie to reach the widest possible audience? There’s nothing wrong with a lot of people seeing your movie, right?’ I said that I guessed not, and they said ‘Well if you take stuff like this out and move this and change that, you’re not alienating these people, and they’re coming to see your movie.’ But in the end that didn’t make sense to me because I don’t think I make movies for the widest possible audience, I make movies that I like to see and that my friends like to see and it seems that a lot more people than I’d’ve ever thought in a million years would like to see. But it ain’t everybody. The movies I make I don’t think are meant for everybody. Movies that we put together end up being for a very select audience. And with Chasing Amy we were very fortunate that it branched out and did far more business than either of the other two movies but at the same time, it’s not a movie for everybody. And you’ve just got to accept that. No movie’s for everybody. Jurassic Park wasn’t for everybody. There are still cats out there that haven’t seen Jurassic Park, not as many as those that haven’t seen Chasing Amy or Mallrats, but still…So I just don’t see the philosophy of making a movie that’ll reach the widest possible audience. We made three million dollars theatrically with Clerks – that was the widest possible audience for that movie at that time.

I think it’s interesting to have test screenings and sometimes you can learn some things. But at the same time, I don’t think that crucial creative decisions should be made based on test screenings. I think they’re great for marketing to find out what are the best pieces you can put in a trailer, but not when they change things. I mean Sam Jackson died originally in The Long Kiss Goodnight and they had test screenings and suddenly Sam lives again. Why? The original ending definitely had more integrity.

Yeah, I’m done with that. At the time we did Clerks, nobody was talking about Star Wars any more and it was pretty neat. What was wonderful was to see people latch onto it and go ‘I remember that, that was my favourite part.’ So suddenly there was this little club where we were all talking about Star Wars. Since then we’ve had the re-release of the trilogy and it’s everywhere again. During Clerks, you couldn’t go into a store and buy something with Star Wars on it because there was so little merchandise, now it’s everywhere. So that coupled with the fact that how many times can you kick that dog, there’s no need to talk about it any more.

Not a hell of a lot. I thought the best one was Empire Strikes Back because they didn’t do all that much with it. I mean they added a Wampa shot, but that was about it. My take on the trilogy is a lot of people think I’m a huge Star Wars fan. I love The Empire Strikes Back, I think it’s a wonderful movie and almost perfect. I think Star Wars and Return Of The Jedi are tough sits – they’re really tough to sit through. Wonderful characters that were well realised in the second feature, but the first and third are rocky. Rocky to boring.

What?

Get out of here.

God that’s frightening.

I think they’re very interesting and I can’t wait to see them. But I’ve been waiting a long time to see them and I think my interest has waned since I was a child. I can’t see them being bad movies, but at the same time, you’re talking about Darth Vaderless flicks – how interesting can they be?

That one actually I have to ‘fess up to. The actor playing it – his line was “Who the fuck smells of shoe polish?” And he was like ‘Can I call him a shoe polish smelling motherfucker?” So I said yes, by all means. I think that just comes from the part of the country we live in, it’s very pointed and you can really get in there with a dig.

I just think that God is a fan of anything that’s well written and thought out, particularly if it has a point of view that’s somewhat irreverent. Preacher’s a very irreverent book but in the end, it doesn’t cross a certain line. And at least it’s talking and thinking about religion. You have to think that when Christ walked the Earth, he talked about religion and faith in radical terms, and at the time, people thought he was blasphemous. So nowadays when you have people talking about faith in radical terms, again, they’re accused of blasphemy. Now do I think that Garth Ennis is the son of God? No, but at least here’s a guy who making us think about something that we probably don’t give any original thought to ever. Most people who go to church don’t think of God in any way, shape or form except for the lip service prayers that we all intone whilst sitting there zombie-like. It’s just nice to see someone talking about faith and putting questions out there explosively and entertainingly.

God is God. The first time I read Preacher I went ‘Fuck!’ because it reminded me so much like Dogma, which I’d just written. But then I realised that there was room for more stuff like this.

I think Garth should do the screenplay. Garth has an incredible grasp of language, and who better to write it than the creator to do the screenplay. I don’t think that they would ever in a million years do it, because Warners owns DC Comics and I don’t think they ever make it, or even let it be optioned out. But if someone like Miramax optioned it, then it might get made.

I can’t direct something I didn’t write, I’m not that talented. I can direct what I write because I can see it as I’m writing it. But directing something else, I don’t think I could bring anything to it that wasn’t already on the page.

Yeah, but I also write for hire too. But I would never be a director for hire. But offers have come down, really tempting offers in terms of money. It’s sometimes hard to say no just because there’s a lot of money involved, but at the same time, I’d never do it. It’s like if somebody said ‘Hey man, here’s ten million dollars, will you suck a dick?’ you’d certainly give it a thought before you said no. And if somebody says ‘Here’s two million dollars, you want to direct an Eddie Murphy movie?’ I give it a thought, and then I say no.

Believe me man, it ain’t going to be the draft. They moved on, I did my two contracted drafts and then Tim Burton got involved, and once he got involved, he wanted my shit off the project. I’m not in the loop and from what I understand, I still talk to some Warner Brothers people, the script’s really, really bad now. Because Warner Brothers really, really loved the two drafts I did for them, but Tim and Wesley Strick have gotten in there and apparently fucked it up royal. So I don’t hold much hope for the Superman movie.

There’s far more of them than there are of us. People ask all the time in the world of comics – why can’t they do Batman like The Dark Knight Returns? Why can’t they get it right? And Batman came awfully close, probably as close to its original source material as any comic book adaptation, with the exception perhaps of The Rocketeer. But in the end you’ve got to realise that you’re talking to an audience that doesn’t know the complete history of that character. I think it’s highly commendable that the people who weren’t comic book fans came out to support the first Batman movie, because the only Batman they really knew was the Batman off TV. So they came in, gave it ago and thought it was good. And you can’t put on the screen exactly what’s in the comic book because it might not work, and nine times out of ten, I doubt it would.

I don’t think it’s geeky, I just think it’s a little unreasonable. If they were making the movie for two million buck, then they could stay as true to the comic as they wanted, because the comic book audience would come out and support it, they’d make their money back and that’s that. But in a world where you’re making a movie for a hundred million dollars, you can’t just do it for the comic book people, it’s got to be for everyone. That’s the philosophy. Now is it a good philosophy? No, it’s a business philosophy. Do I condone it? No, because then you’ve got crap like Batman and Robin. At the same time, they made that movie for everybody, yet nobody was into it. Go out there and talk to the people. Hit the internet, log onto a site and listen to the crap they talk about before the film ever comes out. If the studios would pay more attention to that sort of thing, maybe they would think twice about investing so much money into such a feeble effort.

Any comic book movie is better than no comic book movie, except for Batman & Robin. But I think they’ve just run out of ideas. For a studio that has no good or original ideas, comic books are a wonderful place to mine big event movies. But they try to marry their sensibilities to it, again they try to reach as wide an audience as possible. I say cut down the cost of the movies and make them quality, don’t worry about reaching ma and pa and three point two kids.

Sure, Deep South private investigator thing.

And The Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters was a mini-series they did a few years ago. Wonderful, easy story to film. Involves a superhero more or less – he’s not very super but neither is Batman; he’s just a dude in a suit while Green Arrow’s a guy with a bow who runs around the city in a mask. There’s no reason that you couldn’t make a movie of that for ten or fifteen million. It’d do well to. But they just say ‘Who does everyone know? Superman, okay, so lets do Superman then.’ It was less than twenty years ago that we had a Superman movie, and already they’re going back to the well and recreating the franchise. Because they don’t want to try anything else. They did Superman and it died after a while, then they did Batman and when Batman started losing steam they’re going straight back to Superman. But let’s try something else – let’s do Green Lantern, let’s do Aquaman. And there was talk about doing Daredevil for the longest time. Carlo Carlei the guy who did Fluke, he was writing a script for it and Chris Columbus of all people, he was producing. Daredevil would be good and wouldn’t take all that much cash to do either.

Yes, she’s doing Chasing Asia. I was shocked, I thought ‘This is excellent.’ She actually logged onto our Web site on the internet and posted something about it. I was quite thrilled, that’s when I felt that I had made it. That someone’s made a porn movie based on one of mine, I felt like we’d arrived. I look forward to seeing her movie too.

I think there’s nothing wrong about porn, I think it’s all good. The only down side is that if you watch the porn and don’t keep a certain mind set about it, you fall into the trap of subjugating women when talking or thinking about sex. Chasing Amy definitely has touchstones and origins within my own personal life. A girl I was dating told me she’d bumped two guys, and I immediately flashed on every porno I’d ever seen where a girl had been with two guys. And how no one was having sex, these girls were just getting fucked royally, totally used and shit like that. So you immediately extrapolate and transpose that onto the person telling you this. And that’s the only down side of porn, because so often it’s just women being constantly fucked, it’s never a reverse or equal situation. It’s always a guy doing something to a girl. I think it would probably be better if it were two people doing something to each other. Fuck like mad for all I care, but just make it equal. I think part of the vicarious thrill though is that something is being done to some one.

Because I reckon they’re putting the most out on the line. Also you never go ‘I can’t wait to see this dude’s huge cock’ and the fact of the matter too is that there will never be a shortage of guys who want to be in porno. It’s not the easiest thing to get really good looking women to do porn, but if you were going to do a head count, you’d probably get more guys than chicks who wanted to get into that. Because how great is that – a job where you get paid to fuck?

Right.

Absolutely, there’s always a curiosity of how the films do abroad. I remember when Clerks opened here, it was the nicest weekend England had ever seen in 15 years, so the opening weekend box office was soft and we were terrified. But it went on to do well. And in the world market of independent cinema, foreign sales matter. It’s good that people in other countries want to see our flicks.

Dogma’s this apocalyptic road movie. It’s very close to a comic book. It’s our most ambitious flick to date. It doesn’t deal with relationships and doesn’t really deal with the real world. Even something as fantastical or implausible as Mallrats is still very much a day in the life movie, it could take place. Dogma couldn’t, it’s fictional characters – angels and demons and stuff like that.

We’re doing it for three or four million, so even if it’s a complete piece of shit, it doesn’t mean that we’re ruined. I think we’re doing it sensibly.

Any blockbuster; I couldn’t make a movie that cost more than ten million. Unless inflation made a low budget film one day fifteen million. I don’t think I could spend that sort of money in good faith because my movies are so specialized. I don’t think I have the talent or ability to make a Face/Off. Or even the patience. It takes a lot of bits and pieces and work to make an action movie. There are days that you film without any dialogue. Ben Affleck he’s working on Armageddon, and said they shot for two weeks, and not a word of dialogue yet. Just running around in front of green screens – I don’t have the patience for that. Part of the joy of making a movie is listening to the actors speaking the dialogue.

I approach films from a writer’s point of view. That’s why the films are so visually flat. They’re not sumptious visually, they’re more like an aural film.

We did it actually. Holden’s monologue in Chasing Amy in the car was like two pages, so there are times when it goes rather long, but I always think let’s shoot it and if it’s too long, we can cut it later. But if it’s riveting, if it’s interesting, then let it play.