Don’t believe the anti-hype. Early reports promised that Jersey Girl (12A cert, 102 min), billed as a domestic comedy, would be a disaster movie of apocalyptic proportions. Not only did it star Ben Affleck, one of the most maligned actors of his generation, but also his ex, Jennifer Lopez – a pair whose last film together, Gigli, was laughed off screens faster than you could say “turkey”.

What’s more, it was to be directed by Kevin Smith, better known for foul-mouthed, lo-fi gems such as Clerks and Chasing Amy. Why, people asked, was indie cinema’s funniest director going all sappy and suburban?

Well, Jersey Girl is finally here and the doomsayers have been proved wrong. It isn’t edgy. It doesn’t aspire towards hipster cool. But one person’s sappiness is another person’s sweet. This is a kind, likeable film that, unlike Smith’s previous pictures, can be watched by both adults and children, preferably together.

Affleck plays Ollie Trinke, a successful Manhattan music PR who lives his glitzy, gladhanding life to the full. Bigging up and selling talentless corporate no-marks is what he does best. He marries a book editor (Lopez), who dies shortly afterwards during childbirth. He tries to carry on his job at full tilt, but gets fired after a press conference in which he bawls out the assembled hacks for believing that his client, Will Smith, could possibly make the transition from acting to world-famous rapper.

Seven years, and seven summertimes later, Ollie is back in his New Jersey hometown, living with his pop (George Carlin), bringing up daughter Gertie (Raquel Castro), and reduced to sweeping streets and ploughing snow. In what little spare time he has, he rents porn tapes from the local video store, whose check-out girl Maya (Liv Tyler) takes a shine to him. She urges him, though he ignores her at first, not to keep hankering after the Big Apple.

Life in the suburbs has always been a staple theme in Smith’s films. And, it turns out, Jersey Girl is not as different from his previous pictures as has been claimed. Old pals such as Matt Damon and Jason Lee turn in neat cameos.

Though less lengthily or crudely expressed, there are poo and porn gags aplenty. There’s also a real feel for small-town lives, revealed most fondly in the banter and interplay between Ollie and his older work colleagues.

Smith is upfront this time about the sentimentality that has always underpinned his movies. The guys in them were sordid, sarky, gutter-obsessives. But this vulgarity was partly a front. Below it, or at least alongside it, was a vulnerability all the more affecting for being held in check.

Affleck, wasted in no-brainer action pix such as Paycheck and Daredevil, is excellent here, probably because he’s allowed to be needy, bereft, confused – emotions most directors never require him to display. Liv Tyler lights up the screen like Chinese fireworks on a summer’s night.

Accept this film for what it is, and the sincerity that underpins it, and you’ll most likely have a good time.

Silent Bob’s quiet night out

Inspired by the birth of his daughter, Kevin Smith’s new film makes up for what it lacks in vulgarity and caustic humour with a personal warmth. He makes his excuses to Steve Rose

Saturday June 19, 2004 – The Guardian

Kevin Smith has not had a nice time in Europe. The man Peter Biskind lately described as “the George Lucas of the self-abuse set” has just spent the weekend with his wife and daughter in Paris, where a dodgy steak tartare brought on three days of vomiting and chronic diarrhoea. The week before, the Sun described the London opening of his new movie, Jersey Girl, as “the worst British premiere ever”. None of the film’s stars showed up – Ben Affleck pleaded bronchitis, Liv Tyler was AWOL and Jennifer Lopez, it turns out, was secretly getting married. Nor was the red carpet sullied by so much as a minor soap star or a Britpop has-been. Even Jade had other commitments. To cap it all, the 3am Girls described him as being “fat, bearded and hobbit-like”.

Hobbit-like is harsh, but nor is Smith a cuddly clown like Silent Bob. He’s more laidback, and speaks in a dry, articulate drawl, liberally punctuated with the adjective “fuckin’”. Lounging in a Dorchester suite, preparing to go and talk to his London fans, he looks like the world’s best-groomed slacker. “The dude got fuckin’ sick,” he says of Affleck. “What are you supposed to do?”

He knows the real problem is not the premiere, or the steak tartare, but the fact that his movie got sucked into the all-consuming celebrity saga known as Bennifer. There’s little any director could have done against what’s been the media equivalent of the Perfect Storm, which is a shame, because Jersey Girl is quite a turning point for Smith. It’s no masterpiece, but it’s more personal and heartfelt than anything he’s done before. There’s no Jay and Silent Bob, the Cheech and Chong-like wasters Smith and his buddy Jason Mewes played in his previous five movies. Instead we get Affleck coping with the death of his wife and the responsibilities of single parenthood. In Jersey. Which means no discussions of private contractors on the Death Star, no barely sublimated homosexuality, and definitely no “snootchie bootchies!” He’s not going all mainstream on us is he?

“No, I never want to become John Hughes where suddenly I stop making Pretty In Pink and start making, like, Curly Sue and Home Alone. I figure the next time I make a movie about being a father will be when my kid is, like, pounding tons of drugs and having sex and she’ll be like, ‘I hate you dad!’ And I’ll be, like, ‘I hate you Jersey Girl!’”

It was Affleck’s idea to cast J-Lo. This was at a time when nobody, Smith included, had any idea they were an item, and their recently wrapped Gigli was being touted as a contender for Golden Globes rather than Razzies. “There were some people who were like, ‘If they’re dating, dude you’re in trouble.’ I don’t believe in that kind of thing. But I still feel to this day that the work was stronger because of their relationship.” The first hint Smith got that there might be a problem was after a test screening early last year. When asked, ‘How would you recommend the film?’ one focus group member replied, “I’d tell my friends to go see this movie because J-Lo dies.” Then Gigli came out, which was “like throwing fuckin’ fuel on the fire. Nuclear-reinforced fuel that sent up not just flames but a toxic fuckin’ cloud as well, that then attached itself to our movie.”

Less charitable observers would say Smith got what he deserved for trying to play the Hollywood A-list. Let’s not forget he was one of the most genuine amateurs ever to break into movies. His debut, Clerks, was shot with $28,000 of credit card loans, with his friends as the cast, in the convenience store where he worked. Despite his undeniable talent for dialogue, a lot of people predicted he wouldn’t last long. But for all the professional snobbery, condescending reviews and even death threats, he’s still here 10 years later, and his self-created universe is still expanding. His movies do well – Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back took $30m in US theatres and another $36m in DVD sales. His characters have featured in comics, music videos, TV cartoons, video games, even as action figures. He also has a sideline writing for comics like Daredevil and Spider-Man. Added to which, he’s become a seasoned public speaker, touring US colleges doing Q&A sessions – which have been so successful, they’ve put together a DVD of them.

So life has gotten better, but it’s also gotten heavier. His “heterosexual life partner” Jason Mewes has been recovering from addiction to heroin, with Smith’s support. There’s an eerie moment on the DVD of his live show where Smith brings Mewes on stage at a packed campus auditorium and proceeds to talk about the crazy stuff Mewes does as if he’s not there. Mewes himself, looking strung-out and androgynous, sits there in mute acquiescence. It’s Bob and Silent Jay.

The live show at least ends his European expedition on something of a high. Smith lists talking to his fans as the third favourite part of his job, after writing and editing (directing is “a necessary evil”), and when he takes the stage it’s clear to see why. The self-abuse set loves him. Smith is one of them, with the same nerdy, pop-cultural, preoccupations. There’s a lot more A than Q. He gets his own back on the 3am Girl (”If I’m a hobbit this fuckin’ bitch is an orc!”). He’s upfront about Mewes’ heroin addiction and his rehabilitation. He’s been clean for over a year now, and is currently raising Red Bull-fuelled hell in LA with Jack Osbourne – they call themselves “Project Falcon”. He talks about sharing Harvey Weinstein’s private jet, and he professes his ignorance of British history and geography (”there’s really a place called Crystal Palace? How gay is that?”). More than anything, he makes fun of himself, even confessing how, as a plump teenager, he used to impress his girlfriend by dressing in a long black leather coat and a Batman T-shirt, hanging out mysteriously on the roof of the local pharmacy.

Four and a half hours later, Smith is ready to go home. Which might be a little difficult since home is a four-storey pad in the Hollywood hills that used to belong to a certain Ben Affleck. This doesn’t mean he’s “gone Hollywood”, he insists. All it means is that his wife, former USA Today journalist Jennifer Schwalbach, is more of an LA woman than a Jersey girl, and she calls the shots. By way of confirmation, he’s wearing a sports shirt embroidered with the words “Jennifer’s bitch”.

If anything, Smith is moving further away from Hollywood. His next project was supposed to be a big-budget version of cult series The Green Hornet, but he now says he’d rather just write it and let someone else direct. “I didn’t get into this business to make comic-book movies or big action movies. I got into this business to make movies like Clerks. That’s all I wanted to do.” So instead, he’s got a small ($250,000) project starting in October. No clues as to the story though, “let’s just say I won’t need Affleck for this”. Could he afford Affleck for this? He cracks into a smirk. “Oh I think Ben could be pretty cheap right now.”

· Jersey Girl is out now. An Evening With Kevin Smith is out on DVD on Monday (£19.99, Columbia TriStar)

Don’t believe the anti-hype. Early reports promised that Jersey Girl (12A cert, 102 min), billed as a domestic comedy, would be a disaster movie of apocalyptic proportions. Not only did it star Ben Affleck, one of the most maligned actors of his generation, but also his ex, Jennifer Lopez – a pair whose last film together, Gigli, was laughed off screens faster than you could say “turkey”.

What’s more, it was to be directed by Kevin Smith, better known for foul-mouthed, lo-fi gems such as Clerks and Chasing Amy Why, people asked, was indie cinema’s funniest director going all sappy and suburban?

Well, Jersey Girl is finally here and the doomsayers have been proved wrong. It isn’t edgy. It doesn’t aspire towards hipster cool. But one person’s sappiness is another person’s sweet. This is a kind, likeable film that, unlike Smith’s previous pictures, can be watched by both adults and children, preferably together.

Affleck plays Ollie Trinke, a successful Manhattan music PR who lives his glitzy, gladhanding life to the full. Bigging up and selling talentless corporate no-marks is what he does best. He marries a book editor (Lopez), who dies shortly afterwards during childbirth. He tries to carry on his job at full tilt, but gets fired after a press conference in which he bawls out the assembled hacks for believing that his client, Will Smith, could possibly make the transition from acting to world-famous rapper.

Seven years, and seven summertimes later, Ollie is back in his New Jersey hometown, living with his pop (George Carlin), bringing up daughter Gertie (Raquel Castro), and reduced to sweeping streets and ploughing snow. In what little spare time he has, he rents porn tapes from the local video store, whose check-out girl Maya (Liv Tyler) takes a shine to him. She urges him, though he ignores her at first, not to keep hankering after the Big Apple.

Life in the suburbs has always been a staple theme in Smith’s films. And, it turns out, Jersey Girl is not as different from his previous pictures as has been claimed. Old pals such as Matt Damon and Jason Lee turn in neat cameos.

Though less lengthily or crudely expressed, there are poo and porn gags aplenty. There’s also a real feel for small-town lives, revealed most fondly in the banter and interplay between Ollie and his older work colleagues.

Smith is upfront this time about the sentimentality that has always underpinned his movies. The guys in them were sordid, sarky, gutter-obsessives. But this vulgarity was partly a front. Below it, or at least alongside it, was a vulnerability all the more affecting for being held in check.

Affleck, wasted in no-brainer action pix such as Paycheck and Daredevil, is excellent here, probably because he’s allowed to be needy, bereft, confused – emotions most directors never require him to display. Liv Tyler lights up the screen like Chinese fireworks on a summer’s night.

Accept this film for what it is, and the sincerity that underpins it, and you’ll most likely have a good time.

“Kon Artis writes an e-mail to a listener, threatening to “Silent Bob and Jay yo’ ass.”

The Great Church is all the people who call themselves Catholic. The Cardinal Georges and the Sen. John Kerrys. The Antonin Scalias and the Kevin Smiths. The Mother Teresas and the Madonna Ciccones. Those who go to daily mass and the “Cheasters” who are lucky to make it for Christmas and Easter. And everyone in between.

“I was watching GMTV whilst getting ready this morning and they had Ben Affleck on. He was being interviewed by one of the women over a satellite link, mainly
about Jersey Girl but she insisted on going into other stuff. Ben was pretty good about it, although you could tell he didn’t really want to talk
about it. He was in some studio with a fake backdrop of a Hollywood street behind him and the woman mentions it and says something like
‘Oh, you’re used to hanging around on street corners, according to the press – gambling, drinking, smoking?’ Ben says ‘Yeah, PROSTITUTION!’ Funniest thing I’ve seen on morning TV for ages!”

So all this week, I’ve been working on Public Service Announcements (aka commercials) for this organization called Declare Yourself. It’s a non-partisan group founded by Norman Lear (the man who responsible for “All in the Family”, “Maude”, “Good Times”, “The Jeffersons” and so many other legendary tv shows) that, like “Rock the Vote” encourages people to register and be heard. Declare Yourself and Comedy Central have teamed up to produce a series of ads that are so simple even I could direct them. So that’s what I did.

The concept is, essentially, “In the time it’s taken you to watch this, you could’ve been online, finding out how to register to vote.” Those helping us convey this message have been Zach Braff, Ray Romano, Adam Brody, Wanda Sykes, Larry David, Jeff Garlin, and Sarah Silverman. Today, we shoot Ben Affleck, Eliza Dushku, and a pair of stoners who’re coming out of semi-retirement for the cause. Then, I fly to NYC and shoot Amy Poehler, Chris Rock, Chris Walken and David Cross.

They start airing in July. Pretty funny stuff. Keep an eye out for ‘em.

A variety of music artists, TV and film stars, athletes, journalists and other celebs come together to dish the dot com decade, including Missy
Elliott, John Mayer, Kyan Douglas, Coolio, Jason Mraz, Rachel Bilson, Lacey Chabert, Blair Underwood, Jerry Springer, Usher, Venus Williams, Trey Parker,
KEVIN SMITH, Bob Guiney, Maroon 5, Warren Moon, Dominic Monaghan, Peri Gilpin, Shelley Morrison and Sarah McLachlan. There are also interviews with such
’90s survivors as Jordan Knight, Kato Kaelin, Lance Bass, Jaleel White, Ian Ziering, Susan Powter, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Wilson Phillips, Joe E. Tata, Wilson Phillips, Spin Doctors and Gabrielle Carteris.

Smith spills about Bennifer

By Becky Howard, This is London

“The worst piece of advice I ever took?” Film director Kevin Smith leans back against the sofa in a suite at the Dorchester Hotel and mulls it over. “It must have been Ben (Affleck) saying ‘Dude, cast my girlfriend in the movie. She’ll be awesome.’ No, I’m kidding!”

You can’t blame the New Jersey auteur for being a little bitter, though. After a decade which saw him shoot to fame on the back of uber-low budget movie Clerks, and carve out a niche in making funny, faintly controversial movies, Smith decided to go mainstream. He’d already tackled Catholicism (1999’s Dogma), a lesbian ‘going straight’ (1997’s Chasing Amy) and become a cult hero as one half of stoner duo Jay and Silent Bob, so making a touching film about a father’s relationship with his young daughter should have been a breeze. Right? Wrong – Bennifer hit town.

Casting long-time Smith muse Ben Affleck as Ollie Trinke alongside Jennifer Lopez as his wife – a much smaller role – obviously smacked of box office gold two years ago when the 33-year-old began making Jersey Girl, a love letter to his family. But once tabloid coverage of the Affleck/Lopez union reached critical mass and their disastrous flick Gigli was roundly mauled, it became clear that Jersey Girl would become an undeserved victim of their over-hyped relationship.

A somewhat muted Smith, clad in his typical uniform of outsized sports t-shirt and cropped trousers, has obviously had to explain this story many times before: “A lot of people assume that I cast them and knew they were dating. But they weren’t. He called me up and was like, ‘I was thinking who would be good to play Gertrude: Jennifer Lopez,’ as they’d just wrapped Gigli and got on really well.

“So we put it into motion and got Jennifer Lopez, and it was quite the coup. But it wasn’t until he showed up to the set a month before we started shooting I learned they were dating. And I was like, “Ah… no wonder he was so supportive! No wonder he wanted her to play his wife!”

Even though Affleck and Lopez had split up by the time Jersey Girl hit American multiplexes in March, the public had already swallowed the unwarranted ‘Gigli 2′ tag which attached itself to Jersey Girl. The backlash has obviously stung Smith, although he recognises the point at which it all went wrong.

“Mosier (Scott, Smith’s longtime producer) saw it when Affleck appeared in Jen’s music video for Jenny From The Block. He said then that it was bad f****** news. He was like, ‘I understand what they’re trying to accomplish. The whole story of the video is about tabloid intrusion, but the point is lost and it just makes them look arrogant.’ And he was right. People just saw it as them going, ‘We’re so rich, and so successful, and so pretty – feel bad for us.’
“The moment I knew we were in trouble with their relationship was when we test screened the movie. In the focus group you ask people, ‘How would you suggest this movie to a friend?’ And one guy said, ‘I would tell my friends to go and see it because J.Lo dies.’ And it became clear that people just didn’t like her, and didn’t like the two of them together. It just created this enmity from the people. Weird.”

Bearing all this in mind, does Smith regret any of his casting decisions? “I don’t really have a regret. I mean, I regret the s***storm that surrounded our poor little movie because of their relationship, but I don’t regret their relationship because they were quite a cute couple together, and really into one another. And I don’t regret casting either one of them, because them being in the movie made the movie what it is. But having to follow Gigli did wind up affecting us.”

Moving away from Bennifer – and newly-wed Lopez certainly has – Jersey Girl itself is a little gem. A softer, more sentimental story than one might expect from the man who created the Poop Monster in Dogma, and the Clit Commander in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Smith tackles issues of juggling single parenthood with career needs skillfully. But thankfully it’s shot through with a healthy dose of his trademark sarky wit.

Did Smith feel that after years of dick’n’fart jokes, that it was time to grow up?

“Yeah, I did,” he asserts, getting comfy on the floor in front of the sofa. “I wanted to make this movie that’s been swimming around in my head for a while, because I wasn’t raised on movies like Clerks and Mallrats. Chasing Amy was more the type of ‘dramedy’ that I was raised on and that I was a big fan of. So sooner or later I was going to get to one of these – a feelgood tearjerker, so to speak.

“Thankfully, this wound up being good timing, because I couldn’t make a movie with Jason Mewes (Jay) again, because he was so knee-deep in heroin and OxyContin at the time. All the rehab counsellors were like: ‘You’ve got to cut him loose and turn your back on him and basically practice tough love.’ So that freed me up to pursue this.”

With Affleck, Lopez and Liv Tyler in place, Smith now had to find the titular Jersey Girl – the offspring of Ben and Jennifer’s characters. Searching for the right ‘look’ led him to Raquel Castro, a bright-eyed, natural actress with an uncanny resemblance to the former couple. But it wasn’t just the superficial sheen that charmed Smith – he wanted to avoid the ubiquitous stage-school brat.

“She had to come across like a real little kid,” he says. “I didn’t want to just cast a movie-cute kid, because so often they’re so cute you want to throw them through a f****** wall, you know? But for my money, I think most kids around that age (7), are starting to discover that adults are as full of s*** as anybody. They’re not always precious. Raquel really brought that realness to it.”

Add in a Will Smith cameo – “Nicest guy on the planet. I used to think Affleck was the nicest guy in the movie business, but Affleck is a f****** ogre compared to Will Smith” – and there’s a cast of top actors doing a sterling job in a quality movie. Yet the poor publicity afforded to JG led him to receive a drubbing from the British press, too. The night of the low-key UK premiere saw an caustically funny Smith lay into the Mirror’s 3AM girls, for printing a speculative story that day about an unwell Affleck’s absence from the event.

Smith won’t go back on his words: “The 3am girls piece was full of bulls*** – I mean, saying the movie was a disaster Stateside? It’s not! We made £25m bucks. A disaster is Gigli. So I hate s*** like that and calling it a turkey – why? Based on what source? It seemed just like sour grapes because Ben didn’t show up, and them saying he was ashamed of the movie. And meanwhile, a couple months ago when we released the movie in the States, that dude did more press on this movie than any other movie he’s done in recent history. Do a little f***ing research, that’s what I say.”

But despite his experience at the hands of the tabloids, Smith is entranced by our celeb culture: “Nothing compares with England’s fascination with celebrities. The one thing I find refreshing is to open up a British publication and see someone they’re insisting is famous and you’re like ‘Who the f*** is that?’

“I was looking at Hello or one of those and there was some girl there, some chick Jade from Big Brother? What’s that? A reality show? So, even though the show was a couple years ago, she’s still famous? Wow. That’s insane.”

For now, though, Smith’s “mired in the aftermath” of Jersey Girl, and freely admits that it will take him some time to enjoy it fully. “I love the movie and it means something to me, but I think it’ll be a while before I can kick back and appreciate it like I did when I first put it together. It’s been clouded by the s*** we had to put up with. But hopefully one day there will be a generation that’s never heard of Bennifer.”

And despite all the heartache Smith’s endured over his movie, he still vehemently sticks by the film’s ethos, which sees Ollie forswear a high-flying career for the sake of his child. But would he really give it all up for his kid? ”

Absolutely. Absolutely,” Smith confirms. “This is the one time where I’ve come up against journalists who get really dug in on this issue. Some people think it’s inauthentic, or disingenuous, or very Hollywood. My take on it is: most people who take issue with the idea of giving up a career for somebody feel like they’re being judged because they like their career. I say, ‘Do you have a kid?’ And they’re like, ‘No.’ So I say, talk to me when you’ve got a kid because then it’s a whole different story.

“Luckily I have this gig where I get to do both. But I would put my family ahead of my career in a heartbeat.” No doubt he would, but lets hope Smith doesn’t have to.