Writer/Director Kevin Smith joins GQ to revisit the most iconic films in his catalog, from his star-making directorial debut 'Clerks' to 'Chasing Amy,' 'Dogma,' 'Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back,' 'Tusk' and more.
THE 4:30 MOVIE is now available on Digital.
Director: Kristen DeVore
Director of Photography: Grant Bell
Editor: Robby Massey
Guest: Kevin Smith
Producer: Sam Dennis
Line Producer: Jen Santos
Production Manager: James Pipitone
Production Coordinator: Elizabeth Hymes
Talent Booker: Paige Garbarini
Camera Operator: Shay Eberle-Gunst
Sound Mixer: Kari Barber
Production Assistant: Lauren Boucher
Post Production Supervisor: Rachael Knight
Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant
Supervising Editor: Rob Lombardi
Assistant Editor: Billy Ward
THE 4:30 MOVIE is now available on Digital.
Director: Kristen DeVore
Director of Photography: Grant Bell
Editor: Robby Massey
Guest: Kevin Smith
Producer: Sam Dennis
Line Producer: Jen Santos
Production Manager: James Pipitone
Production Coordinator: Elizabeth Hymes
Talent Booker: Paige Garbarini
Camera Operator: Shay Eberle-Gunst
Sound Mixer: Kari Barber
Production Assistant: Lauren Boucher
Post Production Supervisor: Rachael Knight
Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant
Supervising Editor: Rob Lombardi
Assistant Editor: Billy Ward
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I never get to do that.
00:02Made 16 movies, I think I've done that once.
00:05Clerks.
00:06This guy is going through all the eggs, look, this has been going on for 20 minutes now.
00:16What's he looking for?
00:17He said he has to find the perfect dozen.
00:20Perfect dozen?
00:21Yeah, each egg has to be perfect.
00:22Whenever I talk about clerks, it's almost as a very divorced experience, because the
00:26guy who made Clerks is completely different than the guy who stands here talking about
00:30the making of Clerks.
00:31Clerks was made by a very brave 22, 23-year-old kid from Jersey who had no right to believe
00:37in himself, but for some reason after a lifetime of watching movies, saw one Richard Linklater
00:44slacker that made him think, I bet I can do this.
00:48It was about seeing himself and his friends and his world on the big screen.
00:53His friends and his world were dudes that sat around talking to each other about comic
00:58books and movies.
01:00And by the better ending, I mean, Luke gets his hand cut off, finds out Vader's his father,
01:06hand gets frozen and taken away by Boba Fett, it ends on such a down note.
01:09I mean, that's what life is, a series of down endings.
01:13The kid who started the journey and the guy who's constantly commenting on that movie
01:18and whatnot.
01:19Two different people.
01:20So that kid made a movie where at the end, Dante, the main character, gets killed when
01:24Storr gets robbed.
01:26And John Pearson, who is the producer's rep on the movie, he's like, I'll rep this movie,
01:29but you have to cut that ending.
01:30And I was like, what?
01:31What are you talking about?
01:32He goes, you made this really great movie where you fall in love with these guys for
01:3590 minutes and then you kill one of them because what seems like you have no better reason
01:40to do it than you don't know how to end this movie.
01:42And I was like, no, it's the biggest joke in the movie.
01:45He's not even supposed to be there that day and he dies, but I'm pumped.
01:47And he's like, that's not even funny.
01:49He goes, cut it.
01:50And this movie has a future.
01:52But the kid who made the movie never would have cut that ending.
01:55He would have died on the cross of art, man.
01:56Are you kidding me?
01:57That's when I woke up.
01:58You know, that's when I came online and was like, oh, wait a second.
02:01If we cut that ending, this movie has a future and we might be able to do this again.
02:06This ain't about art, kid.
02:07This is about business.
02:08You only get to make your art if we do business.
02:10I always felt bad about that because I know the kid who started the journey and he's my
02:15fucking hero.
02:16That's why by the time we get to Clerks 3, I killed Dante.
02:20Brian O'Halloran was like, guy who plays Dante.
02:22I was like, what'd you think?
02:23And he goes, well, he's going, I'm kind of heartbroken, man.
02:26Like, you know, I never get to play Dante again.
02:28I was like, why not?
02:29Why couldn't Randall talk to a dead Dante all through Clerks 4?
02:32He's like, you mean I could be a forced ghost?
02:33I was like, bang, dude.
02:34I said, if I run out of money, count on being a forced ghost.
02:38That's how we'll get to Clerks 4.
02:39I'm talking about this thing you have, this inability to improve your station in life.
02:43Fuck you.
02:44It's true, man.
02:45You're in this life for dealing you a cruddy hand, never once accepting responsibility
02:49for the way your situation is.
02:50It's happy accidents in black and white.
02:52We were shooting under fluorescent lights.
02:54You shoot under fluorescence with 16 millimeter color film on an Arri SR2 and you're going
02:59to come up with green power unless you get a really great lighting package, which we
03:02couldn't afford.
03:03So at the end of the day, I was like, well, I asked Dave Klein, who now shoots like The
03:07Mandalorian and stuff like that.
03:09I was like, baby Dave, because he was the youngest in our crew, he's like 18 years old.
03:13Is there some way to shoot the movie where we don't have to rent a lighting package?
03:17That's going to be like another $500.
03:18And he goes, yeah, you can shoot under the fluorescence, but you'd have to shoot in black
03:22and white.
03:23And I was like, black and white?
03:24They wouldn't have the green power?
03:25He goes, in black and white, there'd be no green.
03:28And I was like, oh my God, you're right.
03:29And then when the movie started playing at film festivals and people started writing
03:33about it seriously, people would write things like, what's brilliant about the movie is
03:36it's shot from the perspective of the black and white store security camera.
03:42And the first time I read that, I was like, what a reach.
03:44But the next interview I did, they were like, black and white's a choice.
03:46And I was like, wow, I felt like we would try to emulate the store security camera.
03:56When we were working on Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, you got to remember, I was coming
03:59off of Clerks, then Mallrats, then Chasing Amy, and then Dogma.
04:05So we had back to back like pop cultural hits.
04:08Dogma had an all-star cast.
04:10And so there was a lot of agents with other famous clients calling in to Christine Sheeks,
04:17who was our casting director, on Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
04:21I met with Matthew McConaughey.
04:24Go figure.
04:25And I think it was Christine Sheeks who was like, well, who's somebody you always loved
04:28as a kid?
04:29And I was like, well, Mark Hamill.
04:31And she goes, oh my God, we can reach out to Mark Hamill.
04:34So I was like, I literally had a crush on Carrie Fisher.
04:38And so she was like, oh my God, let's reach out to Carrie.
04:41And so we'd reached out to them separately.
04:43They both said yes, ironically, on the same day.
04:46But neither of them knew that they were involved.
04:49If they had, I don't think they would have said yes.
04:51Like in talking to Mark afterwards, Mark's like, look, I said no to everything Star Wars,
04:57except for two things, The Simpsons and this.
05:00And both times is because my kids told me I would be stupid if I didn't do this.
05:09What the fuck?
05:13Mark didn't come because he was like, I love clerks.
05:16He was like, I've heard of it.
05:18You know what I'm saying?
05:19And when Carrie came, she said, what you were going to pay me is the value of these two
05:23antique beaver chairs that I've had my eye on for the last month.
05:27So you guys buy me those beaver chairs and I'll be in the movie.
05:31And so we did.
05:31We bought her the beaver chairs.
05:32I think they were like three thousand bucks or something like that.
05:34But it's a lot easier to say that you live by the book than to actually do it.
05:39So she shows up on the day we shoot.
05:41She's like, hi, I'm Carrie.
05:42And I was like, I'm a massive fan, man.
05:45Like growing up naturally and blah, blah, blah.
05:47She's like, thank you.
05:48She'd heard it all before.
05:49And I was like, but I got to tell you, like, I'll never forget.
05:52You're the only person I've ever worked with who was like, pay me in in antique beaver chairs.
05:57I was like, what's that all about?
05:59And she was like, the beaver chairs.
06:00I thought that'd be appropriate for this movie.
06:02And I was like, there's a screenwriter.
06:05There's a writer, I says.
06:06Hey, if it'll get me a couple of hundred miles across the country, I'll take a shot in the mouth.
06:11Yeah, but we ain't gay.
06:13Don't be so suburban.
06:15He was so serious about the craft, always serious about acting.
06:18Like he's method, true method.
06:20And so on Jane's Island, Bob shrugged back and comes over.
06:22He's like, Kevin, I have a question for you as the author of this piece.
06:24I was like, OK.
06:25And he was like, in the scene, my character.
06:28And he's playing a hitchhiker.
06:29Oh, Jane's Island, Bob stumbled across.
06:31I'm talking to these two idiots about, you know, the unwritten book of the road.
06:35I said, yeah.
06:35And he goes, OK, now, does my character believe in the unwritten book of the road or am I just fucking with these two assholes?
06:42And I was like, George, I got to be honest with you.
06:43You've already put more thought into the script than I ever have.
06:46And he goes, well, what is it?
06:47And I was like, if I had to pick while I was writing it, probably lean toward, you know, this guy believes you go.
06:53That's what I thought. That's the intent I'm going to play.
06:55And I was like, you're very sweet, but you could literally phone this in.
06:58You're just the guy who blows the trucker in the seat.
07:00And he's going, you think that, right?
07:01He goes, you don't know anything about performance, Kevin.
07:03Would you like me to explain performance to you?
07:05I was like, please.
07:06And he goes, performance is the subtle art of suspending the window of disbelief.
07:10The audience has to believe everything I'm saying and everything I'm saying has to come from an honest place.
07:16Truth is at the heart of the performance.
07:18So there's no way I can deliver for you what I need to deliver unless I know the truth of the story.
07:24So when I ask you that question, it's not to be a smart ass.
07:27It's so that I can understand how deep I'm going to throat this dick.
07:31And I was just like, let me see what you got.
07:33And he goes, oh, you see it in the movie.
07:35He's like, excuse me.
07:37When you're a filmmaker, you're supposed to be pushing for an Oscar eventually, right?
07:40Don't they all dream about winning best director?
07:43Like I've been told that I'm not a director so many times that like, why would I ever think I'd win best director?
07:49So that was never part of my journey.
07:51You know what I'm saying? It's closer to Homer Simpson.
07:54Like when like he's like, oh, that guy's my exact twin.
07:57That dog has a puffy tail.
07:58Like I just go in whatever direction whimsy takes me, I guess.
08:04Dogma.
08:07If we cut off our wings and transubstantiate to complete human form, we become mortal.
08:12If we die with clean souls, there's no way they can keep us out.
08:14We won't be angels anymore, but at least we get to go home.
08:18Who sent the paper?
08:19Who cares who sent the paper?
08:21All that matters is that after all these years, we found a loophole.
08:24He can't keep us out anymore.
08:26A Catholic church, which has a real problem with recruitment lately, could have used Dogma as a recruitment film.
08:33You know what I'm saying?
08:34That movie is reverent.
08:35Two organizations that went after the movie without having seen it, Frame Unseen, the Catholic League.
08:40And then the other organization was the Association for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property.
08:50They were the ones that made the most noise and they hadn't seen the flick.
08:53And I think if they had, like, yeah, they would have had to get past some like butt fucking jokes.
08:59I always felt that, like, you know, in a very Catholic tradition, suffering before reward.
09:07Right.
09:07So in that spirit, get through the butt fucking jokes and you'll see, like, this is a movie that is insanely not just pro-faith, but waves the flag for your dopey organization, even though it shouldn't.
09:20I've met members of the clergy since then who are like, I use it all the time with my parishioners.
09:24It's great for youth culture and what, but that movie would still work.
09:28That cast is still viable across the boards.
09:32Like Ben and Matt, still a thing.
09:34Salma Hayek, still a thing.
09:36Chris Rock, slapping.
09:37Jay and Salah Bab, believe it or not, still a thing.
09:40We're about to make another Jay and Salah Bab movie.
09:42Can you believe that shit?
09:44Talk about failing upwards.
09:45But they've been around since Dogma as well.
09:47So that's, it could still be used as instructional for youth.
09:51It's not a dry way in to the faith.
09:54It's lubed.
09:59Alan Rickman was not foretold in the stars.
10:03Don't tell me the name doesn't ring a bell.
10:07You people, if there isn't a movie about it, it's not worth knowing, is it?
10:11You know, when I watched Die Hard for the first time, I fell in love with Alan Rickman.
10:15I came into that theater to see Bruce Willis.
10:18I was a big Moonlighting fan.
10:19But I left going, who's the other guy?
10:21So we come around to cast in the movie.
10:25And John Gordon, who's our exec at Miramax, calls me up one day and he goes,
10:29bro, Alan Rickman just came in.
10:31And I was like, get out of here.
10:32Yippee-ki-yay, Hans Gruber.
10:35Are you serious?
10:35And he's like, he was here, bro.
10:37All he talked about was what is the guy who made Chasing Amy doing next?
10:43And I was like, that's me.
10:45And he's like, yes.
10:46So Alan joined us and we became friends.
10:49Like that was something I never understood until late in his life.
10:52Honestly, until he passed away.
10:54I always thought he was just being polite because we'd made dogma together and stuff.
10:57But he was genuinely interested in me and my family.
11:01And when I say my family, I also include Jason Mewes.
11:04One of my favorite moments being on the set of Dogma at that church in Pittsburgh.
11:08I looked over on the step of the church and there is Alan Rickman sitting next to
11:12Jason Mewes and they are engaged in the most intense conversation.
11:16And I remember thinking, what the fuck could these two possibly have to say to each
11:20other? But Rickman was like genuinely interested in Jason, was always just like,
11:25he's a true American icon.
11:27So Rickman and I remained friends up until he passed away and stuff.
11:31Anytime I was in England, he would be like, I'm coming to your show.
11:35So he went to the show that I did in London at the O2.
11:38And I said, so what you been up to?
11:40He goes, I bought an apartment.
11:41I finally broke down and bought an apartment in New York, but there's problems.
11:44I said, what? He goes, I bought it in the same building as my friend.
11:48I was like, why is that a problem?
11:49He goes, my friend is very fiends.
11:51And I was like, and he goes, if the Harry Potter fans find out that Snape and
11:56Voldemort live in the same building, they'll bring it down.
11:59Don't you understand? It's adorable.
12:03Mallrats.
12:05People come up to you and tell you like the weirdest things about the shit you've
12:09made. I was at a Comic-Con not too long ago, Dallas Fan Expo.
12:13Guy comes up, comes up to me and has a copy of Mallrats VHS, like well-worn.
12:18And so I was like, look at this piece of Americana.
12:20Holy crap, man. And he goes, that's the movie that saved my life.
12:23He's going every day of my life.
12:25When I was a kid, my father beat me to near death.
12:27I would come home from school and he would beat the shit out of me really
12:30hardcore. And then I'd crawl to my bedroom, a bloody mess.
12:33And I would close the door. I put Mallrats in.
12:36And I would escape to the mall. Brody and TS and Jane Silent Bob, they were my
12:40salvation. He's like, I had to live 12 years that way.
12:44He's like, and I survived because of this tape.
12:46Now, I'm a father and I got a kid and I would never do to my kid what that piece
12:49of shit did to me. But I want to give him this tape to show him that his old man
12:52survived and he can survive anything.
12:54It was Mallrats.
12:56You know what I'm saying? It wasn't even like Dogma or one where I was really
12:59trying or something like that.
13:01Like, I didn't put any thought into that movie going one day is going to save
13:04somebody's life. I had a girl probably the same as yours.
13:08She always complained that I spent too much time with my own comics.
13:12And eventually we broke up.
13:15See, what did she know?
13:16Here you are now, a legend in the field, probably had a slew of women since.
13:19Am I right? Mallrats features Stan Lee's first cameo.
13:23But I would argue it's not a cameo.
13:24Stan Lee is one of the cast.
13:26He's got like multiple scenes in the movie.
13:28He's got multiple scenes in the movie because of him.
13:31He wasn't even supposed to be in the movie.
13:32Stan Lee was not a character in the first draft or two of Mallrats.
13:35Jim Jacks, who is our producer,
13:37read the scene that took place with Brody where Brody meets the guy who gives him
13:41advice. He's like, who is this comic book guru supposed to be?
13:45And I was like, oh, like it'd be like a Stan Lee or something like that.
13:49And he goes, well, why don't you just make it Stan Lee?
13:51And I was like, well, I don't know Stan Lee.
13:53And Jim Jacks goes, well, I do.
13:54And that's when I realized Hollywood is good.
13:57Like all these fuckers know each other.
13:58So he goes, why don't you rewrite the scene for Stan?
14:00I'll bring it to him and see what he says.
14:03And I'm like, all right. So I rewrote it for Stan.
14:05So called at noon.
14:07And it was like Stan Lee calling us.
14:09He's a this is Stan Lee.
14:11And I was, oh, my God, I know who you are.
14:13So this is crazy, man.
14:14Like I grew up listening to him, a huge fan, big lover of the work,
14:17obviously, because I could tell I read read the pages.
14:20I'm very flattered.
14:21And I was like, well, can you do it?
14:22And you want to do it and come play with us?
14:23And he goes, well, here's the thing, Kevin.
14:25He's gone. You have me in this movie talking about the girl that got away.
14:30And a very lovely monologue.
14:32He goes, if I'm in a movie as me talking about the girl that got away,
14:36the girl I got at home will lock the door and not let me back in the house.
14:41What I'm suggesting is we put in one more scene where I talk about how I was just
14:45kidding. That way, Joni won't be mad.
14:47And I thought that was incredibly sweet.
14:49So I wrote another scene where Stan meets up with T.S., Jeremy London's character.
14:53Hey, you know, I think he bought it.
14:55Yeah. Yeah.
14:55What kind of story did you give him?
14:57Oh, it was the vulture soliloquy, you know,
14:59from the Spider-Man anniversary issue.
15:01Love be a vulture tonight.
15:03Yeah. Well, I can't thank you enough.
15:05Oh, forget it. I'd known him for a long time.
15:07And what I found out was Stan was nothing,
15:12if not brilliant, at expanding the brand of Stan.
15:17So Stan figured out how to get one more scene in the movie.
15:23Stan didn't really care about what Joni would have thought.
15:26It was a movie. He didn't give a shit.
15:27It was a guy that made up Thor, for God's sakes.
15:29But he was like, you know,
15:31this would be a good way to expand my role in the movie.
15:35So he was clever.
15:36Clever as hell, old Stanley.
15:40Zack and Miri make a porno.
15:43He said he makes a hundred grand a year
15:45because he shoots and distributes his own porno flicks.
15:48If it's so easy, how come everybody doesn't do it?
15:51Because other people have options and dignity.
15:53Zack and Miri make a porno is basically
15:56me just telling the story of how we made Clerks.
16:00At a certain point in my career,
16:01like if you look at my early stuff,
16:03it's informed by the life that I had lived.
16:06Since I was always trying to reflect my real life,
16:08my real life had become about making movies.
16:11And so Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is a movie about making movies.
16:15The snake starts eating its own tail.
16:17If you ever watch Zack and Miri make a porno in Clerks 3 back to back,
16:20very similar in structure because they're both about the making of Clerks.
16:25But what Zack and Miri make a porno wound up being was the blueprint for OnlyFans.
16:30By the end of the movie, they come up with OnlyFans.
16:33And I didn't make a fucking dime off that shit.
16:35I mean, you look beautiful.
16:36You always look so beautiful.
16:38So I guess it's not a big deal.
16:41But you, you look amazing.
16:46I think everything I've ever done has
16:48a degree of sweetness and a degree of salaciousness to it.
16:53There's like so many anal jokes in that movie.
16:56There's like a big shit joke.
16:57You know, the NPA was like, this is clearly NC-17 territory.
17:02And NC-17 was like a tough rating to have hanging over your head back in the day.
17:06My point to them was because you're allowed to cite other movies.
17:10And I was like, there was a movie that just came out called Jackass.
17:14And in that movie, there's a sequence called the Fart Helmet.
17:18That movie was R-rated and that shit was real.
17:21So, like, why on earth could that be an R and we're not?
17:24And, you know, just like Mr.
17:25Smith goes to Washington, I filibustered until they gave me the R.
17:32Tusk.
17:35I don't know where he is, but I'm somewhere.
17:38I'm in his weird fucking house.
17:41I'm like, I'm like two hours from Winnipeg.
17:45I'm so fucking scared.
17:48So me and Scott Mosier, who produced all my movies, we were doing a podcast since 2007.
17:53I know the whole world does podcasts now,
17:55but we were on episode 258 of Smodcast, an episode called The Walrus and the Carpenter,
17:59where I hit Scott with this ad that I found online.
18:02It was like a kind of meme article that it traveled around.
18:06This website called Gumtree.UK,
18:10which was kind of like the best I could figure.
18:12Craig's List-y kind of affair over in England.
18:15There was a listing for a guy who was like, I have a room for rent in my mansion
18:21and you can live in it absolutely rent free with complete run of the house and the estate.
18:27In exchange for two hours a day,
18:31I have constructed a very realistic walrus costume that I would like you to wear.
18:36And then he told this really poignant story about why this was presented as real.
18:40And I was like, you you got to be kidding me, man.
18:43Like this is like who would answer this?
18:45They had twenty five hundred respondents.
18:47People like, you know what?
18:48I'm just like a walrus for a free room and a mansion and stuff.
18:51And I was like, you're going to show up.
18:52This dude's going to knock you out,
18:54sew you into that suit, make you the human walrus and stuff like that.
18:57And then as we slowly built the story on the on the episode of the podcast
19:03unintentionally, just like trying to crack each other up,
19:05we eventually got to a point where I was like so enamored of the idea where you
19:09hear me talk about it like that's the beautiful thing about the podcast.
19:13The birth tusk is generally when you see
19:16an artist's art, you see the end product very rarely is
19:19the audience present for the moment of inspiration.
19:22The birth where I talk myself into it,
19:24because at one point I'm like, we're all the brave filmmakers, you know,
19:28who would make this man to walrus transition movie like show me one.
19:32And then I remembered I used to be a brave filmmaker.
19:35And so I was like, you know what, man?
19:36And you hear me say on the podcast,
19:37I'm like, copyright Kevin Scott, man, you know, I'm I'm doing this.
19:41I was like, if you like this idea, go to Twitter and hashtag walrus.
19:45Yes. If you think it's stupid and a waste
19:47of my time, hashtag walrus. No.
19:49And the next day there was just a sea
19:51of walrus. Yes. So much walrus. Yes.
19:54One walrus. No.
19:55And the one walrus. No.
19:56So I'm really walrus.
19:57Yes. Voting walrus.
19:59No. To support the democratic process.
20:01So because the Internet told me it was a good idea, I wrote Tusk and the Internet.
20:07Never wrong. Never misses.
20:09That movie dialed my clock back.
20:13Twenty years with a particular audience,
20:16an audience I was I was never going to hit.
20:18Tusk is the movie that winds up
20:21introduced reintroducing me to a bunch of kids who are art school kids,
20:28college kids like for whom Tusk is a thing.
20:32I was crestfallen when Tusk didn't work theatrically, believe it or not.
20:36It's an 824 movie, probably one of the only 824 movies that took a shit at the box
20:40office. So at the end of the day, like even though I'd been through it with Mall
20:44Rats and Jersey Girl, where it's like, oh, all is lost.
20:46And then years later, people embrace them
20:48and love those movies and stuff and forget about like the box office.
20:53And still I got Tusk.
20:54It was like, oh, my God, what have I done?
20:56Why did I make Tusk? What a mistake.
20:58And then a couple of years later, you know, I was like, oh, that's why I made Tusk.
21:03You're never making the movie for someone today.
21:07You're making it for somebody way down the road.
21:12I'm Guy Lepointe, that is my name, Guy Lepointe.
21:16And I spent 20 years as the inspector of the Sûreté du Québec.
21:21You know, I'd written the role of Guy Lepointe to be played by Quentin Tarantino,
21:26because I know Quentin likes to act and I know that he was a fan of Red State.
21:31I made Red State with him and Michael Parks, who was also going to be in Tusk.
21:36And he's the massive Michael Parks fan.
21:38I found Michael Parks by way of Quentin Tarantino.
21:40So I was like, oh, my God, he'll love to be in a movie with Parks,
21:45like where he's this guy with a ridiculous French accent,
21:48French-Canadian accent, hunting this killer of men who turns people into walruses.
21:53Sent it to him, never heard back.
21:55So we called and the word was no, flat out no.
21:58What we found out later on was he thought
22:00we were offering him the role of the walrus and he was offended by that.
22:05And I'm like, well, no, that's Justin Long, who wasn't offended by it.
22:09But Justin Long's mom was like,
22:11don't take this role and never call that boy back, like in regards to me and stuff.
22:15Quentin didn't want to do Tusk.
22:18We were without a Guy Lepointe.
22:19We were Guy-less.
22:21And I had my kid, my kid went to school with Lily Rose Depp.
22:26I had dropped a kid off at their place
22:28at one point because they were going to Coachella.
22:31And he was like, here's my number.
22:33Johnny was like, here's my number.
22:35You know, I'm going to take the girls to Coachella.
22:36Text me, you know, if there's any issues, you got any questions.
22:40I said, I'll ask you a question right now.
22:41He's like, go ahead. Can I go to Coachella with you?
22:44And he was like, ah, and they left.
22:45You know, I was like, who would be good in this role, man?
22:47And I was like, Depp would kill this.
22:49And he's like, you know what, I'll text him.
22:51And so I text him and I was like, hey, man,
22:53it's Harley's dad because that's who I am in that world.
22:55I was like, you know, I know you get this all the time,
22:57but like I had a movie that I think you'd be like perfect for and stuff.
23:01And I sent a link to a blog I'd written about it.
23:04So there's a description.
23:05And I was like, what do you think?
23:06And shortly after I sent it, the three bubbles came up.
23:09He's you know, he kind of is his texts are like him just scarves all over it.
23:14And he wrote back like,
23:17how delicious this seems like something I would love to swim around in.
23:23Color me intrigued.
23:24So he came in and shot with us like we'd
23:27done the whole movie except for the Gila Point stuff.
23:30And then we did two days with him.
23:32But, you know, the only thing he was like, just don't credit me.
23:35So in the credits, like we didn't market it.
23:38And I remember Scott Mosher, he's like in a movie that has
23:41a Justin Long dressed up in a fucking human walrus chimera suit.
23:47The weirdest thing about this movie is that Johnny Depp is also in it.
23:53Jersey Girl.
23:56What are your intentions with my father?
23:59Like, do you plan on marrying him?
24:02Because I was taught that only married girls show their girl parts to boys.
24:07Right, Daddy?
24:09Uh, right.
24:11Yes.
24:12I can recite for you a litany of Jersey Girl reviews, really shitty Jersey Girl
24:17reviews, or I can tell you stories about people who are like, that's the movie
24:20that me and my mom watched while she was dying of cancer.
24:23She loved George Carlin.
24:24She went to school with him when she was a kid.
24:26Like things like that over 30 years.
24:28That's what gravitates to the top.
24:30You got to remember part of my whole shtick.
24:33Like I started making movies,
24:34but standing on stage and making jokes and telling stories and Q&A's comedy
24:39became a side hustle for me, and that had everything to do with George Carlin.
24:42And I couldn't thank him for everything he had given me.
24:45But I could give him the one thing he wanted, which was to be in movies.
24:49Everything about George was great.
24:50He came to the Jersey Girl set so like fucking method.
24:54It was nuts. We were doing this rehearsal.
24:56It was just me and him and Affleck.
24:59Ben is opening his script, fucking pouring coffee and shit.
25:02And George is like just dialed in.
25:05He goes, Kevin, I have a question for you as the author of this piece.
25:07I said, recognize.
25:09OK, my character is always giving greenie shit.
25:12That's the character Stephen Root played.
25:15Who are you, the Holy Father?
25:16Everybody knows I'm in St. Peter.
25:18You don't have to explain my shit.
25:20Because I'm always stepping on Greeny's dick and there's no obvious reason for it.
25:23Greeny doesn't deserve the treatment that I give him.
25:25And it's been kind of bugging me.
25:26But I realize it's my problem and not yours.
25:28What I did last night was I wrote a backstory for my character.
25:31Why he hates Greeny so much.
25:34Like it goes back to a handjob in high school.
25:36Don't worry about it. It don't matter.
25:38But I wrote six pages of this backstory and I've memorized it.
25:42Now I'm going to throw it out.
25:43I won't reference it in any of the dialogue whatsoever.
25:46But just know that when I get in Greeny's
25:48face, that's what I'm going to be pulling from as my motivation.
25:52And instantly turned to Ben.
25:53I was like, why can't you be this fucking good, man?
25:56I remember one of my favorite moments, like on a set.
25:59We weren't even shooting yet. We were on Dogman.
26:01We were in rehearsal stage.
26:02And at one point, you know, I'm standing next to George.
26:05I was like, what are you working on now?
26:07And he goes, I just finished up my opening piece for my next HBO special.
26:12And I was like, can you do it?
26:13And he goes, you want me to do it right now?
26:15And everybody in the room, Chris Rock,
26:17Linda Fiorentino, Salma Hayek, me, Jason Lee, Jason Mewes, Ben, Matt,
26:23the whole shebang, all of us in the room, we were like, yeah, do it, do it.
26:27We all sat down and he did this 10 minute
26:30piece just off the top of his head perfectly.
26:32Same way I'd see him do it in the actual special when it aired a couple of months
26:36later and stuff. And all these people at the height of their game.
26:39These two motherfuckers just won an Oscar for Good Will Hunting and shit.
26:42Didn't matter. Everyone was agog.
26:44That the man as he worked the room, he was so good at what he did and stuff.
26:47And we just watched him for 10 minutes,
26:49like just put everything aside and watched him do his thing.
26:52The fun thing about this job is every once in a while
26:55you can see someone who's truly excellent
26:58practice their craft front and center right there.
27:02And you could touch him.
27:02Sometimes you watch people do things like must be magic.
27:05It's got to be wires that can't be real.
27:07We could have poked him and he was right there.
27:10It's awesome.
27:11I haven't liked a man in a long time, and
27:15it's not because I'm a man hater or something like that.
27:19It's just been some time since I've been
27:21exposed to a man that didn't immediately live into a stereotype of some sort.
27:26And I want you to feel comfortable with me
27:28because I'd really like us to be friends.
27:31So if there's anything you want to know, it's OK to ask me.
27:36OK,
27:37why girls? Chasing Amy used to be the umbrella movie.
27:41If I made a movie that people didn't like,
27:43I could always turn to Chasing Amy, open the Chasing Amy umbrella and be like,
27:46but I did make Chasing Amy. And that would stop the rain.
27:49It was very forward thinking, progressive movie for 1997.
27:53We are now in 2024.
27:55So 27 years on, the movie has aged differently for different audiences.
28:00It's a little bit different.
28:02It's a little bit different.
28:03So 27 years on, the movie has aged differently for different audiences.
28:08I meet people at Comic-Cons,
28:10I meet people in the real world who will sit me down and tell me how
28:13Alyssa Jones was their life preserver, their buoy.
28:17I saw a woman and a world that I could go
28:20to because I lived in a place that was nothing like that and I couldn't be myself.
28:24So I know the movie has that type of power.
28:26But, you know, for an audience that wasn't around when it happened,
28:31I guess some of it is abrasive and hits hard and doesn't feel,
28:36you know, a lot of people are baffled that we don't call Alyssa bisexual.
28:39We don't just say she's bi, man.
28:40Like we're very, we're always saying she's gay.
28:42She's gay. 1997, bisexual wasn't really a popularized term.
28:47It was a kind of binary equation back then to some degree.
28:50It was gay and straight.
28:51So it wasn't like I'm disavowing that.
28:54In fact, there's a pretty eloquent explanation for bisexuality,
28:59which is crazy because it was written by a straight man in that movie
29:02that Joey encapsulates while she is explaining to Holden why him.
29:06Maybe you knew early on that your track was from point A to B.
29:11But unlike you, I was not given a fucking map at birth.
29:15So I tried it all.
29:16But it does feel weird that that movie is seen by some cats as not progressive,
29:23where I'm like, oh, my God, like that's that's all it was like when we made it
29:27and stuff, when we made it, there weren't a lot of voices getting to tell their story.
29:31And perhaps there's a, you know, like, why is a straight guy telling this gay story?
29:35And also the most interesting story to be told is Alyssa's story.
29:39Although I could argue that Hooper's story
29:41is fascinating and the story we tell is the boring ass white guy at the center of it.
29:46But I was the boring ass white guy at the center of my own life.
29:49And so it made sense that the story is told through Holden's perspective.
29:53And, you know, I guess
29:56if they're still talking about it,
29:5827 years later, something works about it.
30:05The 430 movie.
30:11That car blows.
30:12No way. It's like a Batmobile.
30:15Who cares? Batman's a stupid old TV show.
30:17I read in Starlog they said they're going to make a new Batman movie.
30:21It'll flop. Nobody's ever going to pay to see a Batman movie.
30:24Going into this movie, I'd just gone crazy.
30:27Like I went to a mental hospital for a while and I got everything worked out.
30:31If you ever need help, kids, reach out.
30:32There's nothing wrong with it.
30:33I had stopped smoking weed because I'd been in for a month and I was like, oh, shit.
30:38Like I haven't smoked weed in a month.
30:39Let me keep going.
30:40So this was the first movie that I was going to direct where I hadn't smoked weed.
30:45And then I was so non-smokey that I fell down this existential rabbit hole.
30:50If these kids know anything about me,
30:53because they're all like in their early to mid 20s,
30:56it would only be from really the last 15 years of their life and really probably
31:01the last 10 and all of that time I've been a stoner.
31:05So what if they come to set and they're like,
31:08where the fuck is the guy we thought we were going to work with and shit?
31:11So I was like, oh, shit,
31:13authentic Kev has to make this movie and authentic Kev hasn't directed a movie
31:18without being stoned since
31:22Cop Out.
31:23So from Cop Out forward, man, every movie I made, I made as a stoner.
31:27And when you're a stoner director, man, there is no such there are no problems.
31:31You just constantly see the joy of creation.
31:33You're just like, what do you mean, man, with that person to show up?
31:37We'll get somebody else.
31:37Are you kidding me?
31:38They're having a good time.
31:39We're making movies.
31:40This is nuts. Let's do it.
31:42When we movie was done, I eventually asked the kids.
31:45I was like, were you guys disappointed that I wasn't stoned the whole movie?
31:50And Nick was like, you weren't?
31:53And I was like, no, oh, my God.
31:55He's going, you were always so quiet.
31:57I was like, that's not the kind of stoner I ever was.
31:59I was a chatty stoner and shit.
32:01If I realized since I wasn't stoned while I was making the movie,
32:04I finally realized what I do for a living.
32:07I'm like, oh, like I artificially try to recreate wonderful things that have
32:11happened to me and moments that I felt were absolutely magical
32:14to try to relate that to an audience.
32:17And then for the rest of my life,
32:19whenever I see the movie or somebody references that point that had once been
32:23so personal to me and now is just some elements in a movie that I made.
32:26I have this kind of warm feeling of like, oh, I remember when that was mine.
32:31Like and now it's everybody's.
32:34And my favorite thing in the movie,
32:36though, is this scene with Genesis Rodriguez and Austin Zager plays Brian David,
32:41who's kind of like a version of me.
32:43And Genesis Rodriguez plays like the hot
32:45usher that works at the theater that you eventually find out wants to be a filmmaker.
32:50I'm going to get real emotional talking
32:51about this and gives them essentially the idea for like you can make movies, too.
32:55You know who Martha Coolidge is?
32:56Yeah. Movies are my life, too.
32:58Valley Girl is in my top ten.
33:00Scene did not exist in the script until a week before we shot it.
33:03What had happened was I got a text that I
33:06thought was coming from George R.R. Martin, who had come to our theater and done a show.
33:12Like I did an evening with George R.R.
33:14Martin at Smodcastle.
33:15And the person I thought was George R.R.
33:17Martin was like, I'm going to be near Jersey this summer.
33:20And I said, well, this is great.
33:22Do you want to be in this movie we're making?
33:24Do you want to like be sitting in the theater, like want to do a cameo?
33:27And then the person wrote back like, I would love to.
33:30But do you know who this is?
33:32And I said, yeah.
33:33And then I was like, wait, do I?
33:35And I looked and it was George R.R.
33:38Martin is in my phone is GRM.
33:40Genesis Rodriguez is in my phone just as GR.
33:43So Genesis Rodriguez, who I've worked
33:45with before on Tusk and Yoga Hosiers, was texting me like out of the blue and
33:49stuff, didn't know anything about us making a movie.
33:51And I've just asked her to be in it.
33:52It's like George could sit in the audience as a cameo and it'd be cool.
33:57Genesis is like an actress, you know, legit.
34:00Like it'd be weird to just have her sitting in the audience.
34:02Like, you know, she gave like one of the best monologues I've ever shot on film in Tusk.
34:08So I was like, yeah, man, come out and play.
34:11And she's like, all right, I'll call my agent.
34:13And I started thinking of a scene or character for Genesis to play.
34:16I was like, oh, I can write a scene
34:18that's kind of like when my sister told me to, like, be a filmmaker.
34:21I've never met anyone who wanted to be a director before.
34:24Sure you have.
34:26Just look in the mirror.
34:30Me?
34:32A director? Nah.
34:34I just actually love going to the movies.
34:36Yeah, man, that's how it starts.
34:38Because that dopey ass mistake, I wrote her that part.
34:41And it is the best scene in the movie.
34:42It makes me cry every time I see it.
34:44She like nails it so, so well.
34:47So you want to talk about happenstance?
34:49Like if she hadn't texted, I never would have thought about Genesis
34:53and I never would have written that scene.
34:55And that scene defines the movie.
34:57And the truth about you and me is we're filmmakers.
35:02We just haven't made our films.
35:05Yet.
35:06I like my line, be as close to the lens as possible.
35:09You know, I learned that from Bruce Willis.
35:11He also says shit like this, dark, blood, mud.
35:15That's how you shoot me. Dark, blood, mud.