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: March 23, 2004 - It was a brisk Tuesday morning in San Francisco when I met with Kevin Smith to discuss his latest film, Jersey Girl. The City by the Bay had experienced a weekend of rain, the remnants of which dotted the ground in the form of small puddles and scattered droplets. As I entered the swanky suite at the Ritz Carlton, Smith's eyes gleamed with recognition and he stuck out his hand, giving me a firm shake as he brought up his recollection of the last time we'd spoken (it was back during his PA tour for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back). As we were getting re-acquainted, his wife rustled past, clad only in a terry cloth robe, and disappeared into the back bedroom of the suite. Smith turned and led me out to the large deck attached to the suite, asked if it was too wet (the patio furniture was covered with thick droplets of the previous days rain, but I wiped it away with my shirt sleeve), plopped himself down in one of the comfy deck chairs, and promptly lit a Marlboro Menthol. : Now as much as I despise slipping into fashion correspondent mode Kevin Smith's wardrobe on this day afforded special mention. First off there were the checkered Spicoli slip-on Van's adorning his feet. A nice touch of retro for a man who is unabashed about his love of John Hughes' movies and the '80s. Then there was the faux vintage baseball/bowling jersey with the hand sewn "Kane" over the left breast. Knowing full well about Smith's love of classic rap, I inquired if it was in reference to Big Daddy Kane, the rawest of the Juice Crew MCs. "No, as in Citizen," clarifies Smith wryly. "It's a Movie Poop Shoot shirt and Chris Ryall, who runs the website, made the jersey for me. When we started the site he was like, 'Why do you want to do this? You've got the View Askew Board and the new Askew site.' The idea for Movie Poop Shoot was more of a news service that's not like View Askew, it doesn't have much to do with my stuff. And I said 'It's kind of like Citizen Kane. I think it would be fun to run a newspaper.' So since then he's always kind of latched on to that thought." : Garments and foot oriented accessories aside, the reason that Smith and I were talking in the first place was because of his latest film, Jersey Girl. He'd decided to swing through Northern California, showing the film to some Bay Area college students and knocking out some press interviews in the process. Despite the fact that room service kept interrupting us, trying to get somebody – anybody – to sign for some food, Smith, was ever the consummate professional, letting such interruptions slip into the background as he and I discussed his latest – and perhaps tamest – film to date. : : : -Photo: Spence D. : : : : SPENCE D., IGN FILMFORCE: Alright man, lemme get my two somewhat confrontational questions out of the way early on... : KEVIN SMITH: Shoot 'em! : IGNFF: How many times did you watch Curly Sue before making Jersey Girl? : SMITH: I still have never seen Curly Sue. Not to this day. Never saw it. That kid was too precocious. That's what they say [laughs]. The influence on this movie, if I had to point to anything, would be...did you ever see that Kenny Lonergan movie You Can Count on Me? : IGNFF: Nope. : SMITH: Well, it's not the same plot at all, nothing like it, but I remember watching that movie and going 'Oh, I'd like to make a nice, little, quiet drama/comedy, comedy/drama, dramedy like that. But Curly Sue, no, no no, never saw it. That's the Hughes' world I dare not tread into. Like I never even saw Career Opportunities, which a lot of people go "You gotta see it, man!" : IGNFF: That's not one of those '80s flicks where it takes place in a hospital with a bunch of slacker interns, is it? : SMITH: Career Opportunities, I think it's where they're trapped in a store overnight... : IGNFF: Oh! That's the one with Jennifer Connelly in it! Never seen it. : SMITH: Yeah, Jennifer Connelly is in it. And everybody always says that I gotta see it. : IGNFF: I've seen Mannequin, which is a "trapped in a department store, albeit with a mannequin" flick... : SMITH: It's kind of the same thing, except with Lassie before she joined Sex in the City, Kim Cattrall. : IGNFF: And what's his name on his downslide... : SMITH: Andrew McCarthy! Between his Weekend at Bernie gigs. But no Curly Sue. I should watch it because you're not the first person to say, 'Hey man, did you see Curly Sue? : IGNFF: No worries. I haven't even seen the entire flick. I think I caught a bit of it on late night television one time. : SMITH: Wasn't she a con man? Wasn't that the story? : IGNFF: No, I think Belushi was and he found the girl. I can't remember. I think it was sort of like a rip-off of Paper Moon, but not completely... : SMITH: Paper Moon I f@#kin' adore! : IGNFF: I think he – Belushi – found the little girl and then used her to con his way into Kelly Lynch's swank pad and then of course he falls in love with her... : SMITH: Get out of here! I don't believe that part [Smith grins slyly]. : IGNFF: Hey, believe what you want. So, another Jersey film, eh? You're gettin' to be almost as bad as Woody Allen (and Ed Burns) [laughs]. : SMITH: I know, I know [smiles]. At least I know that this is it for a little while. Green Hornet won't be set in Jersey...or will it? Yeah, it was nice though to make a Jersey film that's not like tied-into the other Jersey films. You know, all those were kind of interconnected. And this one's set in Jersey, but not the same world of New Jersey. So this was the one that I actually felt was kind of the nod to the hometown, 'cause I grew up in that town, Highlands. Oddly enough, when we made Clerks through Jay and Bob we rarely referenced the town I actually grew up in. We referenced Leonardo, which is where the Quick Stop is and Red Bank, which is where I lived after Clerks got sold. But I never really gave my props to my hometown. So Jersey Girl, for me, was kind of about doin' that – it's not the sole reason to do it, but it was one of the benefits to doin' that movie, was bein' able to give a shout-out to the town I grew up in, kind of show it off. : : -© Miramax : Smith directs Liv Tyler and Ben Affleck on the set of Jersey Girl : : IGNFF: I couldn't help but notice the little epitaph during the end credits. I'm assuming that was a memoriam to your father... : SMITH: My dad, yeah. : IGNFF: I'll be honest, this wasn't my favorite film of yours, but I did enjoy certain parts of it immensely. I didn't think that it flowed as well as some of your other films. But it did remind me a lot of Sandler's newest movie, 50 First Dates, in the sense that there's a lot of good things going on in it, it's a kinder, gentler film than his previous works, and at the end he dedicated it to his father, as well. : SMITH: Really? Did his dad die? : IGNFF: Last year, apparently. : SMITH: Wow. : IGNFF: Anyway, I found that interesting considering that for both of you each of these films represented a softer side of your personas. And then you both dedicated these films to your fathers. Sure, there's some mild potty humor littered throughout, but there's none of that Jay and Bob stoner humor, it's almost a more mature film, or dare I say it again, as much as I hate to paraphrase Bush, a kinder, gentler film... : SMITH: The old Bush, not the new Bush [smirks]. Yeah, it was like my dad died after we made the movie. Thankfully my dad got to see the first cut of it and when he died, I felt like, 'Wow, I really want to give the old man a shout-out.' The father/son relationship in the movie with George [Carlin] and Ben [Affleck], it's not nearly the same as what my father and I had, but there's a lot of my father in George's character. That moment in the movie, that always breaks me up, is the end when he kisses George on the head. It's a real kind of reserved, emotional out pouring, you know? They just don't have that 'I love you dad!' relationship. That was kind of like the relationship that I had with my father, to some degree. So when he died I was just like, 'Oh, I have to give him a shout-out at the end.' A big regret is that out of six movies and never having put my dad in any of them. But he didn't really want to do it. He was kind of camera shy. Like at least I got my mom into Clerks – she's the milk maid pullin' milk out of the cooler. But the old man I never got in front of the camera, so this was kind of a way to do that. : IGNFF: Carlin's character works for the city and you have several scenes where he's cruisin' the streets in a street sweeper. Did you ever get to take it for a spin? : SMITH: I did, for the first time when we were makin' the movie. Yeah, got to drive it. It is weird. It's kind of the equivalent of drivin' a go-kart when you've got a license. Or mowin' the lawn. It's like once you get a driver's license and you can drive a car, you would imagine the fascination with like vehicles that aren't cars would go away – like drivin' a go-kart. But still, like if I'm at a place like a boardwalk and they've got a go-kart run, I'll totally jump on it. It was the same thing with that, with the street sweeper. They gave me the opportunity, like 'Do you want to give it a run?' And I was like 'F@#k yes! I've always wanted to!' And you get in and it's just a very slow, lumbering car. But still there's something cool about being really high up and being in a thing that people go, 'Hey, that's the street sweeper,' you know, people look at it for some reason. I guess it would kind of be like drivin' the Zamboni, to some degree. : IGNFF: Now while I originally stated that Jersey Girl is devoid of your patented Jay & Boy stoner humor, it does contain some great, off-kilter moments. I was totally vibin' on the whole Sweeney Todd shtick, for one. : SMITH: Had you ever seen it? : IGNFF: Oh yeah. I saw it in college at this outdoor theater in Solvang, California, of all places. : SMITH: Did they do the full set with the spinning box? : IGNFF: Oh yeah. It was sweet, they had the barbershop on top of the pub and the special chair that dumps the bodies down the chute. It was totally cool. Anyway, at the screening I attended I was one of the only people laughing at those sequences in the film... : SMITH: ...who got it, right? Some people don't know it. : IGNFF: I know, it was like more than half the people in the audience had no clue. : SMITH: Sad, isn't it? : IGNFF: Oh man, you don't even know. My buddy, who was sittin' behind me, he was laughing, but after the film he asked "What was the deal with that Sweeney Todd stuff?" I had to tell him it was like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre-meets-Motel Hell... : SMITH: ...in an opera form [laughs], almost. : IGNFF: It was like this time around you replaced the ever-present Star Wars digs and the Paul Thomas Anderson/Magnolia references in favor of Broadway snipes at Sweeney and Cats. : SMITH: Right, right [laughs]. : IGNFF: What was the deal with that? : SMITH: For me, when I was a kid, I was always fascinated by Sweeney Todd 'cause I didn't get to see it. My brother and sister went with a high school theater group or something and came home and started tellin' me about it. And I was like, 'What? It's a musical about people gettin' their throats cut and they wind up as food?!?' You know, musicals up to that point were like My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, The King and I, s#!t like that. So I was really kind of entranced by the whole notion. My parents wouldn't let me go see it. They were like 'You're too young and it's also in The City and blah-blah-blah.' So I would listen to the soundtrack, my brother and sister got the record and then they got the tape version later on. And I'd listen to that incessantly all the time, so I knew the musical long before I saw the musical. And then finally when I was 18, they did a revival of it at Circle in the Square in Manhattan, and I got to see it there, and it was everything that I'd hoped it would be. Of course I was used to Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury doin' the songs and whatnot, but the cast they had in Circle in the Square – I can't remember who it was – they were good, they were totally good. It really captured my imagination as a child and just stuck with me. One of those plays where I'd never heard anything like it before, you know, never heard of anything that was kind of remotely as interesting, you know, as a kid. It's kind of the ideal musical for a child. If you were trying to get a kid to go see a musical, that would be the one, right? It's got like a prurient interest level involved, beyond the singing and whatnot. And it's also insanely well-written, really great songs. Even as a kid I appreciated it on this level, but more so as an adult, it's sooo insanely tragic. Like everything about it is f@#kin' tragic. The plot of the whole play, the message of the whole play is like, 'Don't bother with revenge. What's the point?' You know, Todd comes back from being imprisoned by the judge so the judge can get at his f@#kin' wife. Comes back to England and hears that his wife is dead, so he just wants the revenge on the judge. But then his wife has been alive the whole time and she's the crazy beggar woman whose throat he slits at the end, because he's so busy tryin' to get to the judge... : [At this point a staff member from room service pops out onto the deck and asks if somebody can sign for the food. "Hi," Smith says casually, "somebody's in that room, if you knock on the door," and motions to the bedroom area of the suite. Then he returns his attention to me and the subject of Sweeney Todd without missing a beat.] : ...so he winds up killin' the wife that he's out to avenge, you know, losing sight of the fact, never lookin' at her face, never realizing it's her, 'cause he's so hell-bent on icing the judge. Sooo f@#kin' insanely tragic and then wonderfully kind of like, 'Oh God, how horrible!' So it really kind of appealed to me. : IGNFF: That's a rather interesting juxtaposition to Jersey Girl, which isn't nearly as tragic a film. : SMITH: You know, it helped to have a little edge in there, that's for sure [laughs]. I mean I was making a movie about a guy's relationship with his father and his relationship with his daughter. There's a million movies about bein' a father on a bunch of different levels, so I think without stuff like Sweeney Todd in there and some of the edgier stuff, it'd be even lighter than it is, might be a little too light for my taste. : IGNFF: It was also interesting how you made Affleck's character a PR flack. : [The room service individual reappears at the French doors, explaining to Smith that nobody was in the bedroom to sign for the food. "Okay, I'll take it," says Smith and motions to the gentleman to come over the table so he can sign the receipt.] : SMITH: It's weird, like when I start writing movies I always tend to write about my life or various portions or aspects of my life. And then sadly, being in the business for 10 years, your life tends to be about work, so I don't have nearly as much life experience as I had – oddly enough – before I got into film. Because the world kind of tends to get smaller – while getting large professionally, personally it gets kind of smaller. So suddenly you're – that's why Jay and Bob Strike Back to me was weird, 'cause it was all about making movies, to some degree. And that was really fitting, 'cause that's what I knew at that point, like that was the sum total of my experience. But it was a little sad in as much as like the real world kind of slips away a little bit, 'cause you don't get to be in the real world as much because you spend so much time working and then later on selling a movie. So the sphere of my influence at the time I started writing Jersey Girl was like, 'I'm surrounded by publicists,' you know, 'cause I was doin' Jay and Bob press. So suddenly it made sense to make the dude a publicist and I've never really seen that done before. You know, they'd done it that Burt Lancaster/Tony Curtis movie [Sweet Smell of Success] and I guess there was an Al Pacino movie out that was out earlier in the year, People That I Know. It felt like a character that hasn't really been that explored – and I don't really fully explore it, but it was just kind of givin' the guy a job that people don't see very often [in film]. Like with Chasing Amy, casting those guys as comic creators was cool because nobody had really seen that job before. At least in movies. So it was kind of cool to do it with the publicist angle, as well, 'cause not many people know what publicists do or see publicists in general. : : -© Miramax : Smith on the set of Jersey Girl : : IGNFF: Aw, man, they just gave me the "time's up" sign... : SMITH: Is that it or is it '5-minutes'? [Directed at the PR co-ordinator, who then clarifies that it is indeed "time's up".] : IGNFF: Thanks Kev, I appreciate you takin' the time out to chat with me. : SMITH: Good seein' you, man. It's always on a bi-annual basis, apparently. [Smith and I have spoken in regard to every one of his films since Chasing Amy] : IGNFF: I know, huh? Well, until next time... : SMITH: Thanks, Spence. : -- Spence D.

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