Kevin Smith faces up to his mortality
After the director and actor survived a “widowmaker” heart attack last year, he sits down with LAURA HARDING to discuss how it feels to cheat death then almost immediately start work on a comedy film
“They have got a tight relationship, he relates to her and stuff.
“She is four-and-a-half and he’s 45 and they meet at the exact same maturity level.
“It inspired me. I was like, ‘Oh my god, the guy least likely– you are super dad. What would your character be like as a dad?’. So it started like that.”
Kevin speaks rapidly but at this moment he pauses for breath.
“Then I had a heart attack and suddenly the movie took on a different dimension, where it was like, ‘Oh, I might die now at any minute, so I have got to make a movie that encapsulates everything I have ever done in 25 years of filmmaking, if not my entire life.
“The movie took on this lacquer of self-importance, where it was like, ‘Aah this is my last will and testimony’.
“All through it, we tried to keep it a comedy but I kept referring to it as ‘my cinematic gravestone!’ and my wife told me that is no way to sell a comedy. But it’s worked out so far.”
He describes making the film as “kitchen sink time” because he threw pretty much everything at it.
The result is a cameo-tastic wild ride through the View Askewniverse, including famous faces like Chris Hemsworth, Matt Damon, Ben
Kevin Smith says making Jay And Silent Bob Reboot was ‘therapy’ after his brush with death
Affleck, Craig Robinson and
Jason Lee.
“Right after the heart attack, I was like, ‘I want to do something that kind of memorialises me and makes a grand statement about who I was in this lifetime, in case the heart attack comes back’,” says Kevin.
“My old man had two heart attacks,
the first one put him on warning and the second one took him out, and
I’ve got my old man’s heart and my mom’s heart, so even though I changed my life, went vegan, lost a bunch of weight and stuff, I’m still at the mercy of the genetics.
“So I put this thing together that kind of says everything about what I wanted to say and who I was, all the movies, touching back on them, sequelising them all, because I didn’t know if I would ever get a chance to play in the toy box again.”
He says making the film had a transforming effect.
“After the heart attack I felt like an old man and I was like, what will make me feel young? If I go up in the attic and pull down all my old toys and start playing with them again! So it was therapeutic as well.”
The ‘therapy’ seems to have reinvigorated Kevin. Clerks III is back in development and there is even talk about Mallrats 2 happening..
He knows some people will be scathing about sequels: “If those movies are problematic, then I am part of the problem because I keep putting money into them.
“It’s like we should all eat healthy but we all love junk food and that type of cinema, a reboot, a remake, a sequel, it’s junk food. We have seen the original idea but we love it so much that we just want it to keep going.
“It’s the same reason we love TV shows that go on for a while, you get to spend time with these characters. In a movie you only get two hours, so getting another helping of that is comfort food.”
I kept referring to it [the movie] as ‘my cinematic gravestone!’... my wife told me that is no way to sell a comedy...