Kevin Patrick Smith (born August 2, 1970)[2] is an American filmmaker, actor, comedian, comic book writer, author, YouTuber, and podcaster. He came to prominence with the low-budget comedy buddy film Clerks (1994), which he wrote, directed, co-produced, and acted in as the character Silent Bob of stoner duo Jay and Silent Bob, characters who also appeared in Smith's later films Mallrats (1995), Chasing Amy (1997), Dogma (1999), Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), Clerks II (2006), Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019), and Clerks III (2022) which are set primarily in his home state of New Jersey. While not strictly sequential, the films have crossover plot elements, character references, and a shared canon known as the "View Askewniverse", named after Smith's production company View Askew Productions, which he co-founded with Scott Mosier.
Since 2011, Smith has mostly made horror films, including Red State (2011) and the "comedy horror films" Tusk (2014) and Yoga Hosers (2016), two in a planned series of three such films set in Canada dubbed the True North trilogy. He has also served as a director-for-hire for material he did not write, including the buddy cop action comedy Cop Out (2010) and various television series episodes, creating Masters of the Universe: Revelation in 2021.
Smith owns Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash in Red Bank, New Jersey, a comic book store which became the setting for the reality television show Comic Book Men (2012–2018). He also hosts the movie-review TV show Spoilers. As a podcaster, Smith cohosts several shows on his SModcast Podcast Network, including SModcast, Fatman Beyond, and the live show Hollywood Babble-On. He is known for participating in long, humorous Q&A sessions that are often filmed for DVD release, beginning with An Evening with Kevin Smith.[3]
Since 1999, he has been married to actress and former reporter Jennifer Schwalbach Smith, with whom he has a daughter, Harley Quinn Smith named after the Batman character of the same name.
Early life
Kevin Patrick Smith was born on August 2, 1970, in Red Bank, New Jersey,[2] the son of Grace (née Schultz), a homemaker, and Donald E. Smith (1936–2003),[4] a postal worker.[5][6][7] He has two siblings: an older sister, Virginia, and an older brother, Donald Jr. He was raised in a Catholic household[8][9] in the nearby clamming town of Highlands.
Smith's childhood was scheduled around his father's late shifts at the post office. His father grew to despise his job, which greatly influenced Smith, who remembers his father finding it difficult on some days to get up and go to work. Smith vowed never to work at something that he did not enjoy.[5]
Smith attended Henry Hudson Regional High School,[10] where he was a B and C student, videotaped basketball games, and produced Saturday Night Live-style sketch comedy. An overweight teen, he developed into a comedic observer of life to socialize with friends and girls.[5] After high school, Smith attended The New School in New York City, but did not graduate.[11] Smith met Jason Mewes while working at a youth center; they became friends after discovering a mutual interest in comic books.[12]
Career
As a filmmaker
On his 21st birthday, Smith saw Richard Linklater's comedy Slacker. Impressed that Linklater set and shot the film in his hometown of Austin, Texas rather than on a soundstage in a major city, Smith was inspired to become a filmmaker, and to set films where he lived.[5] He has said, "It was the movie that got me off my ass; it was the movie that lit a fire under me, the movie that made me think, 'Hey, I could be a filmmaker.' And I had never seen a movie like that before ever in my life."[13] He assembled a library of independent filmmakers like Linklater, Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee and Hal Hartley to draw from.[14]
Smith attended Vancouver Film School for four months, where he met longtime collaborators Scott Mosier and Dave Klein. Unlike them, Smith left halfway through the course, figuring he knew enough to proceed and wanting to save money for his first film.[15]
Smith moved back to New Jersey and got his old job back at a convenience store in Leonardo.[5][16] He decided to set his film, Clerks, at the store, borrowing the a-day-in-the-life structure from the Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing. Smith maxed out more than a dozen credit cards, and sold his much-treasured comic book collection, to raise $27,575 to make the film, while saving money by casting friends and acquaintances in most roles. Clerks was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994, where it won the Filmmaker's Trophy. At a restaurant following the screening, Miramax executive Harvey Weinstein invited Smith to join him at his table, where he offered to buy the movie. In May 1994, it went to the Cannes International Film Festival, where it won both the Prix de la Jeunesse and the International Critics' Week Prize. Released in October 1994 in two cities, the film went on to play in 50 markets, never playing on more than 50 screens at any given time. Despite the limited release, it was a critical and financial success, earning $3.1 million.[5][17] Initially, the film received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA for sexually graphic language. Miramax hired Alan Dershowitz to sue the MPAA. At an appeals screening, a jury of members of the National Association of Theatre Owners reversed the MPAA's decision, and the film was given an R rating.[18][19] The movie had a profound effect on the independent film community. According to producer and author John Pierson, it is considered one of the two most influential film debuts in the 1990s, along with The Brothers McMullen.[5]
Smith's second film, Mallrats, Jason Lee's debut as a leading man, did not fare as well as expected. It received a critical drubbing and earned only $2.2 million at the box office despite playing on more than 500 screens. Mallrats was more successful in the home video market.[5][20]
Widely hailed as Smith's best film, 1997's Chasing Amy marked what Quentin Tarantino called "a quantum leap forward" for Smith.[21] Starring Mallrats alumni Jason Lee, Joey Lauren Adams and Ben Affleck, the $250,000 film earned $12 million at the box office,[22][23] wound up on a number of critics' year-end best lists,[24][25] and won two Independent Spirit Awards (for Screenplay and Supporting Actor for Lee).[26] The film received some criticism from members of the lesbian community, who felt that it reinforced the perception that lesbians merely needed to find the right man. Smith, whose brother Donald is gay, found this accusation frustrating, as he has endeavored to be a pro-LGBT filmmaker, believing that sexuality is more fluid, with social taboos, not sexual desire, preventing more people from expressing bisexuality.[5]
Smith's fourth film, Dogma (1999), featured an all-star cast and was mired in controversy. A religious-themed comedy that starred a post-Good Will Hunting Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, as well as Chris Rock, Salma Hayek, George Carlin, Alan Rickman, Linda Fiorentino, and Lee and Mewes, it was criticized by the Catholic League.[27][28][29] The film debuted at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, out of competition. Released on 800 screens in November 1999, the $10 million film earned $30 million.
Smith then focused the spotlight on the two characters who had appeared in supporting roles in his previous four films. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back featured an all-star cast, with many familiar faces returning from those four films. Affleck and Damon appear as themselves filming a mock sequel to Good Will Hunting. The $20 million film earned $30 million at the box office and received mixed reviews from critics.
Jersey Girl, with Affleck, Liv Tyler, George Carlin, and Raquel Castro, Smith's first film outside the View Askewniverse, marked a new direction in Smith's career. The film took a critical beating[30] as it was seen as, in Smith's own words, "Gigli 2", because it co-starred Affleck and his then girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez.[31] Smith heavily reedited the film to reduce Lopez's role to just a few scenes, but the film did poorly at the box office. Budgeted at $35 million, it earned $36 million.[32]
In the 2006 sequel Clerks II, Smith revisited the Dante and Randal characters from his first film in his final visit to the View Askewniverse. Roundly criticized before its release, the film won favorable reviews as well as two awards (the Audience Award at the Edinburgh Film Festival and the Orbit Dirtiest Mouth Award at the MTV Movie Awards).[33] It marked Smith's third trip to the Cannes International Film Festival, where it received an eight-minute standing ovation.[34] The $5 million film, starring Jeff Anderson, Brian O'Halloran, Rosario Dawson, Mewes, Jennifer Schwalbach and Smith reprising his role as Silent Bob, earned $25 million.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno was originally announced in March 2006 as Smith's second non-Askewniverse film. The film began shooting on January 18, 2008, in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, and wrapped on March 15, 2008. It stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as the title characters who decide to make a low-budget pornographic film to solve their money problems. It was released on October 31, 2008, and ran into many conflicts getting an "R" rating. Rogen said:
It's a really filthy movie. I hear they are having some problems getting an R rating from an NC-17 rating, which is never good. They [fight against] sex stuff. Isn't that weird? It's really crazy to me that Hostel is fine, with people gouging their eyes out and shit like that, but you can't show two people having sex—that's too much.[35]
Smith took the film through the MPAA's appeals process and received an R rating without having to make any edits.[36] Zack and Miri Make a Porno was considered a box-office "flop".[37][38][39] It was hurt by "tepid media advertising for a movie with the title PORNO".[37] In the aftermath of the film's performance, Smith's and Weinstein's business relationship became "frayed".[40] Zack and Miri opened #2 behind High School Musical 3: Senior Year with $10,682,000 from 2,735 theaters, an average of $3,906.[41] The "bankable" Rogen[42] experienced his "worst box-office opening ever".[43] In an interview with Katla McGlynn of the Huffington Post, Smith said:
I was depressed, man. I wanted that movie to do so much better. I'm sitting there thinking 'That's it, that's it, I'm gone, I'm out. The movie didn't do well and I killed Seth Rogen's career! This dude was on a roll until he got in with the likes of me. I'm a career killer! Judd [Apatow]'s going to be pissed, the whole Internet's going to be pissed because they all like Seth, and the only reason they like me anymore is because I was involved with Seth! And now I fuckin' ruined that. It was like high school. I was like, 'I'm a dead man. I'll be the laughing stock.'[38]
It was announced in 2009 that Smith had signed on to direct A Couple of Dicks, a buddy-cop comedy written by the Cullen Brothers and starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan.[44] Due to controversy surrounding the original title, it was changed to A Couple of Cops,[45] then reverted to its original title due to negative reaction,[46] before finally settling on the title Cop Out.[47] The film, shot from June to August 2009, involves a pair of veteran cops tracking down a stolen vintage baseball card,[48] and was released on February 26, 2010, to poor reviews; it was the first film Smith directed but did not write. Cop Out opened at number 2 at the box office and was mired in controversy, mostly over reported conflicts on the set between Smith and Willis. It was the last time Smith worked with a major studio, leading him to return to his independent film roots.[38][49]
In September 2010, Smith started work on Red State, an independently financed horror film loosely inspired by the Westboro Baptist Church and its pastor, Fred Phelps.[50][51][52] Weinstein and his brother Bob, who had been involved in the distribution of Smith's films except Mallrats and Cop Out, declined to support Red State.[53][54][55][56][57] The film stars Michael Parks, John Goodman and Melissa Leo. Smith had said he would auction off rights to the $4 million film at a controversial event following its debut screening at Sundance but instead kept the rights to the film himself and self-distributed it under the SModcast Pictures banner. The January 2011 premiere drew protests from a half-dozen members of the church, along with many more who counter-protested Westboro members.[58] Smith explained his decision as a way to return to an era when marketing a film did not cost four times as much as the film itself, a situation he called "decadent and deadening".[59]Red State was a box office bomb, earning just $1,104,682, and opened to poor reviews; the critical consensus (according to Rotten Tomatoes) was "Red State is an audacious and brash affair that ultimately fails to provide competent scares or thrills."[60][61] In April 2011, Smith said that Red State had made its budget back by making $1 million on the first leg of the tour, $1.5 million from a handful of foreign sales and $3 million from a domestic distribution deal for VOD.[62]
Smith had said before Red State that he would soon retire from directing, and announced that his last movie would be Clerks III.[63] But in December 2013 he said he would continue to make movies, but only ones that were uniquely his, as opposed to generic ones "anybody could make".[64]
In 2013 Smith directed Tusk, a horror movie inspired by a story Smith and Mosier read about a Gumtree ad for a man who rents out a room in his house for free on the condition that the respondent dresses as a walrus for two hours per day.[65] The project began pre-production in September 2013,[66] and was shot in November of that year.[67][68] Released September 19, 2014, it received mixed reviews.[69]
Before Tusk's release, Smith wrote the script for a spin-off of the film, which he titled Yoga Hosers. The movie began filming in August 2014, and was released in 2016. It stars Smith's daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, and Lily-Rose Depp, reprising their two minor characters from Tusk, with Johnny Depp also playing his inspector character from the earlier film.[70][71]
Smith revealed at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con that he had written the script for a film called Moose Jaws, which he described as "Jaws with a moose", and which is planned to be the third and final film in his True North trilogy.[72]
Smith wrote and directed one segment, Halloween, of the 2016 horror anthology film Holidays, in which each segment takes place during a different holiday.[73]
In June 2017, Smith started shooting KillRoy Was Here, a horror film based on the graffiti phenomenon. Directed by Smith, the script was co-written with Andrew McElfresh, marking the first time he shared writing credit. It represents a retooling of their Anti-Claus movie, which was initially canceled after the release of Krampus due to the two stories' similarity. The film crew was mostly made up of students of the Ringling College of Art and Design, with shooting continuing over every semester break.[74]
In 2017, due to obstacles getting Clerks 3 or Mallrats 2 produced, Smith decided to write and direct a Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back sequel instead, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. It was scheduled to be filmed in September 2017,[75] but shooting was postponed to February and March 2019.[76] The first trailer for the film was released on July 18, 2019. Smith announced a tour to accompany the film.[77]
On October 1, 2019, Smith announced on Instagram that Clerks III was officially happening and that Jeff Anderson, who had retired, had agreed to reprise his role as Randal. "It'll be a movie that concludes a saga. It'll be a movie about how you're never too old to completely change your life. It'll be a movie about how a decades-spanning friendship finally confronts the future. It'll be a movie that brings us back to the beginning—a return to the cradle of civilization in the great state of #newjersey. It'll be a movie that stars Jeff and @briancohalloran, with me and Jay in supporting roles. And it'll be a movie called CLERKS III!"[78] The film released on September 13, 2022.