Seven questions with Kevin Smith

Ahead of the release of his new movie “Zack and Miri Make A Porno,” which opens Friday, director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) sat down for a teleconference with university publications from across the country to talk about his new movie.

Associated college journalists: “It’s pretty apparent that Jason Mewes is a crazy guy. I just wanted to know how he felt when you told him to do a full-frontal for ‘Zack and Miri Make a Porno.’ ”

Kevin Smith: “I thought Mewes would say, ‘Yes,’ immediately because this is a dude who shows his cock quite readily to anybody he knows for maybe a little over five minutes. I’ve known the dude for a little over 18 years now and I’ve seen his dick more than I’ve seen my own, so I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal for him to whip it out. But he actually balked-for the first time in years. He’s got a fiancé now and said, ‘It’s one thing to show you my dick, but film is forever and it’s going to be on DVD.’

Well, his lady was cool with it so he came out completely naked and looked like he was sporting Mark Wahlberg’s prosthetic from “Boogie Nights.” I was kind of flabbergasted.

Months later when Ben Affleck came over to watch the movie for the first time, the third thing he said about the movie was, ‘You realize Mewes is one pump away from total lift-off, right? I’ve seen that dude’s dick so many times; it has never looked that big. It’s usually all potato and no meat.’ We were both kind of impressed. I told Mewes and he said, ‘You tell Ben for me that that’s not me on the way up, that’s me on the way down, mother (expletive).”

ACJ: “I was wondering if you’ve ever made something like this film, autobiographical, with you, a high school friend, (do it yourself) film making-that kind of stuff.”

KS: “If you scrape away the pornography and the over-trappings of the story, it really is kind of like ‘Clerks’-a bunch of knuckleheads who don’t know anything get together and we make a feature. There just happens to be a lot of dick and tits. The experience of making ‘Clerks’ 15 years ago definitely informed the plot of this movie.

But no, I’ve never made a porno. I’ve never even made one with me and my wife and I’ve certainly never made one by myself. Nobody needs to see me (expletive). I know I never need to see me (expletive) and the moment I see myself (expletive), it’ll not only put me off having sex, it’ll put me off sex in general. Period. I’m disgusting. I’m just grotesque and morbidly obese. I don’t want to see that many rolls jiggling at one time. The closest I ever got was taking a picture of my dick with an iPhone to send to my wife while I was on the road and I couldn’t even do that. ‘Cause it’s like, how do you hold that camera and lift the gut up at the same time and kind of get the dick impressive enough to take a picture of it? So I don’t know, me and porn, not a good mix. I like to watch. I don’t like to make it or be involved. If I was thin, I’d totally do it.”

ACJ: “How do you think this new kind of romanticized idea of porn will affect college kids?”

KS: “I don’t think people will look at it and be like, ‘Hey man, suddenly this is changing everything I’ve ever felt about the porn industry. I’m not looking to convert people; I’m looking to entertain them with this one story. I’m certainly not putting this out there as, like, ‘This is a viable way to make cash!’ Though it certainly is.

There’s a bunch of people out there who find pornography offensive and whatnot. I get that. There are a bunch of people – mostly dudes – who find that as an essential part of their day. I don’t think the movie is going to affect that.”

ACJ: “How did growing up in New Jersey affect your directing style?”

KS: “I think the area in Jersey in which I grew up certainly affected the dialogue I write-frank and candid, peppered with a lot of vulgarity. I imagine if I’d grown up any place else it wouldn’t be that much different. Although having the friends I’ve had has certainly influenced me as a film maker in terms of stuff I like to write about and stories I like to tell. I can’t say the great state of New Jersey has necessarily influenced that as much as the people I hung around with. You grow up in New Jersey, you grow up in the shadow of New York and the butt of many, many jokes. While all the toxic waste jokes have calmed down over the years, there’s still kind of that necessity to prove yourself worthy of viewing, let alone accolades. I think we tend to try harder. Growing up in Jersey is like growing up fat. You just try-harder. You just always try to outdo the thin people. So you learn to eat (expletive) really well I guess is what I’m getting at. That’s the only way you’re ever gonna get any chicks. That’s all I’ve been trying to do for the last 15 years is prove that I know how to eat (expletive) well-cinematically speaking.”

ACJ: “Could you talk about the different styles that Seth Rogan, Elizabeth Banks and Craig Robinson and that group brought into your group of Jeff Anderson, Jason Mewes and all them?”

KS: “It really combined rather well. At the end of the day, they’re all consummate professionals who love to act. They all honor the script. It’s not like they all get there and
say, ‘Well, we won’t be needing this anymore.’

What Seth is kind of a genius at is he’s innately talented at ad-libbing material that sounds like it’s organic to the film or, more specifically, to the character. When you’re on take eight or nine on a movie set, after the cast and crew has heard it eight or nine times, the laughs kind of start dying down. All you have to do at that point is say one new thing that is even remotely funny and you get people laughing again. Problem is, nine and a half times out of ten, none of that material is good for the story. It’s great for the deleted or outtake section of the DVD. It doesn’t propel the story. When he makes a joke that’s not there or he ad-libs a line, it sounds like it’s coming out of the character’s mouth, not Seth’s mouth, so nobody is stopping the show to make a joke or to stand out. His lines are also very germane to the discussion. You welcome a guy like that because he’s not just executing, he’s elevating.”

ASJ: “I remember back when the first ‘An Evening with Kevin Smith’ came out and there was a segment about Mewes making his own porn and thinking how pathetic you thought it was. How did that influence your direction with (‘Zack and Miri’) and did Mewes take it as an opportunity to revitalize himself or redeem his performance?”

KS: “I think Mewes thought that nobody would ever see that first one. Why he gave it to me is still a (expletive) mystery. Take into consideration that the dude was knee-deep in the horse at that point. A dude on heroin ain’t gonna perform very well at all from what I understand. But, I am still, to this day, mystified as to why he was like, ‘Here. Watch this and tell me what you think.’ He had an auto focus on that was racking between him and his fiancé and this framed X-Men picture behind him that was catching the reflection of an MTV Video Music Awards that was playing-I think it was N’Sync that was on TV at the time. It was not stroke-worthy to say the least. I think in terms of being influential . that was below even the amateur standards – shockingly bad – and more depressing than anything else-the only sex I’ve ever watched in my life where I was like, ‘Wow. This is depressing.’

I think given the opportunity to have a (sex) sequence with Katie Morgan in the movie with his character, Lester, he just went in a completely different direction. He’s been clean for more than six years. Number one; he wasn’t giving me his this-is-my-on-heroin-performance. But number two; he was just like, ‘I’m going to try to look like a stud’ and he pulled it off. I remember the next day we had to send Katie to a chiropractor because he got a little too into it in terms of thrusting and it aggravated some kind of back condition Katie had. I would say the marked improvement between his bad porn and this fake porn was 400-500 percent, which I know isn’t a real number, so let’s just say 100 percent.

ASJ: “Zack and Miri was originally rated NC-17. Did you have to do any editing to get it rated R?”

KS: “Initially, the (Motion Picture Association of America) gave us an NC-17. We initially did try to make the cuts to get to the R but they were still kicking it back as NC-17. After three times, I finally said, ‘Look. I’d rather just take the appeals route at this time. I’m not comfortable cutting into the movie anymore.’

So, the appeals process allows you to have this last bite at the apple. We put everything back into the movie that we wanted, accepted the NC-17 rating and took it to the appeals screening where it’s taken out of the hands of the MPAA ratings board and is placed in front of an audience made up of 50 percent members of the MPAA who aren’t on the ratings board and 50 percent members of the National Association of Theater Owners. They watch the movie. The filmmaker gets 15 minutes to plead his case as to why he feels it’s an R. The MPAA ratings board, headed up by Joan Graves, gets 15 minutes to say why it should be NC-17. You get 10 minutes to rebut her. She gets ten minutes to rebut you, which sounds vaguely dirty but isn’t. You both leave the room and the fourteen people in our screening make the decision by secret ballot.

I guess we were out in the hall about five minutes. I speak to Joan quite regularly. She’s a very lovely woman. We don’t have a very adversarial relationship. She believes what she believes and I believe what I believe. But I didn’t know that I had necessarily done it.

With ‘Clerks’ I got an NC-17 busted down to an R. ‘Jersey Girl’ got an R and I talked it down to PG-13. But I wasn’t feeling it. All of the objections on the other two movies the MPAA had were based on dialogue. This was the first flick we ever made where they could actually point to visual sequences and be like, ‘You’ve got a dude’s face getting (expletive) on. You can not put that in an R-rated movie.’ This time I felt like I might lose this and I fought it so hard because I wanted to keep it R because the results in front of test audiences were through the roof. I was so close to telling Joan, ‘Look, let’s just cut a deal,’ because I’ve seen lots of ‘Law and Order’ and they’re always cutting deals. I was about to say, ‘I’ll cut out the thrusting if you let me keep the (expletive) shot.’ And as soon as I was about to hit her up with that proposal, the door to the theater opened up and the woman said, ‘They over-turned it. It’s an R.’ and at that point I said, ‘Bye Joan. See you next time.’ “