With its boisterous energetic theme parks, unending strip malls of souvenir shops and constant road construction, it’s tough to imagine someone anticipating a trip to Orlando to be therapeutic. For filmmaker-actor-comedian Kevin Smith, that’s exactly the case.
The 50-year-old first came to fame in 1994 by writing, directing, co-producing and acting in the low-budget comedy “Clerks.” Smith portrayed the quieter half of the stoner duo Jay and Silent Bob with friend Jason Mewes, appearing together in a multitude of films, comics, video games and TV shows.
Smith continues to add careers to his resume, including author and podcaster. Most recently he’s added restaurateur to the list, overseeing Mooby’s pop-ups across the country. (For the non-devout, that’s the fast food eatery from the View Askewniverse, the quasi-fictional world where the majority of Smith’s films take place.) Last month saw the fictional foodery take over I-Drive’s Tin Roof for a sold-out two week run.
In a nearly hour long chat with Smith we covered a wide variety of topics, including his upcoming appearance at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts’ Frontyard Festival in Orlando May 8.
WATERMARK: So, Kevin! You’re coming to Orlando, helping keep theaters alive. What should people expect? What’s bringing you here?
KEVIN SMITH: Well, I’m coming out to do a show, which I haven’t been able to do in about a year, at least live. Me, on a stage answering questions, is kind of what I do for a living. A lot of people think it’s film, but I just make the films so I have something to talk about. Coming to Orlando is always focused around Mom; she lives there, my brother Don and his husband Jerry as well. So, I make the trip as often as I can. Hopefully people enjoy it but I’m gonna enjoy it more, because standing on a stage and talking about yourself is like the cheapest therapy in the world. It’s been a year since I’ve been able to go to therapy, so to speak. So this is gonna be welcomed.
As someone who does some DJ work myself, there’s something about the power of a microphone and a stage, I get it.
In life, I think we only need three things: food, fucking and to be heard. You know you’re being heard when you look out at a crowd of people who are hanging on your every word. That always feels incredibly fulfilling, so I look forward to getting back to it down there. I trust I’ll be doing a year’s worth of COVID material that I’ve been just sitting on as well as some stuff about going to the periodontist and whatnot, which I guess is old man humor at this point. I guess I’ll be doing dad jokes, is what I’m getting at.
Gotta love being in your 50’s, right?
Oh good lord, man. I never think about it until I read an article where, in the first few paragraphs, they have to explain what “Clerks” is to an audience of people who weren’t alive when we did it. It reminds me of that moment from “This Is Spinal Tap,” where their music’s on the radio and the DJ is like “From our ‘Where Are They Now’ file.”
In a Facebook post on Easter, you made a joke about how you’ve resurrected your career so many times. I thought, It’s like he’s Madonna and that’s why we gays like you so much.
It’s like, “He’s like Madonna, if Madonna was not that successful!” Or, “He’s like Madonna if Madonna was a Madonna knock-off!”
Well, speaking of knock-off’s, let’s talk about Mooby’s.
Orlando was so successful for us. Sold us out, treated us really well. For me, it was a wonderful experience, a profitable experience, but more importantly I got to bring my mom to the opening, to the ribbon cutting. That kind of shit is pornography to a mother. There’s nothing more pleasurable to a mother than watching people like her son. I passed the mic to her at one point and asked if she had any words of wisdom. She went off on this, you know, “appreciate every day” kind of thing. It was adorable.
With appearance on “Match Game” and “Celebrity Family Feud” you’re also becoming the go-to guy for game shows.
Apparently I’m at the game show stage of my career, which I couldn’t be happier about. I grew up watching game shows. When I was a kid, I asked my dad “What does Charles Nelson Reilly do?” And my dad would say “Game shows.” I cherish the notion that there are kids out there watching game shows today with their parents asking “Who is that?” And the parents saying “Oh, I see him on game shows a lot. He’s a game show guy” without even knowing all the careers that I’ve had.
For me, that’s just as cool as being on “Degrassi.” There was a whole audience out there, unfamiliar with my true body of work, who now are somewhat familiar with Jay and Silent Bob; it was Canadian teenage kids, which was adorable. Anytime you can expose yourself to a market that is not necessarily familiar with you is a good thing.
Over the years, do you think you’ve had similar experiences or opportunities about the gay community?
The gay community has always been in the stuff I do because of my brother Donald. I remember first talking to Don about him being gay literally on my way to film school. My mother had already outed my brother to me; but I waited for him to bring it up. At one point he was escorting me out to Vancouver where I was going to go to film school. We’re driving, and I’m waiting; surely, he’s gonna bring it up! The whole trip we’re talking about everything but that. We come across the border, I see the skyline of Vancouver, and I just say, “So, I understand you have an alternative lifestyle.” My brother starts laughing, saying “Well, that’s one way to put it.”
So we had this great discussion for the rest of the trip. If you’ve ever seen “Chasing Amy,” where Jason Lee’s character Banky is quizzing Alyssa Jones, Joey Lauren Adams’ character, on all the stuff that goes down in lesbian relationships, it’s basically taken from that weekend with my brother. I was going “What about glory holes; you ever done that? What about Singapore Sling? What about leather? Do you get involved with leather??”
I was going full spectrum and asking all the questions because… what am I? 21? 22? This is the first gay person I know! My brother would always tell me, “You know a lot of gay people, they just haven’t told you yet.”
But what about movies? Like, when you go to the movies, it’s always a boy and girl fall in love and shit. He said, “Well, I can identify with love. But it’s a little weird to go see a story of romance, over and over again, where you don’t see yourself reflected.”
I felt bad about that because I’d spent so much of my time at the movies and loved it. But my brother doesn’t have the same experience because at that point, culturally, he wasn’t being recognized. So when I started working on my stuff I was like, I’m always gonna whip in a little gay content for my brother just so he’s not sitting there going, “Oh, another fuckin’ breeders movie I gotta sit through.” Just so at least there’s something that he’s like “Holy shit! I feel seen, I feel spoken to” or whatever.
“Chasing Amy” obviously has a bunch [of gay content]. But the normalizing of dudes who tell other dudes they would suck their dick? I’m very proud of that! I don’t think I’m the one who invented it but as far as movies and pop culture goes, it was just a very stealthy kind of “There’s nothing wrong with this!” You know, Jay and Silent Bob are about as fuckin’ gay as Ernie and Bert, I would imagine.
Whenever the religious right or conservatives are like, “Hey, these liberals are trying to take everything down,” in some cases they’re right! Because, literally, I was throwing in propaganda from an early age.
For me, that was a good idea: to normalize something that people in my age group at that time were like, “Eww!” We’re talking about the late ‘80’s, early ‘90’s, when the term “gay” was used by the non-gay community as a pejorative. I put in as much as I could, for my brother, which then of course, extends to the gay community and whatnot. And I think because of that, I’ve had a pretty decent following in the community.
There was one time in 2001 when GLAAD – or Scott Seomin, who was in charge of GLAAD – kind of came after me for “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.” He said he watched the movie and thought it was incredibly homophobic; I completely disagreed. I was like, Look, there’s a moment in that movie, where one main character admits that he was about to suck the other main character’s dick. Like, if that’s not pro-gay, I don’t know what is.
And had the term been around then, I imagine you might have been “cancelled.”
To some degree, absolutely. Or it would have created some sort of culture battle, it would have been a polemic. Certainly more of a polemic than it ever was in 1997. I would learn what a polemic was with the next film. “Dogma” was death threats and hate mail and stuff so that’s a true polemic. I think “[Chasing] Amy” would have created like this culture war conversation. “It’s not right for a fucking cis white male to tell this story” of what would now be considered pansexuality, rather than just her being bi.
So what are your thoughts on cancel culture?
Well, you’re talking to a guy who, at one point, was responsible for trying to quote-unquote “cancel” Southwest Airlines. To then being the guy who was quasi-canceled online because of it. As many people that were like “Yeah, go get ‘em! Fuck Southwest Airlines!” there were a lot of people who were like “Well maybe you should fucking buy two seats, you fat fuck.” All the fat hate came the fuck out!
There was a minute I was cancelled for that; I’ve been cancelled by film critics. I’ve experienced large doses of it. It’s not pleasant. Especially when you’re in the entertainment business because your whole fucking M.O. in this business is “Please love me or else I don’t matter!” So, I’ve been through it but I’ve also tried to perpetrate it, so I understand the frustration. Sooner or later, I’m sure I will do something or I’m sure I’ve already done something that’s gonna come back to bite me in the ass.
What about times when it’s about what people have said, like Gina Carano from “The Mandalorian” and J.K. Rowling?
Look, everyone’s entitled to their opinions, wrongheaded as they may be. But I think maybe some people just get so rich they feel they can publicly express and share those opinions. You can’t change what people are fundamentally. If they’ve got hate in their hearts, that started a long time ago. They’re never gonna have a “come to Jesus” moment. So, the best you can hope for is that they keep it to themselves.
The last few years of seeing people emboldened enough to start expressing these opinions — fringe opinions — hey, it’s your voice, if that’s what you want to choose to do with your voice so be it. But you need to understand that there are financial repercussions for expressing that opinion. Some people just don’t want to work with you. In the case of Gina Carano, Disney was just like, “Nah, it’s just not worth it. We’ll find another character; you’re not the only space character out there. We’ll find another space character and make that action figure and move forward.”
In the case of J.K. Rowling, that just feels like somebody who’s so fucking stinking rich, they’re like, “Eh, I’m gonna let it slip. Why not? This is how I feel.” Think about it. When you have somebody like J. K. Rowling – and I’m not excusing it by any stretch of the imagination – but let’s try to follow the logic.
You’re talking about a person who wrote a kids book in a coffee shop and manifested reality, manifested billions of dollars. So, that person is always going to think that they’re right. Because they were right that one fucking time. They were right about fucking wizard books, but like, that doesn’t mean you’re right about everything you think and feel. And if you’re gonna share some of those thoughts and feelings, which are fringe, like you gotta expect, people now have a voice! They can use that voice to tell you, “You suck.”
It just never makes sense to me when somebody whose job it is to make a living off the good graces of the public flies in the face of the public and says, “Fuck you.” That makes no sense to me whatsoever. Hate makes no sense to me either, but it’s been around so long that, like, I kind of get the concept. I don’t agree with it, but I kind of get that some people just fucking don’t have love in their hearts. But I never will understand somebody who will act against their own good and act against common sense. Common sense dictates if you’re going to make inflammatory comments, people might not want to employ you anymore. Like, it stands to reason, if you’re going to work at Starbucks, and you want to spiel racism at the front counter, you are not gonna work at Starbucks very long.
So, to me, it’s kind of clear-cut. I guess what the story tells is that these opinions mean so much to these people that they’re willing to jeopardize their livelihood. And you know, what can you say to that? Like, that person may just be unreachable.
My self-proclaimed super gay nerd editor wanted me to ask, When do you think audiences will get their first openly queer main character superhero – in either Marvel or DC – and which queer hero would you like to see get their own film or series?
Well, if we’re gonna do historical comic book characters, the first one of course was Northstar and Alpha Flight at Marvel Comics; they were way ahead of the curve. This is going back to the ’80s, I believe. Recently, in the last 10, 20 years, DC followed suit by making Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern, gay as well.
So, I feel like, since Marvel went for it first and since Alpha Flight is an all-Canadian superhero team, you get like two bites at the apple there. Number one: you’re debuting one of your lead superhero characters who is gay – and has been gay for a long time. This is not a gimmick, the character’s been gay since they brought him out in the books. So, you get that audience; you satisfy a very hungry audience who’ve been looking for that, to see themselves up on the big screen. Then you get the Canadian audience as well! What Canadian’s not going to go to see Alpha Flight? If you get the entire gay community and all the Canadians? That’s a billion dollars; gotta be. It’s just smart money.
Last, since you’re coming to Orlando – of all your own projects, which one do you think would be most suited to be translated into a theme park attraction?
Oh man. The first thing that pops into my head is Mooby World, but like, I think you’d have a lot of confused people. But then again, you’ve got theme parks like Six Flags and shit that have had weirder mascots. Like, remember the dancing old man that Six Flags used to have in their commercials? Just because Mickey Mouse is insanely well known as Disney World; instantly, when you see Mickey Mouse, you identify the two. I think Mooby World could work, even if you don’t know the movies of Kevin Smith, because you’re like, “It’s a fucking theme park, I don’t care who the fucking mascot is. I wanna go on a roller coaster.”
So, Mooby World would absolutely work, because it’s colorful and it looks like a kid’s character. But in terms of the movies, let me see…“Mallrats”: you could do like a swing from the roof of the mall type of thing. “Chasing Amy”: there’s a ride that would go both ways, I guess?
One of those coasters that goes forwards and backwards!
Exactly! Thematically keeping with the movie! And there’s two coasters, so you’re “chasing” Amy– Amy One and Amy Two are the cars. You go forward and you’re chasing one of the cars and then when you go backwards, you’re being chased by the other car. Oh my God, that’s phenomenal. If I ever inherit a haunted old theme park, be assured that it’s going to become Mooby World. All of the rides are going to be themed to the flicks that I’ve made.
“Jay and Silent Bob’s Very Bad Trip.” That’s got log ride written all over it.
Jay and Silent Bob have no ride. It’s just “Jay and Silent Bob’s Green Room.” It’s a gigantic gymnasium that’s a hot box. You don’t need a ride; you just walk in, hang out for an hour, and you’ve gone on the ride of your life.
An Evening with Kevin Smith, presented by the Dr. Phillips Center, hits the Frontyard Festival May 8 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets start at $35 and can be purchased at DrPhillipsCenter.org.
