Writer, director, actor and stand-up comedian Kevin Smith isn’t struggling to find his place in the broader cultural conversation. The existential battles of where, when, how and if he should react publicly to something can feel like a daunting task, but when those thoughts become overbearing, Smith remembers his authenticity is what’s granted him his greatest achievements.
“The other day, I thought to myself, ‘You never waited to be invited into the conversation or tried to get into the conversation. You knew that was an impossibility and an improbability,’” Smith said in a recent phone call. “‘How you have proceeded throughout your entire career is you start a conversation, and whether or not that conversation is attended by many or a few, you start the conversation, so stop wondering where you fit into their conversation and do what you’ve always done.’”
For Smith, starting discussions and inviting others to be inspired by exchanging dialogue and ideas is a part of his live events, including his upcoming show at Agua Caliente Resort Casino Spa Rancho Mirage on Friday, Jan. 26. He’ll also join his longtime podcast partner Ralph Garman for “Hollywood Babble-On” live at Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank on Jan. 27.
“I’ve traditionally done kind of a Q&A format,” Smith said of the evening with show. “We go wherever the audience wants to go; they pick the topic, and since I’ve been working for like 30 years across various forms of media, there are a bunch of different questions and directions it can go. It tends to be an informative evening, and I try to be as funny and entertaining as possible.”
The 53-year-old New Jersey native got his big break with his directorial debut of “Clerks,” a low-budget film set in a convenience store that drew its influence from the a-day-in-the-life structure of Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.” Most of Smith’s works, such as “Mallrats,” “Chasing Amy,” “Dogma,” and “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” are also set in his hometown of New Jersey. He released the long-awaited “Clerks III” film on Sept. 12, 2022, and will follow up with a “Jay and Silent Bob” threequel later this year to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the franchise.
“I feel flabbergasted that 30 years in, it still matters,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I know it probably matters to me the most, but it’s still a relevant pop culture touchstone, and it’s crazy how much life it turned out to have. That has to do with the fact that in life, sooner or later, if you’re working, you’ve had a job at which you do anything but the job. With ‘Clerks,’ you don’t have to have worked in a convenience store to understand the work ethic in that movie.”
Retail jobs are a common element in Smith’s films, with the plots often centered around the characters’ jobs and their lack of enthusiasm for them. In “Clerks,” the convenience store workers get by doing the bare minimum, and in “Yoga Hosers,” the two main characters, who work at a convenience store after school, throw a party at the store when their owners leave. The stories centered around labor draw from Smith’s personal life working jobs in retail, restaurants, and landscaping and watching his father work night shifts into the early dawn for the United States Postal Service.
“Careers were not anything that was ever introduced to us when we were kids,” Smith said. “It was more of you finding a job; if you’re lucky, it’s a good job. It was just that’s the world we came from, and it didn’t mean that you were proud; it was just what you had to do. So working was part of life, but that didn’t mean you had to be good at the job or give it your all. I worked and had a work ethic, but it wasn’t a strong one. I’ve lived long enough that now I own a movie theater in New Jersey; my childhood movie theater I bought with my friends, and our staff is largely teenagers. They’re largely unmotivated, to say the least, but I can’t say anything because I made ‘Clerks.’ It’s impossible for me to tell people to work harder when my entire career is predicated on a movie about not working at all.”
Other characters created by Smith, such as Jay (played by Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (played by Smith), are still slackers, but spend most of their time selling marijuana in front of the convenience store in the “Clerks” films. When the film was released in the ’90s, marijuana was very much illegal, but has since become legalized in several states. This prompted the idea for the upcoming plot of the “Jay and Silent Bob” threequel, where the two characters must battle the legal marijuana industry.
“Those characters started life as outlaws, like they literally sold drugs, so it felt like my characters have now lived long enough that they’re not the outlaws anymore,” Smith said. “Weed sales are no longer the domain of those outside the bounds of the law, so it seemed like there’s some fun to be had with that storyline. I’ve been involved in the weed and retail business for years, and this is a retail-level story. It’s not one about hanging out behind the counter and not working, but more about trying to stay alive when the business has shifted.”
Among Smith’s new projects is the highly anticipated final installment of his comedy-horror True North trilogy. The collection includes the already released “Tusk” and “Yoga Hosers,” along with the upcoming “Moose Jaws,” a spin on Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws,” but with a moose instead of a shark. Smith, a horror fan himself, said he finds the overlap between comedy and horror a natural occurrence.
“Those two genres come down to emotional manipulation of the audience, and most movies do, right? But predominantly comedies, you’re trying to emotionally manipulate the audience and make them do something they can only do involuntarily,” he said. “I found that if you can make a person laugh, you can also unsettle them. I can’t necessarily terrify them, but like with ‘Tusk,’ we didn’t go for terror because it is a ridiculous concept. We went for unsettling, and it’s shockingly easy if you can make a person laugh to unsettle them.”
“An Evening With Kevin Smith”
When: 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 26.
Where: Agua Caliente Resort Casino Spa Rancho Mirage, 32-250 Bob Hope Drive, Rancho Mirage
Tickets: $25-$75 at aguacalientecasinos.com
Also: “Hollywood Babble-On” live with Kevin Smith and Ralph Garman at 10 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 27 at Flappers Comedy Club, 102 E. Magnolia, Burbank. $30 at flapperscomedy.com.
