Smith: 'Zack and Miri' reflects my own start in filmmaking

    Already famous for his creation of many cult figures, including the dynamic duo of "hetero lifemates" Jay and Silent Bob, writer/director Kevin Smith pushes the limits of awesome with his newest film, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," which stars key members of the Judd Apatow hit-making crew Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. The Daily sat down to discuss what it takes to make it in comedy, as well as a few other, less-appropriate topics…

Question: It is pretty apparent that Jason Mewes is kind of a crazy guy, but I was wondering what it was like when you told him he was gong to have to do frontal in "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 have known the dude for 18 years and I have seen his dick more than I have seen my own, so I didn't think it would be any big deal for him to whip it out. When I said, "OK, when you come out of the room, I think you should be completely naked," he balked. For the first time in years he balked, because he's got a fiancée and what not. It is one thing to show you my dick all the time, but film is forever. And it will be on DVD and whatnot, and [he didn't] want to be picked on and crap. I said, "Don't worry about it, man, ask your lady." And he asks his lady, and she said she was OK with it. And the weird thing is, he comes out of the room, and mind you I am used to seeing his dick, and I never saw it like this. He came out looking like he was sporting prosthetics from "Boogie Nights" [1997]. And I was kind of flabbergasted. I didn't know how he had gotten that big. I got it confirmed by me months later when Ben Affleck came over to the house 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 liftoff. He kind of looks engorged." And Affleck said, "I have seen that dude's dick so many times; it has never looked that big. It is usually all veg and no meat" ... We were both impressed. I told Mewes that Ben had said that, and he said, "You tell Ben from me that it was not me on the way up but on the way down."

Q: How much of this film is autobiographical, with a group of high school friends doing a do-it-yourself film?

KS: If you scrap away the pornography and the kind of overt trappings of the story in terms of a bunch of people getting together to make porn, it is kind of the story about how we made "Clerks" [1994] to some degree: a bunch of knuckleheads who don't know anything getting together and making a feature. There just happens to have a lot of dicks and tits in it. The experience of making "Clerks" 15 years ago definitely inspired the plot of this movie. But have I ever made homemade porn with a bunch of people? No. I have never even made one with the wife. [I have] certainly never made one with myself. No one needs to see me f--k, and I know I never need to see me f--k. The moment I see myself f--k, it will put me off [from] having sex, and it will put me off [from] sex in general. Period. I am disgusting. I am grotesque and morbidly obese. I don't need to see that many rolls moving around at one time. The closest I ever got was taking a picture of my dick with an iPhone to send to my wife when I was on the road. And I couldn't even do that, because how do you hold the camera and lift the gut at the same time and kind of get the dick looking impressive enough to take a picture of it? So me and porn: not a good mix. I like to watch; I don't like to make or be involved. If I were thin, I would totally do it. But looking the way I do now, hell no.

Q: How do think this new romanticized idea of porn will affect college students?

KS: I think most people will take this movie for what it is. I don't think people will look at it and say, "Suddenly this is changing everything I felt about the porn industry." I am not looking to convert people; I am just looking to entertain them with this one story. There are a bunch of people who find pornography offensive, and I get that. And there are a bunch of people, mostly dudes, who see it as an essential part of their day. I don't think the movie will affect that.

Q: How did growing up in New Jersey affect your filmmaking style?

KS: I think the area in Jersey I grew up in certainly affected the dialogue I write: rather frank and candid dialogue, peppered with vulgarity. That was my circle of my friends, that was how I grew up and that is how we all speak. I imagine if I grew up somewhere else, it wouldn't be that much different. I can't say the great state of New Jersey necessarily influenced that as much as the people I hung out with definitely did. You grow up in NJ and you grow up in the shadow of NY and you are the butt of many jokes because it is NJ. All the toxic-waste jokes have calmed down over the years … Growing up in Jersey is like growing up fat. You just try harder. You just always try to outdo the thin people. Not just outdo them, but just be accepted.

Q: Can you discuss the different styles Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Craig Robinson and all of them bring with the Apatow group to your little group of Jason Mewes and Jeff Anderson?

KS: It really combined rather well. At the end of the day, they are consummate professionals who love to act and they all honor the script. It is not like they get there and say, "Well, we won't be needing this anymore." We did everything that was in the script. What Seth is kind of genius at, he is innately talented at ad-libbing material that sounds like it is organic to the film or, more specifically, to the character. When you are on take eight or nine on a set, even if you are doing what was really funny material on the page, after the cast and crew has heard it eight or nine times, the laughs start dying down. At that point you just have to say one funny thing to get people laughing. But none of that is good for the story; it doesn't help you propel the story. It is great for the deleted scene section or the outtakes of a DVD, but it doesn't propel the story forward. Seth, however, is brilliant at being able to ad-lib material that is absolutely usable. When he makes a joke that wasn't there in the script, it sounds like it is coming out of the character's mouth, not Seth's mouth.

Q: "Zack and Miri" was originally [rated] NC-17. How much did you have to edit out of it?

KS: I actually didn't edit anything out. Initially, the MPAA gave us a NC-17. We tried to work with them, but they were kicking it back as NC-17. I [prefer to] take the appeals route; I was not comfortably cutting into the movie anymore. The appeals process allows you to have this final bite at the apple, so we put everything in the movie that we wanted in the movie and then took it to the appeals screening, where it is … taken out of the hands of the MPAA rating boards and placed in front of an audience that is made [up] of 50 percent … MPAA members and 50 percent members of NATO — The National Association of Theatre Owners. They watch the movie, the filmmaker gets 15 minutes to plead their case for why it should be an R-rated, and then the head of the MPAA gets 15 minutes for why it should be an NC-17 and why that shouldn't be overturned. You get 10 minutes to rebut her, she gets 10 minutes to rebut you, which sounds dirty but it isn't. Then, by secret ballot, they vote on whether or not it should be R or NC-17. I had done this twice before. "Clerks" had gotten an NC-17, and I got it to be an R. "Jersey Girl" [2004] had gotten an R, and I got it down to a PG-13. But this time I wasn't feeling it. This was the first flick where they could point to visual sequences and say you can't show that in an R-rated movie. But they overturned it to an R rating. So all the sequences I wanted in the movie are there.
Q: Were there any filmmakers who influenced you?

KS: When I was a kid, I never thought I wanted to be a filmmaker. It was a Hollywood thing, and I never thought of it as an option. But then I saw Richard Linklater's "Slacker" [1991], which opened me up to the world of independent film. So I started to go back to early Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese films. I loved the movies, and there are definitely filmmakers like John Hughes that were influential down the road. But definitely "Slacker" was the one that got me off my ass.

Q: What do you have planned for the future?

KS: Hopefully, in the spring I will be shooting this flick "Red State," this little political horror movie that I wrote right after "Zack and Miri." I am looking forward to it because I don't really feel like a filmmaker most days, I just feel like a guy who writes, and directs the stuff he happens to write. With "Red State," I get to switch genres altogether. There are no laughs in the movie whatsoever. I feel if I could pull this off, I would feel more like a filmmaker. If I don't get it, then I will have realized I am the dick-and-fart joke guy and do that for the rest of my life.