Dogma 25th Anniversary: An Interview with Kevin Smith

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Speaker 2 There's no place to escape to.

Speaker 1 This is the last podcast. On the left.

Speaker 2 That's when the cannibalism started.

Speaker 2 Who's that?

Speaker 1 It's so nice to meet your hero. Yeah.
Like, you know, like, because very rarely do you meet a hero that's like awesome. Yeah, I'd rather eat a hero.
Obviously. Welcome to the last podcast on the left.

Speaker 1 My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with the.
Satisfied Henry Zabrowski? Yeah.

Speaker 1 No, I'm deeply unsatisfied, Henry Zabrowski. But you're satisfied with what this show is about.
Won this episode.

Speaker 1 Okay, but I'm satisfied with what we did and the conversation we had and who we had it with. Indeed.
But in general, you'll never be satisfied. Filled with rage.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 No matter how good things get.

Speaker 1 Honestly, the better things things get, the more angry I get.

Speaker 1 It's wild. It's pretty amazing.
We have the man that's always got sandwiches on the brain. Ed Larson.
Oh my God. I had Jersey Mics for the first time in a couple months yesterday.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I swear to God, I went in there and they're like, Ed.

Speaker 1 The doctor gave you a release? I had no idea. I shared a wheat

Speaker 1 turkey with Julie. God, how far we have fallen.

Speaker 1 Wow. Here's the good point.
I hadn't been there in so long. I didn't realize.

Speaker 2 Still had a shit ton of Jersey Mike's points.

Speaker 1 Got that fucker for free. Wow, you're making money, dude.

Speaker 1 Why do you fucking should have told Kevin Smith that you had Jersey Mike's money sitting in your fucking house? I don't want him shaking me down.

Speaker 1 Henry, let the cat out of the bag.

Speaker 1 And that's also if you haven't looked at the episode description. Today, I always blindly click the episode.

Speaker 1 Today, we had the massive, massive honor of talking to somebody who was so incredibly influential to all all of us growing up, so incredibly influential to the founding of Last Podcast Network and to the entire DIY aesthetic that we approach our entire fucking lives.

Speaker 1 We were able to sit down for an hour and a half with fucking Kevin Smith. Yeah, man, this dude taught me how to be dirty.
Yeah, yeah, dude.

Speaker 1 It was something about watching just some fat guy from Jersey that went and he was like, he didn't have like the training that we like you want to have or the connections you want to have.

Speaker 1 And he just made it work. And there was

Speaker 1 something as a high schooler watching him and his buddies go and make a whole world of art and entertainment that obviously was very inspirational. Yeah, no, he should not be successful.

Speaker 1 No, he really is. Yeah.
Yeah. Against all odds.
And that's the type of person we fucking left here at last podcast. So let's just get into it, man.

Speaker 1 Like without further ado, let's hear this wonderful conversation with Kevin. Of course, in honor of Dogma's 25th anniversary, Dogma is getting a a re-release.
It got out of rights, hell, dude.

Speaker 1 And I got to see it in a theater, and it was so nice to be.

Speaker 1 It did kind of feel like you were reeling back the years a little bit because it's deeply inappropriate and it's wonderful, and they don't make them like that no more. Certainly not.

Speaker 1 No, and Dogma is in theaters around the country right now. So definitely go out and check it out.
But before you do that, listen to this interview with Kevin Smith.

Speaker 2 Snoochie Bucci's.

Speaker 3 Live from North Way.

Speaker 1 All right, well, we are here today on this very special episode. We have an extraordinary guest with us.
We have DIY legend filmmaker Kevin Smith with us today. How are you doing today, Kevin?

Speaker 2 So damn good, kids.

Speaker 2 Happy to talk horror. What I would have done in my life if I'd had any talent whatsoever, artistic talent.
You ask the internet, they'll tell you I got none.

Speaker 2 But I'm talking about artistic talent and sculpting, because if I had been good in sculpting and stuff, I would have done prosthetics.

Speaker 2 And that's, that was my dream. Like rubber monsters, rubber masks, fucking gashes, blood, and shit.
That was like how I spent my childhood.

Speaker 2 Not like dreaming of funny independent films and stuff like that. More dreaming of the movies that I love to watch, which were like rubber masked horror movies and stuff and prosthetics.

Speaker 2 But if I'd ever got my hand on the Tom Savini book,

Speaker 2 what was it called?

Speaker 1 Oh, he. Oh, my God.
Because he has a whole makeup school in Pittsburgh.

Speaker 2 He does. But the book that he did years ago, he gave it to me years ago and it's behind me in this library.
And its title is, oh, it'll come to me later on.

Speaker 2 But it was a book about how to do makeup effects. And we live in the age of the internet now where if you were looking for this book, you can Google it fast, find it, and then buy it someplace.

Speaker 2 But we're talking about like late 70s, early 80s, New Jersey. If you couldn't find this book in a library or bookstore, you were never going to find it.

Speaker 2 And I always feel like if I had found that book, I would have shifted toward prosthetics because I had like a blood kit, I had a makeup kit, nose putty, and I was always mixing up like cornstarch with like red flavor.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, that's yeah.

Speaker 2 So I wanted to be Savini. I wanted to be Rick Baker, but you need to be a sculptor.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 You need to have like visual arts talent to pull that off and stuff. And so I wound up like fucking making clerks instead, which worked out.

Speaker 1 You worked out, dude. Instead, you sculpted a generation of fat-bodied men.
Look at this.

Speaker 1 What poetry.

Speaker 1 Look at this. You are responsible for this setup, sir.
No, you really.

Speaker 2 You know what? I will take credit for that.

Speaker 1 I enjoy that, man.

Speaker 2 I enjoy that most of my career has been spent showing folks like

Speaker 2 it's kind of a reminder of one day we're all gonna fucking die.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 why spend your life doing something that you hate? That's my father did. Like he worked at the post office his whole life and never liked it.
Never once saw him come home and be like, what a day.

Speaker 2 You know, like he just hated the place. It was just a thing he did to pay for what he loved.

Speaker 1 What a psychopath. He never went postal, thank God.
Whenever he hit the trifecta, though, I'm sure he was happy.

Speaker 2 It was, he, he was the dude that, like,

Speaker 2 just did a job in order to pay for the thing he he loved, his wife and kids, and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 But all growing up, watching that, watching that dude hate that job, it always felt like to me, like, there's no good way out of this world, right? Like, so why not die doing what you love?

Speaker 2 Why not prolong adolescence?

Speaker 2 It was fun when we were kids, running around making pretend, watching movies, talking about movies as if they were important, obsessing over television shows and comic books.

Speaker 2 I just didn't see a need for that to necessarily end. And so I feel like, if anything, my whole career has been about like, hey,

Speaker 2 this is another route. Like, you, and I'm not saying like, make clerks.
It worked for me, of course, but like play, like find a way to do that thing that you love for a living, man.

Speaker 2 And then you'll never work a day in your life. And now we live in this personality-driven economy where like literally everybody has a podcast.

Speaker 2 And that thrills me, man, because that means the audience understands something now that I understood way back in the early 90s, which is like, it's fun to watch a thing, it's more fun to make a thing, as you guys figured out as well.

Speaker 2 Like sitting around like, let's talk about what we fucking love, man. Number one, gives you a chance for camaraderie.

Speaker 2 Forced socialization in a world where they keep trying to silo us apart onto our phones so that we're not talking to one another for whatever reason, because there's more money in keeping us apart.

Speaker 2 Doing something like a podcast is congregation. It's our version, the modern day version of going to church where the faithful faithful come together and talk about stuff that has meaning to them.

Speaker 2 So there's the camaraderie. Then there's the whole like, what? I can make a living off of this.
We can run ads on this, like the commercials I grew up watching my whole life.

Speaker 2 So you do it because you love it, but then the love aggregates to a way to actually do it. for a living.
Then you get to the place where you're like, what? We can make

Speaker 2 t-shirts of our podcasts. Like, what? We could do it live.
There's so many stages to that. And

Speaker 2 I'm not saying, and I created that, not by any stretch of the imagination, but like Johnny Appleseed, I went out for like fucking 10 years and kept telling people, start a podcast, start a podcast, start a podcast.

Speaker 2 Now we're living in a world where everybody does have a podcast. And I think that's absolutely delightful.
There is no good way out of this world, kids.

Speaker 2 So if you can figure out how to take your passion, the things you love, the things that move you, the things that make you wake up in the morning, as they said in

Speaker 2 fucking Civil War, what makes you get out of that twin bed bed in the morning it's it's the things that you love and you can aggregate them into a job like that's been the amazing thing i've seen over the last quarter century is taking passion and turning it into a way of life and that doesn't mean like making a film because not everyone's going to do that and shit but it now means stuff like just sitting around talking about other people's films and that's a way of life and a way of living think about how many pappy people there are in the world because they're the ones speaking they're not just being spoken to all the time as you three are right now while I'm rambling.

Speaker 2 Everyone gets to speak and kind of put their opinion out there. And not just opinion on like the movies I like, just who they are.
Share the human experience.

Speaker 2 I'm sure you guys have been doing this long enough where, of course, people write into you or talk to you about the content you're talking about, but then they also talk to you about the pieces of your life that leak into the

Speaker 2 show as well. Like it's just, it's a

Speaker 2 sad, weird time to be alive on one level, but it's a wonderful,

Speaker 2 ambitious time to be alive in other ways, man. Where, like, we're no longer just Fed shows where we, the audience, can also sometimes be the show.

Speaker 1 I haven't been gaped for money in a really long time, so it's really been a big deal for me to be able to just talk.

Speaker 1 But there's always that.

Speaker 2 We don't have to throw that out with the bathwater.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 2 it's basically you always got to be ready to pivot. We need to have side hustles that don't throw my main hustle.

Speaker 1 And those two things could be combined.

Speaker 2 gaped live on a podcast

Speaker 1 and that brings us to our main event no sorry

Speaker 1 no i i mean you were

Speaker 1 in the the way that you first made clerks the way that you you know just like diy pull yourself up like that was for me a massive massive influence and a massive inspiration

Speaker 1 way back when all of us it was massive like to just see you like just this is a guy that did it um but you know you first did it in 1994 and you know even when we, we've been doing this podcast for almost 15 years now.

Speaker 1 And, you know, we've been doing

Speaker 1 a thousand plus. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Some that fucking astounding. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We've been doing a long ass time. We've been doing it a long time.

Speaker 1 And we were even doing podcasts before that, just trying to, you know, stick and trying to see what worked and, you know, and just doing shit with your friends. That's what it always was.

Speaker 1 But even then, you know, things have changed so much since we started. So, like, do you see anything?

Speaker 1 Do you see anything that, you know, know, as far as DIY in 1994 and DIY in 2025, like what's changed and what's the same?

Speaker 2 The DIY

Speaker 2 generation now is much smarter about the business aspect. So my DIY generation, I'll just take my case.
My case was, I want to make an independent film because I'm independent. Fuck them studios, man.

Speaker 1 I'm going to do it my way.

Speaker 2 I don't need no help, man.

Speaker 1 We're going to do it by hook or by crook. Look, my work is done.

Speaker 2 Will somebody buy it, please?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, and ultimately, we wound up going hand in hand with corporate entities. At first, there were many majors that weren't owned, like Miramax was its own company.
Then Disney bought Miramax.

Speaker 2 Warner Brothers bought

Speaker 2 Fine Line and New Line.

Speaker 2 Who was it? Universal had October Films. Like every studio had its own kind of

Speaker 2 indie distribution system.

Speaker 2 And therefore, how indie were we? How DIY were we? We were DIY to make the flick, but then we were helpless when it came to distributing the flick, selling the flick.

Speaker 2 And then we had to turn to our corporate bettors. In this current DIY generation,

Speaker 2 These kids have figured it out, man. They, you know, they grew up on YouTube, so they understand like how to monetize clicks and whatnot.

Speaker 2 So I've been seeing in my Instagram feed, like, I forget who I follow, some like

Speaker 2 produce Hollywood producer thing where they're always giving you updates on what's going on in town and the story that I've seen now in three different ways are is the hey man this disruptor culture has created their own studio system and so they they have these

Speaker 2 shows that they create with their own casts look like normal ass fucking shows that you would see on TV. They have no corporate connection whatsoever.
And they build these out.

Speaker 2 They have direct contact with their audience and stuff.

Speaker 2 so they've monetized it and figured out how to do shit like on their own they're not going i mean yes they're using youtube of course as a distribution platform but they're not going to um like a universal or a disney to be like can you distribute this for me can you help build this for me by my second film you know i was in the world where studios like here's a bunch of money Like that doesn't happen so much anymore.

Speaker 2 So these kids, they're not waiting around. They're not sitting on the sideline going like, I hope my Cinderella story comes true.

Speaker 2 true no they're like i'm gonna go create a thing because i can't because i got these tools and i have this kind of access and i know about this and i know how to market this so the diy generation now of 2025 way

Speaker 2 better at this than my diy generation we only took it so far and then helplessly turned it over to people who knew how to do business. This current DIY generation knows how to do business as well.

Speaker 2 They know if they're going to build the thing, then it's up to them to sell the thing as well. So they don't count on others.
And that's inspiring as fuck.

Speaker 2 I tell you, I saw that one clip about like, these kids are building their own shows within a non-studio system. And I got so excited.
And I was like, oh my God, I want to do that.

Speaker 2 And then I was like, well, you did that.

Speaker 1 Like, you did that once. It's done.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 But it's done. You can't do it again.
But like, now it's their turn and stuff. Just like for years, like when the

Speaker 2 Before we did Red State, before there was a Kickstarter or an Indiegogo,

Speaker 2 I was financing with my friend John Gordon this platform called Red State Green. Because I had like a million followers on MySpace.

Speaker 2 And I was like, if we got a book from every one of them, man, we can go make fucking Red State. Never mind, I'm waiting for somebody to write us the check.

Speaker 2 So we spent like 20K building this site that was essentially like a proto-Kickstarter and Indiegogo. And then I did an interview.
I was in Canada doing an interview for Zach and Miriamicaporno.

Speaker 2 And there was a little roundtable. And there was,

Speaker 2 somebody had asked, what are you doing next? And I I was like, Oh, we're putting together this website where we're going to try to raise the financing for this movie, Red State, like off the audience.

Speaker 2 The audience has been wanting to see it, so we'll see how badly they want to see it.

Speaker 2 And then somebody wrote an article the next day that was like, Oh, Kevin Smith's going to beg for money to make his next movie. And it scared me, it turned me off.
And instantly, I killed the project.

Speaker 2 We stopped developing the website and went and found traditional financing the way I always have.

Speaker 1 You could have been like a billionaire.

Speaker 1 You literally could have been a

Speaker 1 billionaire

Speaker 2 And it's so weird because to me the story I don't even look at the story from like oh my god We could have then used the platform for everybody It could have been Kickstarter in my head all I hear is like somebody made fun of you and you dropped a really good idea Yeah and went a very traditional safe stayed route with a movie that didn't call for that at all.

Speaker 2 And what happened later on was who was it? The garden state kid.

Speaker 2 zach brath zach breath went out and did that off of kickstarter indiegogo and financed the whole last movie and it you know was the first movie finance of indie craft financing funding and stuff so i missed a shot at history but then at the same time i'm like you know what like i count on the audience to buy tickets yeah and t-shirts and shit like that i'm not saying this ain't right for everybody kids should do this but like as an established filmmaker to then also be like now i want the audience to pay for the movie to be be made in the first place.

Speaker 2 Let it be done. Just didn't feel right.
It didn't feel, felt like I was looking at gift horse in the mouth because I was in a rarefied position to find money elsewhere.

Speaker 2 Why would I be sitting in the small pond soaking up money that could go to other filmmakers and shit? So

Speaker 2 every time I see young Indy or young DIY still fucking calls to me in a real primal fashion where I'm like, I want to do that.

Speaker 2 And then I have to stop myself and check myself and be like, you have already done that. Like your time has done.

Speaker 2 Now you leave it for the next generation to do because i'll tell you right now i ain't got anything all that important to say that demands like give me your money and shit because i'll make like yogos or two

Speaker 2 so you know it's i i i like my relationship with my audience but personally and then this is no judgment on others that kickstarter indie go-go i i don't want to presume upon them in the beginning stage as well, which is like, well, you pay for it and then you pay to go see it and then you pay to buy the DVD.

Speaker 2 You know, it's like, you can only hit them so many fucking times. So I love today's DIY culture and I wish to Christ that I could be deeply entrenched in it and enmeshed in it.
You are.

Speaker 1 I'm actually

Speaker 1 a Codcastle Film Festival alum. You are.
Did you go?

Speaker 1 No, I had a movie in there.

Speaker 2 So wait, was it a horror film?

Speaker 1 No, it was a documentary about my mother, but it was very New Jersey. How America Killed My Mother.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. You came downstairs and introduced it in your shorts.
It was amazing. It was a...
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but yeah, but so you are putting your money where your mouth is.

Speaker 1 You are helping young DIY. You are very much a part of it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you know, totally, but not, but not in the way that I would like to be a part of it, which is like my mindset, even after 31 years in the business, is cheap is DIY because I came from a world where I didn't have funds and assets and shit.

Speaker 2 And even as I continued my career, I was never one of those guys that was like, get me $100 million. I always.

Speaker 2 kept it low because it's like these are these aren't important works they're like kevin smith movies we shouldn't spend that much money so i'm used to like keeping the budget low.

Speaker 2 And that keeps me very much in the DIY mindset. So I always lean more toward that side of the fence.
And, you know, in ways where I could be helpful for others, that's nice, like Smodcastle.

Speaker 2 But I'm still in it for me, kids. Like

Speaker 2 I'm not rich enough where I'm like, and now I could just sit back and kind of give to others. I still got to hustle to pay my bills.
And there's still stories that I want to tell.

Speaker 2 So it's not completely altruistic. Something like Smodcastle Cinemas isn't me like, here's a showcase for other people.
It's like, yeah, that works.

Speaker 2 Like, I love that Ernie's done the film festival for what's coming up on the fourth year. And now we've got a Smodcastle Horror Film Festival coming up for the first time.
That is beautiful.

Speaker 2 And that's legacy stuff. And it gives all these other cats a chance.
But I'll be honest with you, I didn't buy that theater going like, this will help others.

Speaker 2 I bought it going like, well, number one, they're going to close. If we don't buy it, it's fucked.
But number two, ooh, I'll have my own stage for the rest of my life.

Speaker 2 Like anytime I want to do a show, like I spent most of my time hustling ass around the country now it's like oh my god if i just want to show mall rats i can upsell tickets to 50 or 60 bucks and shit like that we'll have a good old time so i started it selfishly but then once you have the thing

Speaker 2 like along the way the journey like kind of shows you what it's really about what you think it's about and what it's really about beginning of my career selfishly i was like i want to make a movie now at this stage of my career yes there's still that but i also know that based on on all the people i've met over 30 years and all the feedback i've read and the people who've like cried in my face telling me that these dopey ass movies help them they're their fucking buoys in a storm man they're their fucking life preserver when life is at the rockiest they're just the thing that makes them fucking giggle and she makes life a little bit fucking easier and then you realize like that's what you're here for never mind fucking like masturbatory like i want to make a movie it's like oh my god this bullshit that serves me and makes me happy also fucking does something to somebody else, just like other people's work has done for me for years.

Speaker 2 So the older you get in the career, the more you start realizing this isn't just for me. You know, filmmaking is a very self-centered art, directing particularly.
But at the end of the day,

Speaker 2 because of the long tail of the career, because I've been around for so long and because I've had this experience over and over and over, and I just come off the dogma resurrection tour.

Speaker 2 So I saw two audiences a night, every night, and I got to do Q ⁇ A with them.

Speaker 2 So I got to hear that and what they talked about was that they talked about where you are in their life there's one guy in chicago who was like hey man i i i've been watching you since 94.

Speaker 2 he's going i've i've been to 19 of your live shows he's going and now i bring my adult children and he had some 20 something sitting with him and stuff like that he's like i've been on the journey with you this whole time i just got to know what's your end game and i was like i hadn't even thought about it till this moment.

Speaker 2 I didn't realize there was an end game because I didn't really have a game plan to begin with. I just wanted to make clerks.
and then it started a career. I wasn't packed for a 31-year career.

Speaker 2 I've had to kind of figure it out as I went along. But I guess if I have an end game, it's to like fucking inspire people to do this, which I feel like I've done.

Speaker 2 Like based on all the interaction, I feel I've done that. Now the end game for me.

Speaker 2 is to make people feel as good as I possibly can, just to use my mouth on them to give them pleasure until the day that I drop dead.

Speaker 2 Whether that's in film, whether that's like on camera, whether that's in podcasts. It's like I'm, I'm just here to serve.
I'm just here to make shit a little bit easier for people.

Speaker 2 While, believe me, I'm making shit easier for myself because I don't have to have a real job because I do all this nonsense and stuff.

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Speaker 1 I know, I want to talk about dogma. I want to talk about because that's part of the reason this season that you're here.

Speaker 1 We love dogma, love this movie, but I do want to ask you, leading right after that question.

Speaker 1 Humor me.

Speaker 2 Take back your show.

Speaker 1 Humor me.

Speaker 1 Would you.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's say you're saying, what's your end plan, right?

Speaker 1 Would you be down? Because you are, obviously, I would view you as somebody who is very forward-thinking. You're a sci-fi guy.
You understand kind of certain elements, obviously.

Speaker 1 Would you want an AI-built avatar of yourself to continue on after you live? Would you want a curated you

Speaker 1 being around

Speaker 1 after the fact? Would you be down with that or is that still in your soul? Could he be, be

Speaker 2 you know because there's nothing about me that's original right everything i do i've seen in one form or fashion someplace else and then i translate it as my version i guess so that being said

Speaker 2 if i can be presented in a max headroom type fashion yeah yeah oh it's

Speaker 2 fist but rubbery and i'm just like

Speaker 1 this is a snoogan

Speaker 2 i'm i'd be down for that it's kind of like you know it's i'm i'll take it man i i was like i was on uh burg kreiser's podcast last week week and he said something that made me laugh where he was just like I was asking my wife that if I come up with like an AI generated avatar girlfriend and talk to her and masturbate to her is that cheating and I was like

Speaker 1 I don't even know in that case. Yeah, like I talked about this with my wife.
Are sex bots cheating? You do it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 What do you mean?

Speaker 2 Especially the sex bot, but now like you online, you can feed it all your information and shit and you could create an AI personality that like fucking will tell you all the things you want to hear.

Speaker 2 This is the dangerous shit. This is where shit gets really down the rabbit hole.

Speaker 2 Because if we can all build our own congregations of unreal people on our phones or our laptops, we cease having need for others, man. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 And when you're dealing just with an AI that's telling you everything you want to hear and shit, why would you want to start dealing with the real world?

Speaker 1 Would you kill yourself if you put in everything in the app, right? You put everything being like, this is all the things I love. It's all the things I want to have sex with.

Speaker 1 This is the only thing I want to talk to. He would kill himself.

Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden, your perfect mate is just like your mother. You can see like an immediate, like, it's an example.

Speaker 1 That would make sense to me.

Speaker 2 I'm like, well, the most intimate relationship of my life, like, that makes sense. I'm not going to follow the advice of the AI.

Speaker 2 But, you know, it would kind of quasi-make sense, I guess.

Speaker 1 Well, thank you. Yes.
Thank you very much for humoring it. I mean, this just comes from Saturday.
We had a barbecue and just talked about AI for a good two hours.

Speaker 1 But the reason why we are here is, you know, Dogma, 25th anniversary, re-release. You know, Dogma was a very important movie to all three of us.
You know, it all came out when we were teenagers.

Speaker 1 And, you know, and I know, speaking for myself, like, it made me rethink. I came from a very small Texas town where religion and Christianity was number one.
Town of 300 people, five churches.

Speaker 1 Whoa. So it's good coverage.

Speaker 2 That's crazy.

Speaker 2 My town Highlands at one point, they always said, and I could never prove this, but we always told these kids that we were in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most amount of bars in a one square mile radius.

Speaker 1 That's because you drank everywhere in the world. That sounds like you guys.

Speaker 2 That many churches in a town of 300,

Speaker 2 that feels like Guinness.

Speaker 1 It's a lot of coverage. But Dogma was the movie that made me rethink organized religion.
I had never really thought to question it before,

Speaker 1 but it was sort of the crack in the foundation, as it were. So, I mean, how does it feel when people tell you things like that,

Speaker 1 the dogma made them rethink everything? Was that the intention behind the movie?

Speaker 2 It's weird because since I was on tour for the last month, and then I also, we took it to Cannes, and I watched it when we were there for the second time with that movie at Cannes.

Speaker 2 Humble brave.

Speaker 2 I've been thinking about the movie a lot lately lately because I'm interacting with it a bunch. And to me, the movie plays like a child's prayer.
It plays, like if you know your Old Testament,

Speaker 2 King David, like stripping down to his skivvies and dancing and acting the fool in front of the Ark of the Covenant through the streets of the holy city because he loved the Lord so much.

Speaker 2 That's what dogma feels like to me. The kid who wrote it.

Speaker 2 and directed it believed in all of that. Like that was his cosmology.
That was his faith structure and whatnot.

Speaker 2 that wasn't christian mythology these things happen these are the stories that i was handed when i was born and never thought to even be like wait is any of this real or whatnot so when i watch the movie i see that kid at work and i'm like wow man like you know we'd done clerks and that kicked off a career very nicely and then mall rats which has aged incredibly well got beat the out of by critics and at the box office and nearly ended the career.

Speaker 2 And then Chasing Amy was a Hail Mary that kind of put us back on top. And in the same year, we had Goodwill Hunting, which me and Scott Mosier, co-executive, produced.

Speaker 2 So the one-two punch of Chasing Amy and Goodwill Hunting, including having Ben and Matt be like, we want to be in Kevin's next movie, meant that like there was never going to be a better time to get dogma made.

Speaker 2 And in making dogma, it was my idea of like, let me express my faith. I go to church every Sunday.
Nobody here celebrates their faith. They fucking mourn it.

Speaker 2 This will be my idea of a Sunday service, but with anal jokes in in it and stuff.

Speaker 2 And the great irony is that in making that testimony, which I see play out night after night for the last month, the faith started to erode because, you know, I had George Carlin on set. Very hard to

Speaker 2 say.

Speaker 1 How does God live?

Speaker 1 He's there. Yeah.

Speaker 2 He was, I mean, George was

Speaker 2 absolutely lovely, but he is probably the most famous lapsed Catholic. And he loved the flick because he was like, oh, it gives it to the church.
And I never felt that way.

Speaker 2 I was like, well, I mean, I guess it raises a hairy eyebrow at the church. I said, but the movie's like so crazily pro-faith.
So we were on set, like third act of the movie,

Speaker 2 in front of the church. Ben and Matt show up, crack like a cop's neck, and all hell breaks loose.
So

Speaker 2 George is going, what's going on in this scene again? And I was like, well, the angels show up and then they're going to kill everybody and then cut their wings off, go into the church.

Speaker 2 When they come out,

Speaker 2 they're

Speaker 2 presumably killed by the cops because they're human at this point. And then they'll straight to heaven.
And he goes, Why? And I was like, Because of the plenary indulgence loophole.

Speaker 2 And he goes, and what is that? And I was like,

Speaker 1 and I was like, come on, man. Plenary indulgence.

Speaker 2 Well, I broke out the old catechism to be like George and start talking Catholicism, like talking shop with him, Catholicism. And he's looking at me as I'm talking and explaining our

Speaker 2 shared, one-time shared faith.

Speaker 2 And he's got the face that an adult has when a child over-explains Star Wars.

Speaker 2 And then finally, he goes, You really believe in all this shit, don't you? And I said, Yeah, my gosh. You were raised Catholic, you don't? And he goes, No, I'm smarter than that.

Speaker 2 And so that was the kind of the beginning of the end. Then 12 years of Smodcast will really disabuse anybody of their childhood faith just sitting opposite an agnostic.

Speaker 2 Like, not even Scott Mosier wasn't even an atheist, agnostic, man, but one of the most practical people I ever met.

Speaker 2 And slowly over time, if you ever listen to that show, because we started in what, 1997.

Speaker 2 Was it 97? 2007.

Speaker 2 From 2007 till probably about 2017, you could slowly hear my faith like chip away and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 I thought it was just dealing with the internet.

Speaker 2 Believe me, life just lifes the faith out of you sometimes. For some people, it makes their faith stronger.
For others, you know, I got to a place where I was like, this isn't working for me anymore.

Speaker 2 Now, do I miss it?

Speaker 1 Absolutely. When you almost died, did that also affect how you view all of this?

Speaker 2 You would imagine that

Speaker 2 in the moment of, you know, my gut, when I was told by the cardiologist,

Speaker 2 you're having a widowmaker. I said, what's that? And he goes, seriously? And then he explained it.

Speaker 2 He's like, in 80% of the cases where you have right now, 100% blockage in your LAD across the front of your heart, 80% of the cases, the patient always dies.

Speaker 2 He's like, but you're going to be in the 20% because I'm good at my job. And he disappeared into my crotch and made magic.

Speaker 2 Because that's how they get to your heart through your femoral artery and shit. So the whole time he's down there, I keep looking down and see this guy's head bobbing up and down in my crotch.

Speaker 2 I was like, go fix it.

Speaker 1 This is how I was going to die. I knew it.
I knew it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, nobody told me that.

Speaker 2 So I'm looking up at the ceiling and going like, wow, this might be the last room I'm ever in, man. This might be the last ceiling I ever see.

Speaker 2 And so it occurred to me at that point, I was like, if you're ever going to fucking call on your childhood faith, if you're ever going to pray, fuck, this would be the time.

Speaker 2 And then I realized, like, if I start praying and there is a God, he's going to be like, you made dogma.

Speaker 1 Fuck me.

Speaker 2 I opted not to pray in that moment. Instead, started the movie of my life.
You know, they tell you a life flash before your eyes. So I was like, I'm going to start the fucking flick early and stuff.

Speaker 2 Mercifully, the dude saved me and whatnot. And so I got to stick around.
So that will feed that. And like 22 years of life fed the script for dogma.
Like I started writing it when I was 22.

Speaker 2 I started writing it before clerks. It was called God back then.

Speaker 2 Then we made the movie in like 98. So from age 22 till about 27, dogma was shaped and formed by my life experience, my childhood, my pop culture intake, my thoughts, feelings about faith, everything.

Speaker 2 Anything I'd learned goes into that. If I made a sequel like one or two years later, then it's just like, not being fed as well as the first one was.
Then it's just like, they're back.

Speaker 1 Bartleby, hello, EJ. I'm telling my dog sequel.

Speaker 2 So now I've been writing a dogma sequel and I've literally had 25, 26 years since the first one to live a whole ass other life, like another lifetime. And

Speaker 2 that lifetime was not just full of everything that happened to me, you know, previously and when I was a kid all the way up to there.

Speaker 2 But it also includes like getting married, having a kid, almost dying, losing my mind and shit like that. And everything I've experienced, like losing my faith as well,

Speaker 2 over the last 25, 26 years.

Speaker 2 So as I write the dogma follow-up, sequel, whatever you want to call it, I'm happy because it's fed by a lifetime of experience, just like the first one was fed previously by a lifetime of experience.

Speaker 2 And all those experiences, like almost dying, that's going to be in there as well.

Speaker 1 Dude, because right after watching the movie, my first thought was, oh, Rufus would be 25.

Speaker 1 I was like,

Speaker 2 the whole movie centers around Bethany's daughter, who is named Rufus.

Speaker 1 Yes. No, very good.

Speaker 2 And you're absolutely right. She's like, you know, 25, 26 right now.
By the time we're done with the movie, probably 26. And let me tell you something.

Speaker 2 I'm not going to spill any beans, but a dogma sequel will,

Speaker 2 I hope everyone will dig it, but a horror crowd is absolutely going to fuck it up.

Speaker 1 Bring it back to where religion really begins

Speaker 1 well that's the thing in the first dogma there are those horror elements in there you've got the golgotha you got the shit demon you know you have heads exploding you know god exploding head like there there's so much which is stolen i stole that from uh marvel like black bolt

Speaker 2 you know black bolt whenever he opens his mouth he runs the risk of killing medusa and shit it was always so poignant and stuff so when i was writing dogma i was like oh fucking i'm taking that part man yeah so that i owe that to marvel i well i owe so much to Hey, it's fine.

Speaker 1 You invented the Stan Lee cameo. You're allowed.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 I will take that one. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, man. It's so interesting to hear that when you made that movie, you had faith because it was something that really helped me lose mine.

Speaker 1 It's so interesting because I went to Catholic school.

Speaker 1 I always kind of questioned it, but not really. And then when I saw that movie, I'm like, yeah, this is all a fucking joke.

Speaker 2 It's crazy, like how the movie affects people in both directions.

Speaker 2 I wouldn't say like it's a binary equation, but for as many people, and I saw a lot of them on tour during the QA, who were like, this is the movie that helped me get back in touch with my faith.

Speaker 2 I was always like, oh, right on. But then there's also a bunch of people who are like, this is the movie that let me step away from the joke.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, oh, thank you.

Speaker 1 That was like

Speaker 2 crazy how, but both journeys come from the same movie, how two audiences can see that movie and draw different conclusions. You know what I'm saying? But that at least that's after they see the movie.

Speaker 2 Like, we almost got killed in advance of the movie last time back in the 90s because there was, you know, the Catholic League, not the Catholic Church.

Speaker 2 Catholic Church didn't give a fuck about this movie.

Speaker 2 Catholic League, the self-appointed media watchdog group, drummed up a lot of controversy around the flick, you know, because nobody had seen it yet.

Speaker 2 And they were saying things about the movie that the movie really wasn't about. Once people could see the movie for themselves, all that shit went away.

Speaker 2 For example, you know, I know it's like 25, 26 years later, but having just been on tour with Dogma again,

Speaker 2 no fucking death threats. The only protests I saw were adorable.
I saw a kid, an 18, 19-year-old kid in Dallas, standing at the head of the driveway of the mall where the movie theater was.

Speaker 2 And he had a sign poster board that says AMC Blasphemes. And it had the poster, the new version of the Dogma poster in the center of it.

Speaker 2 And so I was in a car and I'm like driver's seat, passenger seat's empty. And then he's just right there on the the street holding this sign at the light.

Speaker 2 So I lay on the horn like eh, give him support and shit. And he's so happy that he looks around and he sees me.
Then he sees my face and he turns and

Speaker 1 shuns me. Motherfucker shun me.

Speaker 2 Just one kid there.

Speaker 1 When you joined your own protest, that was one of my favorite of your moments.

Speaker 1 I did.

Speaker 2 I did. I couldn't do that this time because there aren't enough people protesting.
But yeah, back in 99, I joined the protest that was happening right around my local theater.

Speaker 2 I saw in our newspaper in the Asbury Park Press, they were like,

Speaker 2 the Knights Columbus says there's going to be a 5,000 person protest at the,

Speaker 2 it was Sony Lowe's at that point, at the middle, at the Monmouth Mall. So I was like five minutes from my house because I lived in Ocean Port at the time.
I said, we have to go, man.

Speaker 2 And Brian Johnson, my friend who's living with us at the time, he goes, you can't go. They'll see you.
I said, no, but if there's 5,000 people, it's going to be very hard to pick me out of a crowd.

Speaker 2 I was like, as long as we're holding protest signs, we should be fine. So we made protest signs.
One said to hell with dogmen. The other said dogma's dog shit.

Speaker 2 Colored them in and stuff, blue sparklies, like real big. And then we drove over to the theater.
It was me and Brian and my wife. And when we get there,

Speaker 2 there's not 5,000 people. There's 15 white hairs and blue hairs, old people.

Speaker 2 And they got a crucifix that they got with them and shit. And they're praying the rosary so my wife was like well this is a bust do you want to go home I was like no man they need the numbers

Speaker 2 we went out and joined them and held our fucking signs and prayed the road I prayed the rosary Brian didn't know the rosary so I was praying the whole time and stuff and then the channel 12 news van pulled up and a lady gets out the clipboard and the guy gets out the camera and shit and they you can tell they're disappointed like there ain't 15 5 000 people there's only 15 people here so they're looking at all 15 trying to figure out who they could talk to for their news piece.

Speaker 2 And she's going down the line and she looks me right in the eyes and I look back at her while I'm praying the Hail Mary and stuff. And then she keeps going.
Then she comes back, looks at me.

Speaker 2 Then she looks at her clipboard. Then she looks back up and she races over to me.
She's like, are you him?

Speaker 2 And I was like, no, that's him. And I pointed to the crucifix.

Speaker 2 And she was like, well, can I interview you? And I said, yeah. Because she had asked me again.
She was like, no, you look like the guy. I said, no.
And she goes, seriously.

Speaker 2 I said, I tell you, I'm not him, man. Like three times I denied it, I heard a cock crow.

Speaker 1 She was like, you want,

Speaker 2 can I interview you? I said, absolutely. And she brings the guy over at the camera and he looks at me like, isn't this the guy? And then they start rolling.
And she's like, what are you doing here?

Speaker 2 And I was like, well, I've heard a protest. And she's like, why? And I was like, well, I've heard things about the movie.
None of them could.

Speaker 1 She's like,

Speaker 2 what's your name? I was like, Brian Johnson.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 she afterwards, after she interviewed me, she turned off the camera. She was just like, you are that guy.
I know it. And I was like, I tell you, I'm not that guy at all.

Speaker 2 I don't even like black and white movies.

Speaker 2 She took off. And that night when we went back home, like 11:15 that night, 11:30, my mom called, man.
I saw like a message from my mom, like her, her name come up on the phone.

Speaker 2 So I picked up the phone. I was like, you're all right, mom.
And she goes, yeah, I'll tell you, girl.

Speaker 2 I was just watching the news, and there's a boy on TV who looks like you, but his name is Brian Johnson.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 So it's nothing like that this time, man. Like, if I had gone out to join a protest, it would have been me and that fucking 18, 19-year-old kid.
Like, and he, he didn't seem to want me there.

Speaker 2 There was, there was one for the opening night of the tour in LA. We started on Easter Sunday, 420.

Speaker 1 And as I went in,

Speaker 2 it was a good way to start. As I went in,

Speaker 2 there were two people holding like a man and a woman, and they had a banner, you know, a a stick with a banner in between and another stick that had a Mary crying on it, like, why? Or some such shit.

Speaker 2 And I went out, and because I, that was the first night of the tour, man, and as I was running in, I said, what's outside? And I said, don't worry about it. Take a picture on the red carpet.

Speaker 2 And I said, no, what is going on? They said, you're being protested. I was like, oh.

Speaker 1 So I went out there. You're nice.

Speaker 2 And I took a selfie with them. And they didn't like that shit at all.

Speaker 1 But, you know,

Speaker 2 it was my experience, too.

Speaker 1 Yeah, man.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 when I wanted to prep for this interview and watch Dogma Dogma again, I wasn't able to make it to the movies, unfortunately, which I'm very disappointed about.

Speaker 1 But I did the next best thing in honor of you. I went to the local video store and I rented it from the DVD from them.
And it was very cool. $3.

Speaker 1 Had a great time. Nice.
Five days. It was wonderful.
Because you can't.

Speaker 2 Where's the video store? Give them props.

Speaker 1 It is called.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Hold on.
I got the Be Kind Video in Burbank.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, they have everything there. It was great.
Only a dollar late for each day. Wonderful stuff.
But they also gave me the special features DVD.

Speaker 2 Nice. You got the fat edition.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I did. I did.
And so I was watching all the deleted scenes. Horrible.
Great job cutting them out. And

Speaker 1 that's why they're all omitted.

Speaker 1 But the coolest thing for me when I was watching all that was looking at you do the interviews beforehand, and you had Harley sitting on your knee during the interviews.

Speaker 1 And it was just like, I'm sitting there, I'm like, he fucking makes movies with her now. And I think that's the coolest thing in the world.
I I love it so much. And like,

Speaker 1 was that always your plan to like have her join the family business? Like, if you were a plumber, that's the plan, you know?

Speaker 1 Truly. And so, like,

Speaker 2 as long as she was interested in it, yeah, it was never anything that I was like, hey, man, you got to be doing this shit. Like, I was pushing writing.

Speaker 2 You know, she would sit around and watch iCarly when she was a kid, the first version of iCarly.

Speaker 2 And I would be like, well, this is fun. I said, but you know what's more fun than watching iCarly? You should write one of these.
Like, just go write one, man.

Speaker 2 It's a good time when you're in charge and stuff. So I was always pushing writing.
I was like, you're going to write. You're the kid of two writers, man.
Your mom's a writer. I'm a writer.

Speaker 2 You're meant to write. And then she wound up falling in love with acting.
And so I was like, oh, well, I know a fucking thing or two about that as well. So it was kind of a delight.

Speaker 2 And, you know, Jennifer naturally was like, well, I know you do it, but like. That's a tough business.

Speaker 2 You know, she generally had the same kind of outlook that most parents have when you're like, I want to be an actor in in the movies.

Speaker 2 They're always like, well, maybe get a, you know, a fucking degree in something else so you have something to back you up and stuff. But I couldn't be that guy.

Speaker 2 Like, I could never be the guy that's like, you should do something practical. Like, I made clerks, so I have to be like, oh, my God, chase your fucking dreams and shit.

Speaker 2 So I loved it when she went into acting because I'll be honest with you, like. I had a lot more time with my kid than most people get with their kid because I didn't have a traditional job, right?

Speaker 2 So I didn't have a nine to five that took me out of the house all the time.

Speaker 2 When we did have to go to a place to shoot a movie whole family would go and the kid i'd put the little kid in the movie and stuff so she was always around but you know because

Speaker 2 i

Speaker 2 had the life that i had it it it all went so fucking quick like i remember you know when uh there was this one day we were in the bedroom upstairs like the the me and jen's room and the kid wanted to play hide and seek.

Speaker 2 And I was like, all right. And so we play hide and seek for a fucking hour, man.
And like

Speaker 1 any fun

Speaker 1 that existed in the first 10 minutes was gone.

Speaker 2 Like, the room's big, but it ain't that fucking big.

Speaker 1 You're right there.

Speaker 2 We do this. And so I remember her.
I said, all right, kiddo, that's it. And I'll remember her going, one more, one more.
And I was like, no, kiddo, we already did it for an hour.

Speaker 2 And the look of disappointment like on her face, momentary because we did something else. But the look of disappointment like on her face just stuck with me.
And then before I knew it, that was it.

Speaker 2 She was, you know, never playing like fucking hide and seek again because she was like a teenager and fucking in her 20s and stuff. And so you realize like, you're not in that, you know,

Speaker 2 fucking

Speaker 2 cats in the cradle kind of way, but like you realize that's it, man. I ain't ever going to have a chance.

Speaker 2 to play with the kid again because now she's grown up by being in the movies and stuff that's kind of like a second bite at the apple like hey we get to fucking pretend we get to make play like like we did when you were little and like i you know would get bored of doing from time to time like you know now i've learned to cherish it so i it's it's like a do-over of sorts even though the first time wasn't so bad at all but it's like oh my god i could still in this way play with the kid like and it reminds me of like her being little and stuff so yeah and also i think she's a great performer You know, she looks like me and sounds like me, and I'm a big Kevin Smith fan.

Speaker 1 I like her work as well. Yeah.
Well, speaking of acting, like, like, dogma has like one of the things about it, just has an incredible cast. Like, you mentioned, yeah, but we got very lucky casts.

Speaker 1 You mentioned, yeah, George Carlin earlier. You know, you have Alan Rickman, Salma Hyatt, Chris Rock, you know, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck.
And then, but we were talking before the show.

Speaker 1 Our Our favorite actor in the movie is Jason Muse.

Speaker 1 Dude,

Speaker 1 laughs in that room. I went to go see it.
And it's been, to be honest, because we're all comedians.

Speaker 1 It's been a, it's, you know, it's a weird time to be a comedian, but it's also one of those things where it was so nice to be in a room where we all could laugh at Jason Muse.

Speaker 1 And we,

Speaker 1 it popped. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It was honestly every night that I watched the movie, I was like, motherfucker just steals the show. Like that was him the strongest.
And I realized, like, what happened to my career.

Speaker 2 Because, like, if you look at the beginning of my career, it was like, my God, he could be a thing.

Speaker 2 But then, after Dogma, I made like 28 James Salon Bob movies because I fell in love with Jason Muse's performance. By the time we got to Dogma, he had perfected that character.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And, like, I was like, oh my God, I could do so much with him now. Now he's a real actor.
Clerks, Marlratch, Chasing Amy, he was my friend that I put in movies.

Speaker 2 We get to Dogma, I'm like, oh my God, he's fucking stealing the movie out from fucking Alan Rickman, from George Carlin, from Ben and Matt, for Christ's sakes.

Speaker 2 Like, I remember being at the New York Film Festival, and we had everybody with us afterwards on stage. So it was me, Alan, Ben, Matt, Chris, Salma.

Speaker 2 Let me see.

Speaker 1 Everybody was talking about George Carlin and Alan Rickman, but you had Salma fucking Hayek in that movie.

Speaker 2 We were all on stage together, except Jason Muse, who had been there for the opening of the show, but then went to a hotel with his girlfriend and never came back for the Q ⁇ A.

Speaker 2 And so while we're there, like somebody asks a question, and Matt's answer right off the bat is like, I just want to point out that like he's not here, but Jason Muse stole the show out from seasoned professionals and shit.

Speaker 2 And the whole audience fucking applauded. Every night I sat there watching the show.

Speaker 2 casting call credits where everybody gets their own shot and they break character and stuff. And so there's art and applause and whatnot.
But then when you hit Jason Lee, the applause take a jump.

Speaker 2 Then you hit Alan Rickman and the applause take another jump. And then right at, or hit Muse, the applause take a huge fucking jump.
Then you hit Rickman and the applause take another jump.

Speaker 2 So I told Jason, I was like, bro, every night they fucking love you. They love you so much, but when it comes to the casting call, they love Alan just a little bit more.

Speaker 2 And Jay's like, yeah, well, wait till I fucking die.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 it is, he is.

Speaker 2 He's so magical in that movie.

Speaker 2 Opening night of the tour when we were in Los Angeles, like I introed the movie and he was there and we were leaning on the wall watching the movie in the back, you know, for the first 20 minutes of the flick.

Speaker 2 And as I'm watching it, I'm falling in love with his performance all over again. I'm going, look at this motherfucker, man.
I'm looking up. at this babyface Jason Muse stealing the show.

Speaker 2 And I was like, I'm going to tell him that he's he's a goddamn champ. And I look from the babyfaced Jason Muse to the withered crypt keeper to my right, the old fucking 50-year-old man.

Speaker 2 And I was like, you were great when you were a kid, Captain.

Speaker 2 But yeah, he is. He steals the fucking show, man.
And hopefully he'll steal it again in Dog Batu.

Speaker 1 Going into it, like, you know, because you said that he was just, you know, your friend that you put in movies.

Speaker 1 Like, how did you prepare him for acting alongside, you know, Shakespearean actor Alan Rickman? Yeah, and are they like,

Speaker 1 do they get like butthurt about how good everybody like, like, do, are they like fancy actors? Are they kind of like, what the fuck?

Speaker 2 No, everyone loved Muse, so they were happy to see Muse shine. And some of them worked with him before, right? Like, so Ben and Matt knew Jay.
Yeah. But like for Salma, for Chris.

Speaker 2 for Alan, like he was all new to them, but they fell in love with him and stuff. And they, you know, also, you look at that cast and you're like, one of these things is not like the other.

Speaker 2 And he's the least famous person up there.

Speaker 2 But so they're they all kind of held him in their hearts to begin with and then you add to it he just absolutely kills he slays in the role going into the movie like before the movie even i got him like nervous about i tried to scare him because i was like hey man we said you can't do what you did on the other three movies you got to come prepared you got to know your script and stuff you got to memorize your lines this time around because we got real actors in the movie this time he goes who like ben affleck i was like no i'm talking about real actors in the movie this time man we got alan rickman He's like, who's that?

Speaker 2 I was like, that's the guy from Die Hard. He goes, Yibi Kaye, motherfucker? I was like, that's the other guy.

Speaker 2 I was like, the bad guy. And he goes, so what? And I was like, so what, man? That's Alan Rickman, man.
That's that dude. He's British and the Brits invented acting.

Speaker 2 So they ain't going to stand for your Snoochie Bucci's nonsense, man. You got to come prepared and shit like that.
And if he smells inauthenticity, he's going to leap on you, man.

Speaker 2 Like that dude, they'll give you a cold, hard stare. They can destroy you, the Brits, man.
So you got to come prepared.

Speaker 2 And so our first rehearsal, he came, you know, normally I rehearse with everybody, but I rehearse with him separately before we incorporate him into the normies. And so it's just me and him.

Speaker 2 And I was like, where's your script? He goes, I don't need it. And I was like, bullshit.
He's like, try me. And I start reading all the lines and he knows all his lines, man.

Speaker 2 I jump all over the script. He knows his lines in every scene.
I was like, you memorized all your lines. And he goes, I memorized the whole script.

Speaker 1 I was like, what do you mean?

Speaker 2 He goes, I know everybody's lines. I was like, bullshit.
He goes, try me. So I start reading Ben's lines.
He's doing Matt's lines. I start reading Chris Rock's lines.

Speaker 1 He's doing Linda Fiorentino's lines back in the, I was like, you memorized the whole fucking script?

Speaker 2 Who are you, Rain Man? Like, why'd you do that? And he goes, I don't want to piss off that Rickman dude.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 when he finally met Alan at the first rehearsal and talked to Alan and worked it down, afterwards he came back to the room because we shared, we had a suite.

Speaker 2 Like he had a room, I had a room, we shared the living room because I had to keep my eye on him. And so he comes back to the room and he goes, That Rickman dude's a pussy.

Speaker 2 I could totally kick his ass.

Speaker 2 I said, why would you want to? And he goes, you said that I should be scared of him. I said, as a performer.

Speaker 2 I meant fear or like respect.

Speaker 2 And they became such good friends. Like, Alan absolutely loved Jason.
Jason, like, I've told the story a zillion times, but it's always worth telling.

Speaker 2 One of the weirdest things I ever saw on a movie set, stay with me forever, is

Speaker 2 I was set up that we're in the third act. We're setting up a shot, like we're all hells breaking loose in front of the church.
And so I go to the snack canyon table, get some free MMs and shit.

Speaker 2 And as I'm walking past, I see the weirdest fucking thing I ever saw. Alan Rickman, Jason Mews on the steps of the church, deeply engaged in conversation.

Speaker 2 And I remember thinking, what the fuck could these two possibly have to say to one another?

Speaker 2 So I went over to Alan later on when he was by himself, and I was like, hey, man, if Jason Muse is bothering you,

Speaker 2 you just tell me.

Speaker 2 And he goes, Jason Muse could never bother me because Jason Muse is the best that America can can be and I was like what and he goes Jason he goes Jason Muse is an American icon so forever since then because I told Muse that night and he was like what's an icon and I told him he was like that's good so forever whenever like I correct Jason on something I was like you fucking did this wrong he's like which one of us is the American icon

Speaker 2 he became friends man it was lovely and having that dude he put on no airs whatsoever um he he really dug the script and whatnot and he like did the money or the movie for no money.

Speaker 2 When we did our screenings at Smodcastle for Dogma during the tour, we have the archives there at the comic book store. So we went through and pulled some cool shit to hang up on the walls.

Speaker 2 And we found the original deal memos that we sent to like Alan Rickman's agent, Ben and Matt's agent and shit.

Speaker 2 So it's like, dear Patrick Weitzel, we'd like to offer your client Alan Rickman the role of Metatron.

Speaker 2 The offer is scale plus 10, which is like movie minimum wage and shit. So he gave us that brilliant performance for minimum wage for the fucking like

Speaker 2 essentially 15 bucks an hour. You know, nowadays, it was back then, it was like five an hour and shit.
So what a lovely man. I was always a fucking huge fan.

Speaker 2 Never thought about putting him in the movie because I loved him so much. I was like, why would you put Alan Rickman in a Kevin Smith movie? But he reached out to us, man.

Speaker 2 He, John Gordon, who worked at Mirror Max, called me one day and he goes, you'll never guess who came in here today. I said, who?

Speaker 2 He goes, alan rickman i was like hans gruber was in the building did he blow it up or what he goes no man he was here to talk about this merchant ivory movie we want to put him in but all he wanted to talk about was whoever made chasing amy and i was like i made chasing amy he's like yeah man and he likes that movie you might we should send him the script for for dogma i was like yeah he could be metatron and the fastest yes i ever got in my career from an actor shy of jason muse who says yes before he finished the title was alan rickman wow how was getting atlantis more said

Speaker 2 Awesome, easy. I'd reached out to

Speaker 2 Atlantis reached out to me. Like one day my agent called me, it was 1996, and he goes, hey man, you know that singer who sings about blowing dudes in movie theater? Dave Cooley.

Speaker 2 I was like, I said, her name is Alanis Morrison.

Speaker 2 He goes, she wants to meet you. I said, hopefully in a movie theater.
And he goes,

Speaker 2 no, it's at a restaurant. And so I met her at this restaurant in 1996 called Montana's in Santa Monica.
And she was like, I'm a big fan. We just got done with the tour.
It was Jaggy Little Pill tour.

Speaker 2 She's like, and we watched clerks every night on the bus to go to sleep and shit. And I was like, oh, that rocks.

Speaker 2 I said, well, I said, I got in my bag that I have with me because I'd just gotten off the plane from Jersey VHS dailies of everything on Chase and Gaming because we just finished the movie.

Speaker 2 I said, well, I got the new movie right here in the bag. She goes, can I see it? I was like, well, it's not cut together, but I can show you scenes.

Speaker 2 And so we went back to her place and I showed her the rain scene and stuff. And she was like, ooh, this is like Clerks, but classy.
And I was like, yeah, man.

Speaker 2 I said, you should see the next movie we're doing. This movie called Dogma.
It's about like angels and devils and stuff. I said, you know what? You would be amazing like in the movie.

Speaker 2 You should play the lead. And she was like, me? I've never acted before in my life.
I said, bullshit. You act in those music videos.
Yeah. And you were on, you can't do that on television, man.

Speaker 2 You acted like you didn't know the green slime was coming. That's acting.
And she was like, no, I don't think I could carry a whole movie, man. Thank you, but no, thank you.

Speaker 2 Then I didn't hear from her for a long time. And later on, we found Linda Fiorentino.
She became our Bethany and stuff. So I'm driving out to Pittsburgh to start shooting the movie from Jersey.

Speaker 2 It's like a six-hour drive. And I have one of the earliest fucking cell phones, like a Nokia or something like that.
And

Speaker 2 it rang, which is weird because it was really just for emergencies. I answered.
I said, hello. And she goes, Kevin, it's Lance Morrisa.
I said, how'd you get this number?

Speaker 2 She goes, I called information

Speaker 2 411.

Speaker 2 And I was looking for your home, but they gave me your childhood home number. And so I spoke to your dad.

Speaker 1 and your dad, your dad gave me this number.

Speaker 2 He goes, oh, he's got a phone in the cart, a big shot.

Speaker 1 Call him there.

Speaker 2 And so she's like, I said, that does sound like death. She goes, so I said, what's up? And she said, you know, I just got back from India and I feel rested and I'm writing my new album.

Speaker 2 And as that song, thank you, came from that trip. And she goes, but I remembered that before I left, you had asked me to play the lead in your movie.
And I said, no, because I was scared.

Speaker 2 And nothing good ever comes from fear. Like, you know, I tend to head towards the things that challenge me.
And I didn't, and I regret it.

Speaker 2 And she's going, so this is me calling to say, if there's anything left in the movie, I would love to come play with you. And I said, well, there's one small but crucial role that's left.

Speaker 2 And she said, what is it? I said, you could play God. And she goes, me?

Speaker 2 Why me as God? I said, because I always thought God would be Canadian.

Speaker 1 And she loved that.

Speaker 1 Okay, I have to tell you, I was just looking on eBay where I go for all kinds of things I love, and there it was. That hologram trading card.
One of the rarest, the last one I needed for my set.

Speaker 1 Shiny like the designer handbag of my dreams. One of a kind.
eBay had it, and now everyone's asking, ooh, where'd you get your windshield wipers?

Speaker 2 eBay has all the parts that fit my car.

Speaker 1 No more annoying.

Speaker 2 Just beautiful.

Speaker 1 Millions of finds, each with a story. eBay, things people love.
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Speaker 1 I had a chasing Amy question.

Speaker 1 So our worst friend, his name is Holden McNeely.

Speaker 1 Oh, seriously?

Speaker 2 Wait, spell it. Spell it.

Speaker 1 M-C-N-E-E-L-Y. His name is Wild.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. His name is Holden McNeely, and he married a lesbian.
Do you have any advice for him?

Speaker 1 Yeah. She was Holden Star, too.
And for some reason, I have no idea why she chose him.

Speaker 2 My advice for him is lawyer up, motherfucker.

Speaker 1 He's stealing the plot of Chasing Amy, and I won't have it.

Speaker 1 I don't have much in my life, Holden McNeely. Don't fucking take that for him.

Speaker 1 How wild, man.

Speaker 2 That'd be like meeting Kevin Smithy.

Speaker 2 You know, in movies, if you take your name off a movie, it used to be, you'd replace it with Alan Smithy.

Speaker 2 And I was always waiting to make a movie so bad that it could be a Kevin Smithy film.

Speaker 2 I know some people are like, you made it, buddy, but for my money, I haven't made it yet. One day, though, I will.

Speaker 1 You were also the first man in pop culture to make fun of podcast house. Yes.
Which I do want to say, again, that's a part of what made it legit, I feel like, in many ways.

Speaker 2 I honestly take great pride in Tusk being the first movie that features podcast hosts. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It was incredible.

Speaker 2 It is so new to the mainstream that Justin's character has to explain what a podcast is. to the guy like at the TSA, to the TSA agent, or not the TSA, the customs agent in Canada.

Speaker 2 I mean, it was was a great way to do it, but nowadays you wouldn't even have to. You'd just be like, well, I'm a podcaster.

Speaker 1 Oh, dude.

Speaker 1 I travel with the microphone a lot of places, and I still have to do the same thing.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Because they all look at the microphone like

Speaker 1 it's an old-timey TikTok podcast. It's the wires.
And you're like, buddy, it's a fucking microphone. It's like, whatever.
I'm glad that.

Speaker 2 I remember somebody back in the day being like, explain it. And, you know, it was like, back in the day, I used to explain it.
Like, have you ever listened to a commentary track on a movie?

Speaker 2 It's like a commentary track if there was no movie.

Speaker 1 No, it was incredible to watch it at the time because, you know, we were

Speaker 1 still kind of in the infancy of podcasting. But at that point, we've been doing it for like five or six years.

Speaker 1 And I was constantly explaining to people what a podcast was all the time. But it was so cool to finally like see it on the screen.
Like I went and saw it in the theater to see like we're there.

Speaker 2 It means the fucking world for you to shout that out because I remember how important that was to me. Like I love and still love it, but when we started, like I loved podcasting.

Speaker 2 The idea of having like my own fucking radio show.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, where I came from in Jersey, there was a local radio station called W-R-A-T The Rat.

Speaker 2 And I always dreamed, like, maybe one day I get enough money that I could buy the rat, play any music I wanted, and just sit around and talk whenever I wanted to.

Speaker 2 And then one day, Scott Mosier comes into the office. He's like, have you heard the Ricky Gervais podcast yet? And I was like, what's a podcast?

Speaker 2 And he was just like, people sit around, man, they just talk. And Mosier was the one.
He was like, it's kind of like a commentary track for a movie, but there's no fucking movie there and shit.

Speaker 2 And I was like, well, we can probably do one of these podcasts. And I never listened to anyone.
We just sat down and started doing one and shit.

Speaker 2 And, you know, it was this thing of like, my God, nobody's telling us what to do. Nobody's telling us to stop.
We can talk about anything we want. I enjoy talking to this motherfucker.

Speaker 2 One thing it did spoil in my life, though, was I stopped talking to people until there was a microphone on it. Because I'd be like so many times across, I'm sure it's happened to you.

Speaker 2 Like, wait, wait, wait, save that for the show.

Speaker 2 Like, I do it with my kid to this day. My kid and I will be talking about something cool.
And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, save that for our show and stuff.

Speaker 2 So I noticed that early on, like, as much as I love talking to Scott Mosier, I, I, it became reserved for when there was a microphone there because I was like, well, if we just talk to each other, it's wasted, man.

Speaker 2 Like, but if we have a mic, it captures it. And I love that aspect.
When I first started podcasting, like, you know, people had cell phones with cameras in them.

Speaker 2 That shit was on the rise, the smartphone and shit. So everyone started taking pictures.
Everyone became a fucking photographer. So nobody's ever going to forget what anybody fucking looks like.

Speaker 2 But when a motherfucker dies, the first thing you lose is the sound of their voice. That's what I loved about podcasting back in the day is like capturing voices of people I love.

Speaker 2 I sat down with my mom, recorded podcasts, sat down with people who aren't with us anymore, like Stan Lee and so forth, and recorded. And their voices are there.

Speaker 2 I'll never forget what they sound like. And so I love that.

Speaker 2 And I would encourage people all the time, like sit down, record podcasts with your parents, with your grandparents, and stuff like that, because you're going to need those voices one day.

Speaker 2 You know, pictures, you're always going to remember what they look like. But the sound of their voice, the inflection, the tone, all that shit slips away.
But now

Speaker 2 everybody knows what everybody sounds like till the end of time. So much so that an AI can duplicate you if it needs to.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, dude. It's going to be, we're all going to end up in gay porn in Europe.

Speaker 2 I'm here for it, man. As long as they give me a cut, I just want to wet my beak a little.

Speaker 1 That's a laugh. That's all.
Yeah, no, I honestly value it. We had my mom on the show a bunch of times, and I value it so much.
Yeah. And it means she will be.

Speaker 2 She's living life right.

Speaker 1 She's extremely problematic woman, but love. If she was still alive,

Speaker 1 canceled.

Speaker 1 But I get to have that. So it's very nice.

Speaker 1 All right. Who to win in an arm wrestling match, Ben Affleck or Matt Damon? Ben Affleck.
Woo! Wow, quick. Now he's back at that.

Speaker 1 Ben's got the side.

Speaker 2 I don't know if you've ever seen him, but Ben's a fucking giant. He's huge.
And I wouldn't say Matt's short, but he's more my height. So Ben just has the fucking over-the-top advantage.

Speaker 2 As soon as Affleck turns his hat backwards, you're fucked.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's boss. Over the top.

Speaker 1 Do you ever miss being fat?

Speaker 2 I still consider myself fat, so I don't miss it. In fact, I rue it.
and when I, like, I know I'm thinner now than I had been most of my life or most of my career.

Speaker 2 But when I take off these clothes, like, I don't see a thin person. I'm not cut by any stretch of the imagination.
And I have, I've been fat for so long that I've drapey fucking skin.

Speaker 2 So I always refer to it as like, remember in the shining when Nicholson goes into the bathroom and a sexy chick gets out of the tub and shit, and then he's holding her making out, and then all of a sudden he fucking looks at her, steps away, and she's like, ah,

Speaker 2 that's what my body looks like.

Speaker 1 That's also what Jack Nick looks like now.

Speaker 1 He's earned it for having if you shave me. I look like I have the body of an abuelita, like of a Mexican granite.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's the thing. It's like, I don't take my shirt off in public.
I don't take my shirt off at home. Me and my wife have been fucking 27 years.
I've never taken my shirt off to have sex.

Speaker 1 Yeah, honestly. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, Cat Man,

Speaker 1 what is the best bagel in Monmouth County?

Speaker 2 Best bagel in Monmouth County. Let me see.
Oh, bagel station. Bagels as big as your fucking head, man.
They're huge. But made with that East Coast water so they have the consistency they need.

Speaker 2 Fuck, this bagel could feed a family of five for a day.

Speaker 1 Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Who is your number one underrated director that you think deserves more love?

Speaker 2 Martha Coolidge. Martha Coolidge directed

Speaker 2 one of my favorite films of all time, Valley Girl. She directed Real Genius and she directed Rambling Rose three in a row, bang, bang, bang.

Speaker 2 You get a trifecta like that today, they would call you the fucking future of cinema for the rest of your life. They would call you cinema itself.

Speaker 2 But Martha, you know, worked at a time when directors didn't get the spotlight put on them as much.

Speaker 2 Yes, there have always been directors, and yes, there have always been well-known directors like Stevens Pielberg, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, but not everybody was ever that, you know, well-known and stuff.

Speaker 2 So I thought she's

Speaker 2 still believed her to be an incredible storyteller. Valley Girl not only set the tone for me for rom-coms and meet-cutes, but like it, it fed mine.

Speaker 2 I don't get to clerks, mall rats, or chasing Amy without Valley Girl.

Speaker 2 Real Genius introduces us to the brilliant Val Kilmer for the first time in a really fucking funny, clever film that still holds up today.

Speaker 2 And Ramblin' Rose, like, if I remember correctly, that was the movie.

Speaker 2 I don't think Laura During got accounted me award-nominated, but she was getting all the awards circuit talk that year and stuff like that. So three wonderful movies in a row.

Speaker 2 And she's had made many things since then, of course. But I never felt like she got the prop she was due.

Speaker 2 So in the 430 movie, the movie I made last year, one of my characters talks about wanting to go to film school, wanting to go to RISD, the Rhode Island School of Design, just like her hero, Martha Coolidge.

Speaker 1 Man, so you mentioned rom-coms, and of course, we're talking about Tusk. So, what, what is more fun for you, a rom-com or a horror movie?

Speaker 2 Oh, such an interesting question. Making what it comes down to is how the audience is going to react.

Speaker 2 And surprisingly, the button that you fucking try to find and push for making people laugh is shockingly close to the one that makes people go, you know, that plays on their fears, that unsettles them as well.

Speaker 2 So, I feel like, you know, I've always been like, I don't think I can make a true horror movie.

Speaker 2 Like, that's for the likes of, you know, john carpenter or somebody like that i said but i can unnerve people um i think i could do that so the the horror movies i've made are more unnerving films like tusk and red state and stuff like that and i've noticed that the the reactionary buttons to laughter and fear

Speaker 2 similar and very close in terms of which one's more fun it's always more fun to make people laugh well no it's fun to make people scared but the it's better to make people laugh because if you make people scared they'll remember you one way for the rest of your life you make people laugh They'll welcome you all the time because you gave them something at one point that was valuable to them and stuff I'm not saying if you make them scared they'll be like

Speaker 2 But if you make them laugh you get to make them breakfast.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, clerks three made me cry.
What the fuck?

Speaker 1 I was

Speaker 2 I was tear hunting. I really wanted to go in there.
And here's the thing. I felt clerks was a total surprise, right? Like nobody saw it coming.

Speaker 2 The surprise of Clerks 2 was like, oh, shit, there's some heart to it. Like, there's depth to it.
And it's in color. And it doesn't take place where the first clerks took place and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2 By the time you get to the third one, you're like, how the fuck can you surprise them anymore? And I was like, oh, I know how to surprise them.

Speaker 2 Like, we'll make a comedy, but then we'll take it real at the end. And I, you know, there's some people like who didn't like that.

Speaker 2 Some people felt like, oh, God, he got too self-serious. But for me, it's like, I'm a middle-aged man.
These are the things I fucking think about.

Speaker 2 And my gift to the audience, if you could call it that,

Speaker 2 with Clerks 3 was a reminder. Like, hey, man, remember all those dreams you had and all those things you wanted to do and all the plans you've got?

Speaker 1 Hurry the fuck up.

Speaker 2 You know, it's just a gentle prodding of like, kids, we all die. And as I now live in a world where people I know and have known my whole life aren't with me anymore because they fucking passed.

Speaker 2 It fed what Clerks 3 became. So I personally, as the world's biggest Kevin Smith fan and somebody deeply invested in clerks, I love how it stuck the landing.

Speaker 2 I love how it's an Ouroboros, it's a snake that eats its own tail. And as much as they make clerks in Clerks 3, so I love the meta aspect of it.

Speaker 2 I love that we got to go home again, shoot in the store and have them shoot their movie in the store as well. So

Speaker 2 I absolutely adore that flick, but there's so many people who like hate me for it. I get on social media all the time.
It was Friday night and I was looking forward to some laughs.

Speaker 2 So I rented Clerks 3. Fuck you to death.

Speaker 1 Hashtag justice for Dante.

Speaker 2 Recently, I was in Jersey and I was at the,

Speaker 2 where was it? It's the Wawa at the top of the hill in Highlands. And I went to get a Celsius and shit and I walked in.
Nobody at the counter. Just two machines.
You scan yourself.

Speaker 2 I was like, well, this would be Clerks 4. Two Machines beeping up.

Speaker 2 So I get my Celsius and like I go to scan it and I can't scan it. And I'm trying to scan it repeated times.
I try weighing it. That don't work and shit like that.
I am totally stymied.

Speaker 2 And then a voice from behind me, a local, goes, I bet you're sorry you killed Dante now, motherfucker.

Speaker 2 But Dante, I'll tell you, man, Dante, there's a Clerks 3.5 that's coming out next month. It's called Archie Meets Jay and Silent Bob.
It's a comic book that I did for the Archie people.

Speaker 1 Oh, fun.

Speaker 2 And it's set in the continuity of clerks. So it takes place after the death of Dante.
And Archie Andrews gets like an after-school job at Quickstop.

Speaker 2 And Randall takes a shine to him because he reminds him of Dante, where he's like, oh, you've got two girls who are after you as well. And one of them is named Veronica.

Speaker 2 And you're a G-Shucks kind of guy. Jay and Silent Bob are in it as well.
The whole thing ends at a Josie and the Pussy Cats concert in Riverdale.

Speaker 2 But it truly functions as Clerks 3.5 because in it, everybody acknowledges the fact that Dante is dead. You see what happened to Quickstop after how he, how it's changed in his absence.

Speaker 1 So I love it, man.

Speaker 2 Like, it's crazy.

Speaker 2 I'm a fan of Archie, but it's not like I'm the world's biggest Archie fan. But when the Archie folks reached out, I was like, you know, oddly enough, I'm kind of equipped to write this.

Speaker 2 The book is crazy wholesome while being like filthy. There's curses all throughout it.
There's smoking smoking pot.

Speaker 2 But the one thing is when I told people like, oh, I'm doing this crossover, man, with Archie and Jane Salon Bob. They're like, are Jane Sal and Bob going to fuck Betty and Veronica?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 No, Jane, Salon and Bob are 50 and Betty and Veronica are teenagers.

Speaker 2 But it's a wonderful book. It comes out like next month.
But in all this clerks talk, it just reminded me of it because I'm like, we continue the story, oddly enough, in the Archie pages.

Speaker 1 And by the way, I loved those clerks comics that you did did with Jim Mafu back in the day for Oni Press. Those were, so I actually have a tattoo of like that.
Well, it's a Jim Mahud art.

Speaker 1 Like I just love

Speaker 1 Mafood art

Speaker 1 with the big fat black lines, man. He's a genius.
Yeah, he's,

Speaker 2 I do a book for Dark Horse

Speaker 2 through my comic imprint, Secret Stash Press. And it's called Quickstop.
So it's all these like view-askew stories you would never make a movie for.

Speaker 2 But when they did the second hardcover, when they bind the four issues together, put it out as a trade, it's a hardcover trade. Mafu did our cover of, and it's Jay and Salon Bob almost like

Speaker 2 Big Ed style in a van, a VW van with a movie, like

Speaker 2 a spare tire cover and shit. It's absolutely beautiful.
He's an absolute genius, that guy.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. And I also like the comic book stuff that you like, you know, the green arrow run, like Bringing Back Ollie Queen was so cool.
And the Daredevil. I got a book that drops today, man.

Speaker 2 My first Marvel book in, oh shit, ages, since I did Daredevil Target years ago. Yeah.
It's called, well, it's Giant Size, the Amazing Spider-Man. And I got a 15-page story in it.

Speaker 2 It's fucking gorgeous, man. It just hit the stands today.

Speaker 1 How do you have the time?

Speaker 1 How in 15 pages? 15 pages. You just do so much shit.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, but the thing is, it's stuff that appeals to me. So like when they reached out and they're like, do you want to, it wasn't for a giant size annual.

Speaker 2 They were going to do this Earth 616 book. So like, would you like to do a story for it? And I was like, oh, fucking yeah.

Speaker 2 So as soon as I got off the phone with Nick Lowe at Marvel, I started writing because like that appealed to me. I was like, oh, that's going to be fun.
Same thing with the Archie book.

Speaker 2 As soon as I got off the phone with Jesse, the guy who runs the place, and he was like, would you like to do a book here? I said, absolutely.

Speaker 2 I instantly started writing because I was like, oh, that's fun. I got a bunch of ideas.

Speaker 2 So if you see me doing a bunch of things, number one, comics you do like six to six months to a year ago right so like the archie book i wrote i want to say like at least six months ago or something like that so now it's coming into fruition here this marvel story i wrote probably roughly around the same time six to eight months ago so seeing it in print today is is dope but i did the work back then you make time for the work when it's stuff that you love and it's you know it can't always be about like i'm getting paid to do a thing yes you get paid to write you know 15 pages of a marvel comic but not a lot no

Speaker 1 We've written stuff for DC and Darkness.

Speaker 2 You know, you know. So it's like you're basically, if you're a person who writes three or four titles a month, you can really make a living.

Speaker 2 But if you're carpetbaggers like us, you're not there to collect the check. You're doing it for the passion.
Just because you're like, what?

Speaker 1 You're going to let me do this shit? Exactly.

Speaker 2 Done and done. So I still feel that way.
about comics. So when Nick Lowe at Marvel called up, when Jesse at Archie called up, you know, I was like, oh shit, yeah.

Speaker 2 And these are things that appeal to me, so it never feels like work. And there's another thing I just,

Speaker 2 I guess I could say it, but I can't say what it is, but they're doing a Marvel DC crossover. And I saw my name floated in there, so I did my work for that as well.
That'll happen later on.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 you make space for the things that mean something to you. And yes, they pay.
I ain't

Speaker 2 poo-pooing it. Like, you know, a thousand, two thousand bucks, nothing to sneeze at and shit.

Speaker 2 But like, I've had agents, you know, for my day job who are like, why are you wasting your time writing comics?

Speaker 2 I can get you paid like a hundred times the amount you got paid for that comic book to write a real script.

Speaker 2 And I was like, yeah, but I wouldn't have the passion, the enthusiasm, because that would be a job.

Speaker 2 This I did like with utter joy. It ain't about the money.
It's like, you're going to let me fucking play with Reed Richards? Done and done.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because then you also don't have to go in front of a bunch of executives and pitch it and get noted to death and have to go through all of the things that you have to go through when you're working in the public.

Speaker 2 And you never once have to be like, who's going to pay for this? This seems expensive because somebody's drawing it. Some artist is spending time, not dimes.
So comics, you know,

Speaker 2 they've always been a big part of my world and stuff. Of course.
I love now being a publisher. I love having Secret Stash Press.
And now I'm starting, because of Secret Stash Press,

Speaker 2 I feel it's like, all right, like, I should start doing more crossovers. The Archie thing happened very easily and, you know, was came to my front door.

Speaker 2 It was such a delight that now I'm going to keep going. We're going to crossover with some other imprints as well.

Speaker 1 Looking at all the Rocky and Bullwinkle stuff behind you, big fan of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Thank you.
Is Moose Jaws a crossover?

Speaker 2 Moose Jaws is. I want you to think that's fucking, look at this Rocky and Bullwinkle shit.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 Amazing. You see that giant bullwinkle sitting right there?

Speaker 2 That came from the Dudley Dew Right Emporium back in the day, man. They just had an auction recently and I bought that.

Speaker 1 Did you set up to create a Rocky and Bullwinkle room or did it just

Speaker 1 happen on its own?

Speaker 2 You know, honestly, this is so ironic. Like, this office didn't look like this six months ago.
What had happened was, remember, we had the fires here in town? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So I live right next to Runyon Canyon, and so they've actually evacuated us because they're like, hey, man, the fire is hitting the canyon.

Speaker 2 And we left with nothing, left everything in the house, just grabbed the dogs and fucking took, you know, my computers and shit. And she took her jewelry and we fucking fled.

Speaker 2 And I looked back and I saw the flames coming up over the hill and I was like, well, that's it.

Speaker 2 There goes everything I own and all my childhood shit and fucking like the things I've held on to my whole life.

Speaker 2 Like, oddly enough, one of the only things I brought with two things I brought with me besides my laptop. I brought my Solomon Bob outfit because I was like, well, I'll have to work eventually.

Speaker 2 And then I brought my father's ashes, which I was like, why?

Speaker 2 Because they're already pre-burned and shit.

Speaker 2 So when we left, I thought that was it. And I kept watching from my phone.
We got the security cameras on the phone, waiting for the fire to get here, but they dropped water.

Speaker 2 They did those water bombers and shit, put out the Runyon fire. So I got to go back that night.
And you would imagine

Speaker 2 the effect would have been, you know.

Speaker 2 let go of all your earthly possessions because clearly I was ready to like I did I drove away and I was like man fucking there goes my photo albums all throughout my childhood, the scrapbooks I kept, the certificate that clerks got into fucking can, shit like that.

Speaker 2 My marriage certificate, which you noticed came way last.

Speaker 2 So when I came back, you'd imagine I would have kind of gone monk-like and been like, hey, man, it's time to get rid of things. And instead, I went hard in the other direction.

Speaker 2 And I started collecting Rocky and Bullwinkle, which has been a big thing for me. I used to collect it when I was a kid, like up into my early 20s.

Speaker 2 Then clerks happened and I started doing my own thing. So I don't know if it was like somebody told me, like, this is deeply psychological, Kevin.

Speaker 2 Like, you went, you know, obviously that fire was traumatic for you, but it wasn't. We didn't lose anything.

Speaker 2 But maybe the threat of, I don't know, but it resulted in me buying a fuck ton of Rocky and Bullwinkle shit on eBay for the next two months after the fire.

Speaker 2 like a fucking junkie every day i'd be like online going i don't have that i don't have that i started giving strangers and then i went to i went to i went to um facebook Marketplace, man, which was a whole new discovery for me.

Speaker 2 And I started buying shit and going to pick it up in the real world. And then people be like, it is you.

Speaker 1 And I was like, yeah. Yep.
Give me the shit. Give me my bullets shit.

Speaker 2 I like a discount as much as the next guy. Then I just started buying Kevin Smith off fucking Facebook Marketplace and then showing up just to watch their expressions change.

Speaker 2 They're like, why are you buying a Jay and Style Bob figure? I was like, why do you think? Yeah.

Speaker 1 man that is the ultimate lesson as an artist i really appreciate yeah man you're reinvesting in yourself

Speaker 2 damn get to that point in your career kids where you can buy yourself from strangers just to watch them smile or be puzzled but yes moose jaws is coming man i was just on the aforementioned bird crusher podcast last week and i was like hey man be in moose jaws and he was like i would love to that's a funny idea so that might give us uh some wind under our wings man i said it on the script but i haven't heard back from him yet but i know he's a busy i don't think you can But we also had our budget

Speaker 2 to break down our effect shots. How many of the shots will be CG?

Speaker 2 That is a moose running through the brush and stuff. And how much will be practical, rubber moose, you know, with animatronics biting kids' heads off.
Yeah. So we're getting closer.
It will happen.

Speaker 2 And the inside dope about that is

Speaker 2 Moose Jaws is, if you loved Tusk, the story continues in Moose Jaws.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'll not, you bring it all back, dude. I really do love the world of your stuff.
This has been so special. Yeah.
I mean, really,

Speaker 1 one thing that

Speaker 1 I have to ask you that I want to ask you is: like, I know back in the day, you know, you worked a little bit on a Superman movie, or there was like, you know, possibility of a Superman movie.

Speaker 1 And, you know, you're in comic books. You've done a lot of work for Marvel.
Is there any possibility of you doing something in the Marvel cinematic universe?

Speaker 2 Nah. Nah.
I mean, like,

Speaker 2 number one, I'm not talented enough to do that.

Speaker 2 And I'm not being shy or whatever fuck or modest. I know I've got some degree of talent when it comes to doing Kevin Smith type things.

Speaker 2 But those movies, like that, that takes a degree of talent that I don't have, a visual panache that I don't have.

Speaker 2 And, you know, when you're in comics, like all these comics that I've been writing and all the comics I've ever written, I have the ability to write, you know, Doctor Strange waves his hand and a wall opens up.

Speaker 2 Somebody, some amazing talented artist brings that to life. They're visually oriented.
I'm a wordsmith. So at the end of the day, like I never feel a call to make one of those movies.

Speaker 2 Those movies are my religion, though. That's what I love to fucking watch.
My grandmother used to watch Young and the Restless and she'd be like, don't talk to me. My stories are on.

Speaker 2 Superhero movies, those are my stories, man. Like I'm religious about them.
I treat them overly seriously. I look up to the people that make them.
But I don't have it in me to make them myself.

Speaker 2 I don't think I could do it. I don't think I'm talented enough to do that kind of storytelling.

Speaker 2 Believe me, nobody's, Kevin Veigie ain't calling, so there's no threat or worry there.

Speaker 2 Back in the day, I directed some CW shows, like I did Supergirl and Flash.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Three Flashes, I think, four Supergirls.

Speaker 2 I enjoyed it. Those were like a good time, man.
But they shot for nine days as opposed to like, you know, those features shoot for sometimes a year.

Speaker 2 And by day six or seven, I was always like, are we still shooting this shit? We're not done yet. Like, I kind of get restless easy.

Speaker 2 And shooting a dialogue movie, you're shooting tons of pages, like seven pages a day.

Speaker 2 Shooting superhero movies, you're lucky if you shoot a quarter page of a day because you know, you're shooting spectacle. So, I love those movies so much, but making one is anathema to me.

Speaker 2 You might as well be like, Did you ever want to be an astronaut, Kev? I was like, Well, it sounds fun, but like, not really, you know, like fun.

Speaker 2 I mean, but I've

Speaker 2 done that to some degree as well.

Speaker 2 And, but, you know, I'd rather honestly, if I was going to write, I know, don't pay as much, but I'd rather write a comic book because it's, as you said before, total control.

Speaker 2 I didn't have to do any fucking notes. I didn't have to sit in front of anybody and pitch it.

Speaker 2 I didn't have to educate them on who these fucking characters were and shit like that and show them the box office grosses. I was just like, oh, I'm going to tell this story.

Speaker 2 And they're like, oh, my God, go. Yeah.
So that's when it comes to spectacle, visual spectacle, you got to pair me up with an artist and then I could give you something.

Speaker 2 Like even on Dogma, Dogma, years ago, before I went off to make Dogma,

Speaker 2 a month before I left Jersey to go to Pittsburgh, I call up Robert Rodriguez because I had met Robert because, I mean, I knew him through indie film a little bit, but we became more friendly.

Speaker 2 He called me up one day and he goes, Warner Brothers wants me to direct your Superman script. And I was like, you should fucking do that.

Speaker 1 That's a great combo, dude.

Speaker 2 I said, that would be amazing. I said, oh, my God.
I said, the script's fun, but you would make it something fucking special. So for like a couple of days, we talked about it and stuff.

Speaker 2 And then ultimately, he decided to go make the faculty for Dimension because he felt he owed Dimension. So we became friendly because of that.

Speaker 2 Right before I go shoot Dogma, I called up Robert one night and he was like, what's up? I was like, hey man, so I'm supposed to go make Dogma next month.

Speaker 2 This is me calling to be like, would you direct Dogma for me?

Speaker 2 He goes, what are you talking about? I was like, I like this script so much, man.

Speaker 2 I was like, it could be a cool movie, but I'm telling you right now, like, I'm I'm not the guy for it like I can't pull it off and stuff like this is we got a bigger budget this time around I said I think you would be the right person to do it and he talked me off a ledge he goes Kevin you can direct this he's going my only piece of advice to you is that instead of having a wall behind two characters who are talking to each other put a window put a put some depth he's going the only problem with your storytelling in film is that you stand two people against a wall and shoot that he's going you can't, you need depth in a film.

Speaker 2 And I was like, all right, and so mercifully, I got to go make the flick with Bob Yeoman. Like Wes Anderson let his DP out of the box for like one minute and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 But fucking that, that, Bob made it beautiful for what it was and stuff. I'm not your comic book movie guy.
Hold on one second.

Speaker 2 Your Jos pinball machine is here.

Speaker 1 Kids, I would not.

Speaker 1 You're gonna, you're, you're gonna,

Speaker 1 no no no you just bought a pinball

Speaker 2 jennifer came in and she never comes down to my office so i'm like oh my god yeah yeah it's like an emergency yeah but she came in to tell me and this will be relevant to our discussion um i just received a jaws pinball

Speaker 2 so they're delivering it now and i need to go take pictures

Speaker 1 that is the greatest excuse ever dude i gotta say it is i hate i i really hate to be one percent or first world but i must go

Speaker 1 steve my jaws pinball games dude thank you for your years of work and thank you for talking to us we're really very so happy that we got to see the world man when they told me that you guys wanted me on i knew i knew the show and right away i was just like oh i can't wait to talk horror with these guys so thank you hell yeah thanks so much we appreciate it go see dogma check it out it's gonna

Speaker 1 flick oh it's so much fun to see it in the theater i love seeing old movies in the theater if nothing makes me happier i'm so glad it's back i'm so glad you're still amazing and relevant and check out the smod castle film festival it was so much fun and uh submit to that as well man thank you sir means the world means the world thank you i'll see you later see you man

Speaker 1 get support

Speaker 1 pinball machine that's so cool what a cool life what a cool life what a dream yeah especially like a jaws pinball machine i don't even like pinball but i want four of those

Speaker 1 seeing the amount of bullinkle stuff that he got in one go

Speaker 1 truly was i was like that's you see that's what nerds do.

Speaker 1 That's what nerd lord is supposed to do. Yeah.
Yeah. You get obsessed about that one thing and you just decide, I'm going to devote a room to this weird thing.

Speaker 1 I just realized he's able to write off the Jaws pinball machine because he's writing Moose Jaws. Yeah, dude.
So he just gets to write off a pinball machine. He does.

Speaker 1 Research. That's a counter.

Speaker 1 That is unbelievable.

Speaker 1 It is legitimate research for him to sit there and make,

Speaker 1 but hey, but

Speaker 1 and then everybody gets on my ass about having a whole closet dedicated to selena gomez and like everyone says oh why you oh you said all these disparaging words about her but actually you might be secretly sort of obsessed with her and then i did sort of become like that yeah yeah well the closet's better than it being in the living room hey natalie nicks that in the bird

Speaker 1 it was just covered in my stuff. Is the lock still holding on the closet? I just keep pulling it, pulling and pulling and pulling.
It's shut sealed with semen. I'm taking it.

Speaker 1 I have to hide it for myself.

Speaker 1 God, I want to be her.

Speaker 1 I want to be here. I want to be that little girl.
Sir, Henry, it was so nice to have you here. That's my Selena Gomez.

Speaker 1 Hello, Mrs. Gomez.

Speaker 1 Or is it Mr. Gomez?

Speaker 2 Henry, your attraction to me is...

Speaker 1 Scary. Yeah, scary good.

Speaker 1 Well, thank you so much for listening, everybody. As always,

Speaker 1 if you're in the Atlanta area, we're going to be playing the Coca-Cola Roxy tomorrow night. Yes.

Speaker 1 So there may be tickets. There may not be, but check them out and see if you can come on out.

Speaker 1 We got some new surprises for this live show. We do.

Speaker 1 We're very excited. Things had to change due to what God did.

Speaker 1 And then July 12th, we'll be in Salt Lake City. So come check that show out as well.
Yeah, I can't wait for Salt Lake. Salt Lake is always such a good time.
It's such a good crowd.

Speaker 1 I always say it, Salt Lake goes hard. No, they go hard every time, and I can't wait for it.
It's going to be such a good time. Hell yeah.
I hope you come hard. Yeah, yeah, and then leave quietly.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, fulfilled. Yes, fulfilled.

Speaker 1 And if you want to see the actual video footage from this interview, go to patreon.com/slash lastpodcast on the left and pay a minimal fee for both video episodes and

Speaker 1 to see last stream on the left every Tuesday at 6 p.m. PST, 9 p.m.
EST.

Speaker 1 And you can chat with us as we do the show. Yes, and go to our YouTube page, LPNTV.
It's at LPN TV. We got it.
We got that when you go and you subscribe.

Speaker 1 You can see all of our new content, all of our comedy-based content, and go subscribe to all the other new Last Podcast Network Associated YouTube channels.

Speaker 1 Someplace underneath, LPN Romantic, The Foreign Report, No Dogs in Space.

Speaker 2 You go and check it out.

Speaker 1 I think we need more. Oh, and who's the B? Yeah.
Can we do, can we get like seven more? I'm doing my best.

Speaker 1 I'm doing my best.

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