An Evening With Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith - Prince Charles Cinema

If I had to name the two filmmakers who've most influenced my addiction to modern cinema then I'd have to say Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith, so it was a rare privilege to get to listen to the latter on Thursday evening. Kevin was in London with his family for a few days so had arranged a couple of his legendary Q&A sessions at the Prince Charles Cinema. I went along with Rich, Lauren, Rick and Rob and despite joining the mammoth queue late it played to our advantage and we ended up getting front row seats in the balcony. Kevin talked for nearly four hours and was joined by Jen and Harley at one point which was sweet. It's impossible to remember everything that was talked about, but here's some of what I remember:

• He was annoyed that the PCC named the bar after Tarantino, so the PCC have now named one of the gents cubicles in his honour.
• He's desperate to watch some British porn so that he can hear people having sex with an English accent. Someone shouted that he should just, "Phone the speaking clock and watch your ass in the mirror," which Kevin misheard as, "Take your cock and wipe my ass with it."
  
• He didn't have anyone respond to the disabled jokes in Clerks 2 because it would have been a repeat of the scene where Wanda & Earthquake respond to the "porch-monkey" quote.
• He had to have a growth surgically removed from the back of his neck after Ben Affleck kept resting his "dirty balls" on his neck when they were making Jersey Girl.
  
• Apparently Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon split up because Ryan is a "sloppy party bottom."
• He's never watched Buffy or Firefly. Or Heroes. But he loves the new Battlestar Galactica series.
• He's got three dogs and described their sex life in minute detail.
• His favourite dinosaur is a raptor because they can open closet doors.
  
• His daughter Harley is best friends with Johnny Depp's kid. Johnny will entertain them by going into his Willy Wonka character. The best they can hope for with Kevin is Silent Bob.
• He was never asked to make a fake trailer for Grindhouse but if asked he would have liked to have done a sexploitation film like H.O.T.S.
  
• His next film will be a horror flick (Red State) which will be in the same vein as Ride With The Devil. It's all in his head at the moment and will be more suspenseful that it will be gory.
• He still wants to make a Clerks animated movie, but the rights are tied up with Miramax at the moment.
  
• He hated Superman Returns and said it could have been improved by having a giant spider in the third act. Also Superman was a rapist (cue long explanation as to why...)
  
• Everyone (rightly) told him that he couldn't let Dante get shot at the end of Clerks, as he had in his original cut.
• He'd sit through any film if Jen promises sex afterwards.
  
• He was asked to write a Daredevil sequel but refused as he would have had to compromise his work to satisfy so many other people.
• His favourite scene from his own films would be something with Jeff Anderson from Clerks 2, but prior to that it was Joey Lauren Adams' "You had cable" line from Mallrats.
  
• Hayden Christensen was really pissed off at the online Clerks 2 trailer (which poked fun at his acting in the Star Wars films) and wanted to have it taken down.

One thing he wasn't asked about was the new Live Free Or Die Hard film which he has a small role in. You can see the brand new trailer here - and watch out for Kevin right at the end!