Kevin Smith is a talker. You probably knew this, however. His movies are full of dialogue — wonderfully effusive (and frequently profane) explosions of words. I caught up with him recently at a press day in advance of Clerks II, and this is what one question about the movie’s genesis produced.

“I really wanted to tell a story about what it was like to
be in my 30s, and I tried to do that with Jersey
Girl and I think I was kind of successful in what I wanted to do, but at
the same time it’s a movie that’s a bit manipulative, tends to be a bit mawkish
and what not,” says Smith. “So I wanted to do version of movie that was a little bit more in
touch with reality, which is odd because this movie does have a donkey show at
its epicenter. So I thought Clerks was a movie about what it felt like to be in
my 20s and I could use Dante and Randal as a way in, so suddenly it became
Clerks II. I talked about doing the movie back in 1998, and in the tale end of
the Dogma credits, which came out in ’99, it said, “Jay and Silent Bob will return
in Clerks II: Hardly Clerkin’.” And then I thought you know what, maybe I
shouldn’t fuck with the sacred cow. If I do a sequel to the first film, what if it
sucks and people retroactively go back and hate on the first film as well? So
it became Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,
but all the ideas were there, and the groundwork had been laid in my head, and
that Dante and Randal story was always kind of in the background. I figured I’ll
do it in comic book form or what not.”

“And then when I started thinking about
telling the story about what it felt like to be in my 30s I thought, shit,
that’s the story. It’s all coming together, it’s gelling now. Some people
online have been like, well, it’s obviously a reaction to Jersey Girl. Jersey Girl didn’t do well
so he’s going back to the well and retrenching. And they’ve missed the target
but hit the tree — Jersey Girl played a role but it wasn’t that. Because  I was already dialed into Clerks II while
making Jersey Girl, to some degree. Because I was like, “Man, the next movie I don’t want to
work with famous people or celebrities, I just want to work with people who are
unknowns. I don’t want to have to worry about In Touch or US Weekly putting them on the cover every
fucking week.” I mean, it’s weird when you spend two years of your life trying
to put togther a story and then you sit down to talk about it, and nobody wants
to talk about it. [Instead] they say, “Did you see the pink diamond, is it huge?” I’m like
yes, but, what does that have to do with anything man? When the backstory
overshadows the story, it’s just not cool anymore. As a storyteller it’s kind
of insulting — it’s like Jesus Christ, either the movie is as bad as you say and you have
nothing to talk about except these two or you find these two more fascinating
than the movie we put together.”