Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes

JAY AND

SILENT

BOB ARE

(TILL ALIVE

AND HAVE

PLENTY

TO SAY

\BOUT BEN

AFFLECK,

BRUCE

WILLIS

AND NEIL

PATRICK

HARRIS

Q1

PLAYBOY: Most people know you as Jay and Silent Bob, the slacker best friends from the movies Clerks, Dogma and fay and Silent Bob Strike Back, among others. The characters have also been in comic books, a TV show and a feature-length cartoon that came out this spring. What's next for them, a musical?

SMITH: We want to do a projection—you know,

like they did with Tupac Shakur. We're going to

record a lot of shit now so that when we're gone,

they can bring us out onstage.

MEWES: I think a video game would be .

pretty cool. J

SMITH: Oh yeah. We've done some app

games, but maybe a game where we're

shooting at each other. Jay vs.

Silent Bob—that might be badass.

Can you imagine those guys

armed to the teeth? All

right, we just talked

ourselves into it. ,^_

tnun

JASON

MEWES

Q2

PLAYBOY: You've done 10 films to­gether, not counting the upcoming Clerks III. Who owes their career to whom? MEWES: I definitely owe everything to Kevin. I never would have thought to write a script or direct a movie or put somebody like me in it. It was all Kevin's idea.

SMITH: I truly feel my biggest creative influence is Mewes. The guy is unfiltered and fucking unfettered. I grew up in a world where things happen up here [points to head] and they go through a filter and get sifted before they come out here \poinls to mouth]. The beauty of Mewes is somebody pulled his filter out at birth. A thought pops into his brain and it immediately fells out of his mouth.

Q3

PLAYBOY: You two met in your home­town of Highlands, New Jersey. Were you instant BFFs?

SMITH: Not really. At first I was jealous of him. I started hanging out with him when I was 18 and he was 14.1 inherited him from my friends Walter and Bryan. We were going to a comic book show in New York, and I was driving. So I showed up and Mewes was with them. He was Dennis the Menace but way

dirtier. Everything was "pussy, pussy, pussy," even though he obviously hadn't seen a pussy since he'd sprung from one. And then, while we're on the highway, he takes out his penis.

Q4

PLAYBOY: Because...why exactly? MEWES: I thought it was funny. SMITH: He was like, "Man, is it cold in here or is it me?" And you look down

and he's pulled his pants to his knees and he's sitting there with his dick out, flapping it, going "Naauugggg!" At first it was like, "Put that away!" After months of hanging out with him, you realize that's just what Jason does. I've seen his dick more than I've seen my own. So yeah, we weren't friends right away. It took a while to percolate, but now he really is my best friend. Every morning we get up at 10 a. m. and walk in the hills with our dogs. If you're driving around the Hol­lywood Hills, periodically you'll turn a corner and see Jay and Silent Bob walk­ing their fucking dogs.

Q5

PLAYBOY: You co-host a podcast called

Jay & Silent Bob Get Old. You're 38 and 42.

Is that what counts as old now?

SMITH: The title is more about making

fun of ourselves before somebody else

does. It steals their thunder. I remember

suggesting the title to Mcwes and he got

really defensive and uptight about it. He

was like, "We're not old!"

MEWES: I don't feel old, but I'm definite­

ly feeling older. For me, the "get old" part

is more about our history. We've been

doing this shit for 25 years. We've had ups

and downs. We're not necessarily old, but

you know.... (continued on page 150)

SMITH AND MEWES

(continued from page 90) smith: [Laughs] You're still defensive about it. You're old, dude. meweS: Fuck that.

Q6

pi.ayroy: Jason, there have been more

death rumors about you than about Paul McCartney. Is the sixth time someone re­ports you're dead as scary as the first? SMITH: The first was definitely the scariest, I think for both of us. People magazine called, I think it was during the Bennifer era, when I was shootingyersgi Girl, and asked "Do you have a statement on the death of your friend Jason Mewes?" I hadn't seen Jason in months at that point. He was MIA, and I was like, "Oh God!" I gave a statement and hung up, and seconds later the phone rang again and it was fucking Mewes. He was like, "People are saying that I'm dead. But I'm not dead!" meweS: I had left California and was driving to Jersey to turn myself in. SMITH: He had an outstanding warrant in New Jersey.

MEWES: It took me almost four months to drive across the country, because I kept stop­ping and partying. My sister called to tell me people were saying I was dead. My cousin passed away and I guess people thought it was me. They found him OD'd on the beach.

Q7

playboy: In your podcast and live shows, you both share intimate details about your sex life. How do your wives feel about that? SMITH: My wife learned early on that our life was fodder for conversation. She heard me tell a story about the first time we had sex—I cut my dick on her jeans zipper and it started bleeding and we had sex anyway— and she was like, "What the fuck is your problem? You told people we had unpro­tected sex and you had an open wound on your dick." I was like, "Yeah, but it's sweet. We fall in love, we wind up together. It's a good story." It was baptism by fire for her. mewes: I told a story the other night about how my lady was doing hot yoga at the gym and she queefed and it was so loud the per­son next to her heard it. Afterward she was like, "I didn't say you could share that story!" She was embarrassed and a litde upset.

Q8

playboy: You've worked with Ben Affleck

and Matt Damon in Dogma, Chasing Amy and other films. Which one has the filthiest sense of humor?

MEWES: Ben.

SMITH: Absolutely Ben! I've kept e-mails from him from back in the day, just because they're so hysterical and filthy and wrong. Ben is one of the dirtiest people I've ever met, dirtier than Redd Foxx. He's probably cleaned up substantially now that he's mar­ried. I don't think his wife, Jennifer Garner, likes me very much. I worked with her on Catch and Release, and you could just tell she did not dig me or my sense of humor at all. MEWES: Did you ever say anything to Ben? smith: I talked to him about it at one point. I was like, "I don't get it. I say the same fuck­ing shit you do." And he goes, "You don't

think I say that kind of shit to my wife, do you? Kev, you have to know your audience."

playboy: A regular part of your live show is "Let Us Fuck," when you act out strange sexual positions with audience members. Has life ever imitated art? smith: Have we tried any of those positions at home? I haven't. None of them look comfort­able. There's never been one where I'm like, "Honey, tonight we're trying the Ewok Cock Block and the Donald Duck Mouth Fuck." mewes: The Ewok Cock Block would be the one to try.

Q10

playboy: Kevin, you once claimed that Jason had sex with Nicole Richie in a public bath­room. The tabloids reported it and caused a minor controversy. Jason, did that discour­age you from having sex in public restrooms? mewf.S: I can't do stuff like that anymore. My lady is definitely not into it, even in my bathroom at home. I try, and she says, "I don't want to fuck in the bathroom." smith: These are married women with beds. "Why should we do this?" mewes: Nothing against beds, but if I was still single, I'd be trying to do some bath­room situations. I can't remember the last time I had sex in public. SMITH: What about on the beach in Australia? MEWES: Oh yeah, right. smith: The sad thing is, he did it more for the story. We were in Australia, and he said, "I'm going to try to have sex with my lady on the beach." I asked why, and he said, 'Just so I can tell the story on a podcast."

Q

playboy: You both worked at a Quick Stop in New Jersey, which became the setting for Clerks. Were the high jinks as outra­geous as in the movie? Did anybody ever have unwitting sex with a corpse? smith: Never. Working at Quick Stop was like working at a fucking library. It was quiet. People would come in, buy their cig­arettes and fucking go. The closest thing to reality in the movie was the motherfuckers who were always just leaning outside the building, smoking dope. Jay and Silent Bob came from those people.

Q12

playboy: Jason, you apparently had a dif­ficult time with the Jay character in Clerks even though it was based on you. What was the problem?

mewes: It was just weird to say that dia­logue. I'd look at the script and read a line like "Snooch to the nooch." Even though I'd said those things a thousand times before, it was weird to say it when it's lines in a script. smith: He froze up like Cindy Brady on camera.

mewes: When I was just being me, I didn't think about what I was going to say. It wasn't like I was thinking, Okay, I'm going to say this crazy thing and blow this guy's mind. smith: The character is a cartoonish version of who he was, and he was pretty cartoon­ish to begin with. He looked at it and was like, "Why would (concluded on page 153)

SMITH AND MEWES

(continued from page 150) I say 'Snooch to the nooch'?" And I'm like, "That's a good question. Why do you say 'Snooch to the nooch'?"

Q13

playboy: Kevin, the hockey movie Hit Somebody was supposed to be your final film. Now you're turning it into a TV miniseries and Clerks III will be your final film. Why are you so eager to retire? What's the rush? SMITH: The only reason we're having this conversation, the only reason I got here, is because I fell in love—desperately, head over heels in love—with cinema. But one day, around the time I was doing Cop Out, I started to realize I'd taken my first love, Lady Cinema, and cheated on it by turning it into an ATM. It was what I did because I needed to pay bills. Film had been a pas­sion, and then it became a job. It became a right and not a privilege.

Q14

PLAYBOY: You've told stories about you and Bruce Willis almost coming to blows on the set of Cop Out. Now that a few years have passed, do you have more insight into what happened? Was it his fault or yours? smith: He's called me a whiner for talking about it, but fuck him. He whined on set ev­ery day. "You want me to shoot before noon?" So if I'm a whiner, fuck you, you're a bigger whiner. It was the first time I worked with somebody who was a paycheck player. Me, Tracy Morgan, Marc Platt the producer—all of us took massive pay cuts to make the movie because we wanted to work with Bruce Willis. Bruce took what he said was a massive pay cut and let us know repeatedly throughout the shoot that he wasn't getting paid nearly enough for "this shit." We really got into it at one point and I thought he was going to deck me. He was like, "You want to take a swing at me?" I was like, "I've worked with children who don't behave like this."

Q15

playboy: Can we point out the irony of a guy making a miniseries called Hit Somebody declining the chance to hit somebody? SMITH: Yeah, that's true. I might not have punched Bruce Willis, but I punched an owl, man. That happened.

Q16

playboy: You punched an owl? Please let there be an explanation. SMITH: I was out on my deck one morning, everybody else was asleep, and I see this fucking owl coming at me. It looked like something out of an old Ridley Scott movie. And he wasn't flapping, he was gliding in. It was fucking spooky. I put the math together and I was like, "It's going after my dog!" I did the bravest thing I've ever done or will ever do in my life. If Bruce Willis was going for my dachshund, I would have punched Bruce Willis like I punched that owl.

Q17

PLAYBOY: Jason, you were struggling to beat an addiction to heroin and painkillers around the time Kevin discovered he really

enjoyed smoking weed. Did that put a strain on your friendship?

mf.weS: Weed is awesome, but it's not tempt­ing to me because I never craved it. smith: It would be like me being on a diet and somebody bringing in a flourless cake. Technically it's sweet and it's got sugar, but I don't like flourless cake. mewes: If he'd started doing coke around me, that would've been different. Heroin, coke, speed—those were the drugs I craved and chased and woke up every day wonder­ing how I was going to get more. smith: I thought it was fair. You know what, motherfucker? I had to deal with you on fuck­ing drugs all those years. Now it's my turn.

Q18

playboy: Kevin, it's been three years since you were kicked off a Southwest flight for being, in your words, "too fat to fly." Has anything changed? Have the airline's seats gotten bigger or your butt smaller? smith: There were real-world repercussions. I couldn't go near an airport because I didn't want my picture taken. But shortly after it happened, I had these Q&A gigs coming up in Texas and I had to get to them. So I rented a bus. I talked to the bus place and they were like, "How many people in the band?" I'm like, "It's just me." There was a long pause, and then they said, "Are you that 'too fat to fly' guy?" The bus was a revelation. I realized I could go anywhere. I could tour litde clubs all over the country. I could bring my friends. Because I can't get on a plane, I take a bus. Because I take a bus, hey, I'll take a bus with my friends and do this. It changed my life for the better. Not that I'm thankful or appreciative to Southwest. They're still fucking awful. But things worked out.

Q19

PLAYBOY: Kevin, no offense, but you're too fat to fly, and yet you landed a hot wife. Share your secrets.

smith: It's all about the sense of humor. Also, when I met Jen [Schwalbach], I'd just come off an all-liquid diet I'd been doing for four months. Mewes was kicking heroin and I was on Optifast. But I looked good. If I was ever going to land a fucking wife, that was the window. She was working for USA Today and she interviewed me. And af­ter the interview we sat around talking for two more hours. I did everything I could to be interesting and tunny and human. I was in a zone. I asked her to be my date to the Independent Spirit Awards. I was nominated for Chasing Amy. She said yes, and then I remembered later I'd already asked Salma Hayek. I was working with her on Dogma, and she was going to come with me as a friend. So I literally had to go to Salma Hayek and tell her I wasn't taking her to the Spirit Awards. She was stunned. I think it was the first time somebody ever canceled a date on her.

Q20

PLAYBOY: You once got into a Twitter feud with Neil Patrick Harris. Was that just a pub­licity stunt, or were you really pissed at him? SMITH: He did some interview for that Harold y Kumar movie, and he was like, "The guys in our flick are real actors, not like that Jay character from the Kevin Smith movies." He called Jason a drugged-out mess who just got stoned and did crazy shit and then we filmed him. It was offensive. This is a guy who hosts the Tonys and shit, criticizing another actor's performance. I know for a fact that Jason is a good actor. I know who he is, I know what he does onscreen, and I know what it takes to do that. I threw some tweets out, calling Neil on it. And to his credit, he said, "Yeah, you're right. In retrospect I was wrong," blah blah blah. Regardless, you don't go after another actor like that, because what you're quietly saying is "I'm a better actor."