Since “Clerks II” reached theaters in 2006, its writer-director Kevin Smith says he’s been thinking about making a third installment of the indie comedy franchise set in a New Jersey convenience store.
“Honestly, I’ve been talking about doing ‘Clerks III’ since we finished on ‘Clerks II,’” Smith says during a recent interview at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills. “We did a scene in the movie set in the jail where Randal finally shows you his heart.
“And I was like, ‘Wow, that’s fascinating, I want to spend a whole movie with that guy,’” he says. “Scratching the cynic and finding the optimist underneath. Like, that would be fascinating.”
He almost made that movie seven years ago, based on a script he wrote that he describes “like the King Lear of ‘Clerks’ movies,’” Smith says.
“It was a guy obsessed with death, who hadn’t experienced it yet,” he says. “We had the money, we had our location. We were going to be shooting in Philly. We had most of the crew from ‘Creed,’ which had just wrapped.
“And then the whole thing fell apart, two weeks out.”
Three years passed, and in 2018, Smith almost died after a serious heart attack. Suddenly, the ‘Clerks’ sequel took on a new urgency, and story, too.
“I started learning into it big time,” Smith says. “Because I was like, ‘Look, you know, now you’re living on borrowed time, act accordingly.’
“Before, it’s like, ‘I’ll figure this out, I’ve got years,’” he says. “And now it’s like, ‘Well, maybe not. Maybe you don’t have years. Maybe you need to step this up.’”
“Clerks III” arrived in theaters this week. It’s a more serious, yet still very funny version of the stories Smith told in the first two films. Both of those had followed characters inspired by Smith’s own stint behind the counter of a New Jersey convenience store as they’d aged – if not exactly grown up.
Get a heart attack, give a heart attack
In the new film, the stakes are higher, once again inspired by Smith’s own story. The movie opens with Randal (Jeff Anderson) nearly dying of a heart attack at the Quick Stop that he and Dante (Brian O’Halloran) now own.
Fearing he’s squandered his life behind the counter and never followed his love of cinema, Randal decides to make a low-budget movie about all the experiences he’s had there.
”‘Clerks’ has always brought out the poet in me for lack of a better description,” Smith says. “The Bruce Springsteen in me. It’s me doing my best work when I’m working with Dante and Randal. And here I have gone through some major life changes.
“What is the first movie except me doing a biopic – that was literally my life,” he says. “So I could still do that. I just have to give them my life now. So Randal got my heart attack, and he also got my movie as well.
“I was like, this is authentic. These things happened to me.”
But first, Smith had to get the gang back together again, and he wasn’t sure his lead actor was ever going to say yes.
Amends with friends
As affable as Smith is, he’s also managed to fall out with some of his closest collaborators. Ben Affleck starred in Smith’s second film, “Chasing Amy,” and returned for a handful more before the two became estranged.
Smith and Anderson, whose story was to be the center of “Clerks III,” were also on the outs.
But about three years ago, Smith and Jason Mewes, who plays Jay in the “Clerks” movies, were at the same Four Seasons, signing collectibles for a merchandise company, when Smith was told Anderson was also coming in.
“I hadn’t seen Jeff in years,” Smith says. “We’d had a falling out the last time we spoke, and that had a lot to do with the fact why ‘Clerks III’ never happened. So, you know, it was like, ‘What’s it going to be like?’”
He and Mewes had recently finished “Jay and Silent Bob Reboot” — Smith, in addition to writing and directing, also often appears in his own movies as Silent Bob — and for that film, he and Affleck had made up to the point that Affleck appeared in the film. (He also has a cameo in “Clerks III” alongside other familiar faces such as Danny Trejo, Sarah Michelle Geller and Fred Armisen.)
“I was like kind of chuffed by that,” Smith says of Affleck’s return. “I was like, well, if I can mend fences with Ben, I gotta be able to do that with Jeff.”
After the signing, they stepped out on a balcony, and while Smith had a cigarette he told Anderson that he hoped they could renew their friendship and screen collaboration both.
“He was like, ‘I didn’t think you were gonna talk to me today,’” Smith says. “I was like, ‘I couldn’t wait to talk to you because I want to do ‘Clerks III,’ but not the one I was talking about before.”
Anderson asked about the new story.
“I was like, ‘OK, in “Clerks III,” Randal has a massive heart attack,’ and he was like, ‘Where’d you get that?’
Smith laughs at the obviousness of the inspiration, but by the time they left the balcony, Anderson was back in.
Back to the Quick Stop
In a separate room at the hotel that day, Anderson, Mewes and O’Halloran all agreed that the appeal of “Clerks,” and the way it has mirrored their real lives, has always drawn them back in time.
“It’s always a terrible time reuniting with these guys,” Anderson jokes. “We’re like the girls from ‘Sex In The City.’ We’re very catty.”
O’Halloran, who mostly works in theater when not appearing in Smith’s films, said the cast and director are like a family more than anything else.
“We’ve known each other now almost 28, 30 years,” he says. “It’s like coming to a summer camp, or kind of a family barbecue, the yearly, or biweekly, or in this case, every seven years kind of thing.”
He, as Dante, and Anderson, as Randal, also pop up in other non-“Clerks” films alongside Mewes as Jay and Smith as Silent Bob. (Smith calls his loosely connected cinematic world the View Askewniverse.) For Mewes, this is his eighth film with Smith, making it easy to snap back into character.
“When Kevin wrote ‘Clerks,’ he based it off our four-year friendship at that point,” Mewes says. “So it’s pretty easy to get back into. I’m like, ‘All right, am I gonna memorize all this dialogue? I always want to throw in a little bit of my own business. Maybe I’ve grown a little bit in the last few years so I want to throw that in there.”
Anderson, who often insists he’s not really an actor, says it’s simple to pick up the rhythms of Smith’s voice on the page and retransform into Randal.
“I slip a piece of gum in my mouth and I’m Randal,” he says.
Four or five days of rehearsals before shooting begins is all it really takes, O’Halloran says.
“Over the years, Kevin has started to give us more and more trust in playing with the words or adding things to it,” O’Halloran says. “In the beginning, it was like, ‘I wrote these words, stick to the script,’ kind of thing.
“But now, with all this kind of confidence and trust in us with these characters, it’s a lot more fun.”
Less cursing, more dreaming
When “Clerks” arrived in 1994 the black-and-white film that Randal recreates in a meta take on the franchise represented Smith’s life at the time. A dozen years later, “Clerks II” did the same, and now “Clerks III” picks up the story.
The movie, like its writer-director, is older, wiser, if not entirely devoid of jokes about body parts that aren’t discussed in polite society.
“The older one gets, I’m certainly not saying the less funny things are, but it’s like when you’re young, you’re frivolous,” Smith says. “So it’s like, ‘Hey, I’m gonna say a bunch of curse words.’ The older you get, you can’t pull that off.
“Now we live in the age of streaming TV,” he says. ” ‘Ted Lasso,’ they curse exquisitely, so, you know, that’s not my sharpest stick anymore. So what do you fill it with?
“Maybe I could bring some weight to it. The weight comes with being middle-aged, when of course you’re like, ‘Wait a second, there’s probably less time in front of me than there is being me at this point. And that starts seeping into the work.”
At the premiere held recently at TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, Smith brought much of the “Clerks” family to the front of the theater before the movie began, thanking them for sticking with him over all these years.
“I love these people so much,” he said. “This is a dream of mine. Took a long time to get here, man, to make it a reality. But tonight we all get to sit back and enjoy and watch.
“Thank you to everybody standing up here. They made my dream come true.”
How to see ‘Clerks III’
“Clerks III” will initially be presented by Fathom Events in movie theaters from Sept. 13-18. Writer-director-star Kevin Smith will then take it on the road for screenings and live Q&A events. After that, plans for release to theaters or home viewing have not yet been announced.
For tickets and all the details go to Clerks3.movie.
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