Kevin Smith Speaker & Booking Information

Kevin Smith's films are often set in his home state of New Jersey and are filled with pop culture references, particularly to comic books and the Star Wars movies. Many of Kevin's films take place in the "View Askewniverse" and feature appearances from small-time play-marijuana-dealers Jay and Silent Bob, the latter portrayed by Smith himself.

Although sometimes criticized for crude humor and technical amateurishness (of which Smith himself frequently makes fun at question-and-answer sessions), his films are also known for their distinctive vision, dialogue, and characters.

He is often commended (and criticised) for blatant candor. As exemplified on his college tour DVD, An Evening with Kevin Smith, he is not above taking swipes at his contemporaries (such as his much-publicized negative review of Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia) nor is he shy about revealing intimate moments about himself, his friends, and/or family members (he goes into graphic detail about his first sexual encounter with the woman he would eventually marry, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith). However, his detailed stories are much acclaimed as they can detail the crumbling of a would-be Hollywood blockbuster (such as his story of his tenure on Superman Lives and his failed documentary for Prince) and why he and his friends are so loyal to one another (on his official blog-site, Silent Bob Speaks.com, he detailed friend Jason Mewes' long battle with--and victory over--drug addiction).

Kevin Smith, son of Donald and Grace Smith, grew up in Highlands, New Jersey. After graduating from Henry Hudson Regional School, Smith enrolled at the New School for Social Research to study creative writing, but dropped out before completing the program. He then shifted west, enrolling at the Vancouver Film School, where he met his future producer, and good friend, Scott Mosier. While at the film school, he made a short film called Mae Day: The Crumbling of a Documentary, which was originally supposed to be about a pre-op transsexual but when said transsexual disappeared, Smith found himself without a subject and the short became about the failure of the documentary itself. Soon after this, Smith found himself disillusioned so he dropped out and headed home (not before making a deal with Mosier that whoever finished their screenplay first would make that film and the other would produce).

After returning to New Jersey, Smith returned to his job as a clerk at a Quick Stop convenience store, which would eventually inspire the script to his first film Clerks. Cobbling together $27,000 from his partial tuition refund, parents, credit cards, loans, the insurance money from two cars of his (wrecked from a flood during the filming of Clerks.), and the sale of his comic book collection, Smith and Mosier (who hadn't finished his screenplay, so came down to produce Kevin's film) began production on the black-and-white film. To cut costs, Smith employed friends and local actors to play the roles, and filmed at night in the same convenience store where he worked during the day.

Clerks. debuted at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival where it saw almost no audience during the first few days. More people started seeing the movie as days went on and it eventually got the attention of executives at Miramax. Initially, the film was given an NC-17 rating, based exclusively on its profanity, the first film to garner that rating for that reason. Because the NC-17 rating is thought to be hurtful to a movie's box office performance, Miramax and Smith entered into a court battle with the Motion Picture Association of America, and eventually succeeded in getting the film's rating lowered to an R. The film became a success on the growing independent film circuit, was shown during non-concert hours at Woodstock 1994, and eventually earned a limited national release near the end of 1994. In ensuing years, it became a far-reaching inspiration for budding directors, proving that it was possible to make a movie for $27,000 and have it see wide successful release.

In 1995, Smith wrote and directed Mallrats, the second film in the so-called "Jersey Trilogy". Mallrats chronicles the romantic difficulties of two slackers (played by Jason Lee and Jeremy London) who spend their days hanging around a shopping mall. The film also featured a post-Beverly Hills 90210 Shannen Doherty and a pre-fame Ben Affleck. A more typical Hollywood comedy than Clerks., Mallrats was a failure with critics as well as at the box office, and Smith later found himself haunted by a tongue-in-cheek apology he made at the 1995 Independent Spirit Awards. Universal had said that they wanted it to be a "smart Porky's." Smith later remarked in his question and answer session, An Evening with Kevin Smith, that Universal executives pressured him to cut scenes, including a scene where Silent Bob (Smith himself) masturbates while watching Gwen (played by Joey Lauren Adams) changing in a dressing room, and he ejaculates over the partition into her hair. According to the scene, her hair would be altered as a result (as famously seen two years later in There's Something About Mary), but the executives claimed that the gross-out factor was too disgusting to be comedic.

In 1997, Smith released Chasing Amy. The film follows the story of a man (played by Ben Affleck) who falls in love with a lesbian (Joey Lauren Adams). Following Clerks, and Mallrats, Chasing Amy was seen as having surprising emotional depth, and was greeted with generally positive critical acclaim and modest box office success. Smith indicated that Clerks had been almost overpraised, while Mallrats had been overly bashed. This put him in a very freeing position for Chasing Amy, in that people could not say much better things than they had of Clerks, but could not say much worse things than they had of Mallrats, which made it easy for Smith to be very honest and vulnerable in making this third film.

While making Chasing Amy, Smith had been dating lead star Joey Lauren Adams, only to break up with her mid-1997. Around a year later, Smith met Jennifer Schwalbach, a reporter from USA Today, who came to interview him. Shortly after that, they struck up a relationship and Schwalbach was his date at the Independent Spirit Awards. They later found out Schwalbach was pregnant, and they were married at Skywalker Ranch. Shortly after, Schwalbach gave birth to Harley Quinn Smith (named after a villain in the Batman animated series).

The year 1999 saw the release of Smith's controversial film Dogma, which was originally slated to be made after Clerks. but scrapped after he wished to have it produced with appropriate special effects. The film followed the plight of a barren and disillusioned Catholic woman (Linda Fiorentino), divinely chosen to prevent two renegade angels (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) from returning to heaven by means of a loophole in Catholic dogma. As God had mandated that they could never return to heaven, the angels' actions would prove God wrong, causing a contradiction and resulting in the termination of existence. Despite the fact that Smith is Catholic, several religious groups (especially the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights led by William Donohue) claimed that the film was anti-Catholic and blasphemous, and organized protests, including one that took place at the November 12 premiere of the film at Lincoln Center in New York City. They also received three death threats (most of which were apparently aimed at Harvey and Bob Weinstein of Miramax, which led them to drop the film) which were a great worry to new husband and father, Kevin Smith.

Smith noted that several of the protests occurred before the film was even finished, suggesting that the protests were more about media attention for the groups than for whatever was controversial about the film. (Smith, accompanied by friend Bryan Johnson, anonymously joined one of the protests carrying a sign that read "Dogma is Dogshit", and was even interviewed in his protester guise by a local TV station.)

A life-long comic book fan, Kevin's early forays into comic books dealt with previously established View Askew characters, and were published by Oni Press. He wrote a short Jay and Silent Bob story about Walt Flanagan's dog in Oni Double Feature #1, and followed it with a Bluntman and Chronic story in Oni Double Feature #12.

He followed these with a series of one-shots featuring the characters of Clerks. The first was simply Clerks: The Comic Book, which told of Randal's attempts to corner the market on Star Wars toys. The second was Clerks: Holiday Special, where Dante and Randal discover that Santa Claus lives in an apartment between the Quick Stop and RST Video. Third was Clerks: The Lost Scene, showing what happened inside Poston's Funeral Parlor. This issue was later animated and included as a DVD extra. These will all be collected in the forthcoming trade Tales From the Clerks, which also includes a new story.

Smith also wrote a trade paperback called Bluntman and Chronic, published by Image, which purports to be a collection of the three issues of the series done by Holden McNeil and Banky Edwards (of Chasing Amy). It also includes a color printing of the story from Oni Double Feature #12, purported to be an early appearance by McNeil and Edwards.

Smith makes occassional mention of his desire to do a comic miniseries about Bartleby and Loki (from Dogma), as well as a comic-only sequel to Mallrats called "Mallrats 2: Die Hard in a Mall".

Smith began a lengthy association with Marvel Comics in 1999 with Smith taking over as the writer of the Marvel Comic "Daredevil". His run, which lasted eight issues, was plagued by delays (which artist Joe Quesada publicly took responsibility for, though it was a sign of things to come) and became quite controversial as Smith killed off former supporting cast member/love interest Karen Page and longtime Spider-Man villain Mysterio.

His tenure on Daredevil was a commercial hit for Marvel, but was controversial among Daredevil fans. Some fans accused Smith of misogyny in his handling of Karen Page's death, and others objected to the killing of long-time Spiderman foe Mysterio in a non-Spiderman series. John Byrne (then-current writer on one of the Spider-Man titles) brought the character back within a few months, saying that the death had been faked.

Kevin Smith followed this by jumping to DC Comics, producing a 14 issue run on Green Arrow that saw the return of Ollie Queen from the dead and the introduction of a new female "Speedy" character. Unlike his Daredevil run, Smith's Green Arrow run was a huge critical success inside the comic community. After his initial "rebirth" storyline Quiver, there was also a short arc featuring a new villain.

Smith returned to Marvel for two mini-series: Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do and Daredevil/Bullseye: Target. The former is six issues long; the first three issues were published, followed by a delay of three years before the final three (Marvel allegedly refused to start soliciting for the later issues until they had all the scripts). It deals with Black Cat addressing the fact that she was once raped, and trying to help another rape survivor come to terms with it. The latter is supposed to be four issues although only one issue was published, in January of 2003. As of July, 2006, there has been no word when this series will be completed.

Kevin Smith was also approached and offered a chance to write an ongoing Spider-Man book in 2002, but turned down the request when he was told that as a condition of taking the assignment, that Smith would have to have his first Spider-Man story feature the ending of Spider-Man's marriage to his longtime wife Mary Jane. Allegedly Smith's reputation in the comic world had become a very negative one due to his delays and killing of Karen Page, and knew that his name would be mud if he took the book and ended Spider-Man's marriage. [citation needed]

In 2000, Smith and Mosier teamed up with television writer David Mandel (Seinfeld and SNL) to develop an animated television show based on Clerks. This was an idea Smith had been kicking around since the production of Mallrats and after pitching it to nearly every major television network, ABC TV picked it up for airing in March 2000. After being delayed to May, Clerks: The Animated Series aired only two episodes, out of order, before being canceled as a result of poor ratings. It was released on DVD in 2001, marking one of the first occasions in which a short-lived TV series found success in this format.

In 2001, Smith released what he claimed would be his final film featuring Jay and Silent Bob, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. In the film, the duo attempt to travel to Hollywood to stop production on a film based on their alter-egos, Bluntman and Chronic, and take revenge on those who post negative comments about them on online message boards. Littered with inside jokes and cameos from characters in previous Smith films, the director called it a "Valentine" to his fans. While the film featured appearances from numerous View Askew veterans, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back also included a lengthy and star-studded cast and cameo list that included Shannon Elizabeth, Eliza Dushku, Will Ferrell, Judd Nelson, George Carlin, Carrie Fisher, Seann William Scott, Jon Stewart, Jules Asner, Steve Kmetko, Tracy Morgan, Gus Van Sant, Chris Rock, Jamie Kennedy, Wes Craven, Shannen Doherty, Mark Hamill, Diedrich Bader, Alanis Morissette, Morris Day & The Time, Jason Biggs, and James Van Der Beek. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation criticized the movie arguing that it contained humor at the expense of gay men. Smith responded by saying that the Jay and Silent Bob characters were satire of young male "idiots", however, GLAAD suggested that Smith give a donation to Matthew Shepard Foundation (which he did).[1]

In previous years, Smith had quietly performed question and answer sessions at colleges and comic book conventions around the country. Given that he couldn't reach every college, and that he wanted a permanent record of what went on at these events, Smith filmed several of the sessions and compiled a DVD, titled An Evening with Kevin Smith. His candid and humorous answers give many insights to the story of his journey as a filmmaker. The DVD was such a success that Smith decided to film a second DVD at sessions in Toronto and London, which is currently slated for release in 2006 to coincide with the theater release of Clerks II.

In 2004, Smith released Jersey Girl, a film about a man (Ben Affleck) struggling to raise his daughter after the death of his wife (played by Jennifer Lopez). It was the first of Kevin's feature films to have no continuity with the "View Askewniverse" series. George Carlin and Liv Tyler starred alongside Affleck in the comedic drama. The film opened to mixed reviews, lackluster box office and disapointments by fans. Smith referred to the film as his "fatherhood movie", and found bittersweet comfort that he was able to share the film with his own father just prior to his death.