Actor. Director. Writer. Producer. Podcaster.
With enough job titles to put even Homer Simpson to shame, Kevin Smith is as close as Hollywood gets to having a 21st century renaissance man.
So, with tickets now on sale for Jay & Silent Bob’s Hollywood Babble-On UK Tour (29 June to 3 July), we asked the great man to tell us about his lesser appreciated cultural habits.
Some may even surprise you.
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BAND
"The eighties was the decade in which I first came. So naturally I have a fondness for that decade, and naturally I have a fondness for a band whose lead singer is a king at tantric sex. Yes, I’m a lifelong Police fan - I’ve survived many years following this band only for people to tell me they're uncool, but I don't care. On some level it saddens me that the band all despise one another, but then that’s the beautiful and heart-breaking thing about being a Police fan, it teaches you that you're not going to get on with everyone in life, because let's face it: if Sting and the fucking Police can’t stay together, and they’re making millions, how the fuck are average human beings supposed to get on? I would love to play on stage with Sting. Robert Downey Jr did it once. Then again, people were probably like ‘It’s Iron Man!” whereas with me they'd be like 'who is that dick on stage?'."
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BOOK
"Forget book, I’m watching shit-loads of a Dark Knight Returns cartoon at the moment. It’s a full version of the Frank Miller graphic novel. They establish early on that there's no voice-over, but stay in your seat long enough and you’ll love it. It’s so faithful, even down to the chick with the swastikas on her nipples, it’s brilliant. I'd go so far as to say it's the best film about Batman I’ve seen since The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan's masterpiece. It's not that I minded the last one, the third of his trilogy, but it wasn't quite as good. But then it was always going to have that problem, - for one, it didn’t have a villain half as iconic as The Joker. Just ask your mother who Bane is, and she’ll say ‘you, coming out of my vagina, you’re the bane of my existence!’ But she'd tell you who The Joker was all day long."
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SONG
"Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen. I played it for my 14-year-old kid recently and she actually loved it. That should be the other way around, I'm well aware. But then I'm no stranger to being criticised about musical taste - I once got crucified for buying the She’s Having A Baby soundtrack by some really good friend of mine. Those dudes listened to heavy metal and so when they found that gem in my collection they freaked."
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TV
"Maybe it’s because I was preoccupied in the nineties but I never watched Frasier, but now I watch it religiously. It’s all I watch, it’s my go-to-bed show. Maybe I'll eat a sandwich while it's on, maybe, appropriately for the theme song, I'll mix things with some tossed salad and scrambled eggs. When I tell people they go “Frasier? Ew, that’s so old and nineties’. But I didn’t watch it in the nineties, plus it’s well written, always get a chuckle and goes down pretty damn smooth. Everyone is telling me they’re into Orphan Black or whatever, to which I mention this show and they immediately ask me what decade I’m in."
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INTERNET
"Every morning I go to Google News and see what’s going on, because you never want to throw up a first Tweet about whatever and have people go, ‘You piece of shit, there’s an earthquake somewhere’, so it helps to be informed. I also love Scanner BC, a radio scan for British Columbia in Canada which makes every crime sound like it's happening in a fictional la la land. Seriously, it's just people dueling with hockey sticks. Then there are my Smodcasts, of course. Someone once asked if I’d heard Ricky Gervais’s Podcasts, I asked what a Podcast was, they told me, I said ‘that sounds like a movie commentary, and I’ve been doing those ever since. I’m a big UK Office fan, I love everything Ricky Gervais has done since. I don’t think he’d ever think about working with me, the dude’s a legend and so brilliant, but if he were up for it I’d sure love to do a Podcast with him. My show or his."
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FOOD
"Girl scouts cookies, the most effeminate sounding cookies of them all. They do one called the Samoa, which has shortbread, coconut and caramel drizzled on. We ordered 16 boxes of them and we’re down to the last box - it’s been a week! Another dessert I enjoy comes from Simple Things, a restaurant here in LA, which make these tiny pies, not even cupcake sized' a shot of pie, a single custard and coconut hit contained in a small-ass pastry. Been eating those like crazy lately."
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MOVIE
"This is a HBO Movie called Game Change, starring Julian Moore as Sarah Palin and Ed Harris as John McCain. I’m obsessed with it - it’s so well made and gives you a brief history lesson. The performances are sublime. Moore imbued her character so well; we’ve seen Tina Fey give us a good impersonation but that was 2D, comic, almost just serving for satire, but Moore does gives her soul. I’m not a political guy, so telling my friends I’m really into this TV movie can be a little unnerving, I tend to keep it to myself."
Smith stars in the Jay & Silent Bob’s Hollywood Babble-On UK Tour from 29 June - 3 July. For tickets visit aeglive.co.uk
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