A Evening with Kevin Smith in Austin, Texas 3-4-2010

I don’t know how he does it, but the man can talk for hours (three and a half to be exact) and it’s never boring. Kevin Smith has been known for his question and answer sessions for the better part of a decade now. With the release of three DVD sets covering a collection of his best retorts so far, I’m stunned that the man keeps it up. And add to the fact that anyone, and I mean anyone, that requested Smith sign their memorabilia, call their friend, or just provide them a handshake, Smith obliged happily. The guy may be the most approachable star in Hollywood and seems to be just as genuine.

I’m not going to sit here and review this because that would be silly. Either you love the man and will go see him when he comes through your town or you don’t give a shit and aren’t reading this article. What I will do is cover what I remember from the Q/A session last Thursday.

Southwest Airlines-

At first I was little mad when some dude asked Smith about his Southwest debacle. I mean, seriously? Have we not heard enough from Smith himself or from CNN? And yes, it took him 30 minutes to get through it but I found hearing the whole saga all at once to be pretty fascinating. I also hadn’t heard about the woman they tried to make an example of on his following flight. It came across as some sort of appeasement for wronging Smith. “Look, she’s fat too so we’re kicking her off! See, we don’t hate you at all!” Pretty funny stuff. He also had a great line that he supposedly said to a Southwest representative- “The manager handed me a brochure and said, ‘You’ll find a support team to contact in this if you’d like to discuss the incident.’ I just told him, ‘Keep it. Within an hour you’ll be coming to me.’”

He also rented a tour bus for his trip to Texas on this leg of the tour. Nothing crazy, just though I’d point that out.

Cop Out-

He didn’t have as much to say about the movie as he had to say about Bruce Willis. Someone asked him what challenges he had during production and he admitted that working with Willis was pretty much the hardest thing he’d ever done. Not that he’s an asshole or anything but because Willis has been around for 25 years and just does what he feels is right. Smith also mentioned that Willis would start saying lines in scenes that they weren’t even written for. Sometimes the dialogue was just a joke and other times it might be central to the plot. Although it baffled him at the time, he realized while editing the movie that Willis was actually helping him. Say, for example, that it is an important piece to the flow of the movie (for those that have seen Cop Out, Smith referenced, “I need to find my baseball card!”) Without this line, a reshoot would be necessary. So when the original scene it was written for was deemed unnecessary, Smith lucked out because he had three other scenes to choose from where Willis read that mandatory piece of the script.

He also mentioned a scene where he asked Willis to read the line like his character from Moonlighting. Willis was stunned that he had even requested such a thing- “You want me to do emulate a performance I did 25 years ago?” Smith jokingly replied (to us, not Willis I presume), “Well it’s actually from Season two so it would be 24 years ago but at any rate…” In the end, Willis said the line as Smith requested and then added afterwards, “That was for you, Kev.”

George Carlin-

Kevin gave a pretty heartfelt response to a question asked about Carlin’s acting. The query referenced that Carlin was always unhappy with the way he acted in films. Smith detailed how devoted to the craft Carlin was. Even with something as widely dismissed as Jersey Girl, Carlin apparently wrote and memorized a complete back story for his character, independent of anything in the script. Smith also recalled how proud everyone was when Carlin produced tears for the end of that film. And tragically, his last conversation involved a schedule conflict Carlin had with a role he was supposed to play in Zack and Miri Make a Porno. “Looks like I can’t work it out for this one. But I’ll be there for the next one.”

I know it's a shitty iPhone pic, but that's the man right there, robe and all.

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