Note: Kevin Smith’s words are in BLUE.
Note: Offensive language in side. Swears have been censored.
Film-maker Kevin Smith visited the Sydney Opera house recently (8th and 9th August 2010) and spoke at length about a variety of topics; telling long and entertaining stories. Many we have heard before on Smodcast or previous Q and A’s, but there were a few things that I had not heard him talk at length about before. So I recorded those sections on my iphone during the show for this website.
Over the next week or so I will transcribe Smith talking on a variety of topics, from Twilight: Eclipse, Comic Books, , and a long, long piece of life advice told to an eleven year old boy in attendance, I have already transcribed him talking about Fred Phelps and his upcoming film: ‘Red State’; which you can find also on the site, but for now here is Smith talking about his relationship with Harvey Weinstein and their time together over the years. Enjoy:
SMITH:
I didn’t have a falling out with the [Film Producers] the Weinsteins’. No. After ‘Zack And Miri’ I was really fu*king ticked; because I felt ‘Zack And Miri’ was our best one yet, and our best shot at success. And the ad campaign just kind of sucked. They could never really figure out how to sell that movie; they just got kind of scared and unsure. They were like: “Well, people are going to flip on the title so let’s just take off that title on the TV spots.
We watched a TV spot that said ‘Zack And Miri Make A Por*o’ and then ten minutes later we saw another TV spot that said just ‘Zack And Miri’. and it looked like a completely different movie. I mean, my mom might go and see ‘Zack And Miri’, but she wouldn’t go see ‘Zack And Miri Make A Por*o’…because people were just differentiating between the two. I don’t know. It wasn’t very inspiring. At the end of it, we were all just kind of disappointed.
With the partnership, we were kind of coming to the end of it anyway. They were having some kind of big problems in terms of what was going to come financially next year, and they were also interested in getting [Their previous production company] Miramax back, and I was like; “You know what, I just need to separate for a little while, go someplace else’, just to kind of do my own thing and whatnot.
Sometimes you spend so much time with someone that just eventually you’ve got to separate. You have got to try something else. I mean, for lack of a better description: In film, Harvey Weinstein was my father, you know what I’m saying… And so at a certain point everyone has got to step away from their father and see if they can make it on their own and sh*t.
So that went on, and I thought: “This is the best time.’ I thought after ‘Zack and Miri’ I’ll just let my deal nullify and not reopen it and sh*t like that. I’ll just go and be by myself. And it would be better for them financially to pay me to leave instead of paying a certain amount every year just to keep me there. And so with that money I paid for my office. They cut me my freedom and whatnot.
You know, they passed on [Smith’s upcoming film] ‘Red State’ about a year before, so I knew I wanted to make ‘Red State’ next, and I knew it wasn’t going to be there anyway. I didn’t leave because I was mad at him or anything like that, I mean, you can’t be mad at people who meant that much to you. I owe Harvey Weinstein my whole life, you know what I’m saying.
Harvey Weinstein picked up my flick [‘Clerks’] and starting playing it in cinemas. He introduced me to the world. I can’t be mad. You can never forget a thing like that.
He is a larger than life colorful character and sh*t, and I’m proud to say I’ve known him over the years and whatnot, but at the same time I got to go out and prove something. You know for years all I’ve ever gotten money for a [Smith says the following in a voice resembling a stuffy judgmental critic] “fu*king Kevin Smith movie” was from “fu*king stupid Miramax and fu*king Harvey Weinstein”.
So I left the party thinking: “I want to see if what they say is true”. Will I be able to find a career somewhere else? Or is my whole career based on the charity of Harvey Weinstein?
So by being away from him, I got to kind of go out there and test my levels as a film-maker, and as a business man as well. I didn’t really have to do much business with the Weinsteins, it’s not like they ever cared about any of that sh*t.
John Gordon, who was Harvey’s assistant for years, and years, and years…he’s the guy that’s originally responsible for Harvey picking up ‘Clerks’. He went to the Sundance Film Festival in 1994 with Harvey, and Harvey asked him: “Well, whats good this year?” and John was just like: “I like ‘Clerks’ man, that moved me”. And then Harvey went and watched fifteen minutes of it and walked out and was like: “They are busting my balls on smoking, fu*k this!” He is a huge smoker and sh*t. If he had waited two minutes he would have seen that I was a huge smoker too! But he couldn’t make it past the Chewlies gum representative, he was like: “This guy’s lecturing me, I’m outta here” and he left.
So John gordon at Sundance said: “You’ve really got to see it, give it another shot”. So he came again and watched the whole thing and fell in love with it and sh*t. So John Gordon is my producer now, and Scott [Scott Mosier; Smith’s long time producer] is not going to be the producer on ‘Red State’. Scott is pursuing a film career of his own at this point, as well as working on a animated series for Disney.
So john gordon jumped on for producer, and Johns like: “We’ve got to form a company, what should we call it?”. “Well dude, we should call it what we are. We are ‘The Harvey Boys’. Harvey raised us. He is kind of our dad.
So Harvey called me the other day, in regards to this other thing; ‘minimum salary turn around’ or something, and I told him. I was like: “Hey”, and he was like: “How are you guys doing?”, and I was like: “We’re going to do ‘Red State’”. He goes: “Whats’ ‘Red State’?” And I said: “You know, you passed on it; about a year ago, two – three years, you know?”. And he goes: “Oh right, who is working on it? Scott?”, I said: “No, it’s John Gordon”. He said “John!? You and John Gordon?!…Oh well there goes the neighbourhood.”
I said: “We named our production company after you”, and he said: “What do you mean?” I said: “We’re calling ourselves The Harvey Boys” and there was dead silence. And I was like: ‘Is he going to be mad?’ and he goes: ‘Thats just so fu*king beautiful’. I was like: “You think?” and he goes: “I feel touched Kevin. I’m honored”. I said :“I thought it would be nice to name ourselves The Harvey Boys after you” and he was like “I got to go”…and his voice was cracking, we got to him a little bit.
And so we’re still very friendly. What I love about Harvey Weinstein is that Harvey is budgetary. I mean he would often tell us, and I never quite understood until recently: “Don’t worry kevin, we are in the book”. I said: “The comic book?” or something like that. He said “No. The book, book”.
I mean, he told me right before I left that: “You know Kevin; I know you’re really scared about Judd Apatow, and you think nobody likes you anymore, and that he is going to replace you, but I’m just here to tell you that Judd is very successful and he will probably work till the day he dies, but Kevin, you and I: They are going to write books about us, don’t you understand that?”. And I was like: “Why would anyone write books about us?”.
And he was like: “Because you made ‘Clerks’, and I sold ‘Clerks’”. And I was like; “I guess that’s kind of cool.” He is like: “‘Clerks’ is Mutherfu*kin’ ‘Clerks’”. He could give me props that made me forget that I haven’t made a hundred million dollar grossing movie. So as much as at times he was a major pain in the ass to deal with, sometimes he made you go crazy…he was still always a father figure to me. I mean, he always looked out for us, he always let us do exactly what we wanted to do.
The other beautiful thing about Miramax, for those fifteen years, was that I would go in there and he would say: “What do you want to do?” and I would say: “I want to do this movie where a dude blows a donkey while this chick tells this guy that she loves him” and he was like: “Okay”.
He was always very frank about stuff. like he would say: “Kevin, I’m an old man, and this is a young mans’ world, we make movies for the young, so you do what you have to do. We don’t know what to tell you to do; other than than to do it”.
He was a huge movie lover, but you know, there is another side of Harvey that a lot of other film-makers had to deal with, but I never had to because of that: “I’m an old man, this is a young mans world” kind of thing. There were other movies man, where he was all over them; telling other directors what to do, they called him “Harvey Scissorhands’ and sh*t. But for me, not at all.
Once in a while he would give me a note…but that was the thing about Harvey, one day he could be like a bull with a horn, but the next day he would forget about it. So I don’t know… I never think of fighting with Harvey or anything like that, It’s just I think it’s time I stood my own.
Me and John we left the studio. We want to do a movie or two and then come back. Just to say: “We went off and did it by ourselves man!”. So that’s kind of our frame of mind at the moment.
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