Etnies has partnered with Kevin Smith to launch a line of incredibly comfortable foot wear that have his style, sensibilities, and name attached. In honor of this launch, Etnies threw a very exclusive party at the Se Hotel in San Diego during the 2010 Comic-Con and invited selected press to come witness the taping of a live Smodcast and a very select few outlets were invited to interview Kevin Smith afterwards.
Coors passed out all the free beer you could drink on the patio before the broadcast began and everyone mingled. The picture above was Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes (Jay and Silent Bob) hanging out before hand.
Apparently, there was an incredibly complicated contest involving twitter, code-words, and a scavenger hunt of sorts for Kevin Smith superfans to attend the party and Smodcast, so as soon as Kevin Smith came out he was mobbed by people asking to take pictures. He was incredibly gracious to each one, posing with them, talking with them. He was a genuinely nice guy to everyone who approached him.
Then we were ushered into a neighboring room that overlooked the pool and were treated to a live Comic-Con version of the Smodcast. Scott Mosier (producer of Smith’s movies) and Smith were brought out to a small table with three microphones and began to talk about their Comic-Con experiences going back to the premiere of Mallrats. (“The audience reaction was great. We thought we made E.T. and the studio was really happy, but this was the only audience who saw this movie in theatres, apparently.”) You can listen to it on the Smodcast website as soon as it goes live. In the meantime, you can watch a couple of brief tidbits we recorded from the front row:
Then Jason Mewes came out and things got dirty:
After the Smodcast, we were brought to a small private room and given the opportunity to interview Kevin Smith in a one-on-one setting.
You can watch the full interview here, the audio for iTunes will be up soon. Highlights of the conversation are below.
First we talked about the Etnies collaboration. “I thought I was getting punked. One of the designs they showed me was for a pair of sneakers called The Walt Flannagan, which is my friend. And that does it for me more than sneakers with my name on it. If I can wear a pair of Walt Flannagan’s? I mean, I’ve known that mother-fucker for twenty years and if I can wear a pair of sneakers with his name on it, I really feel like we would have accomplished something in this life.”
Then we talked about Red State, “We’ve been talking about Red State for three years and now we’re finally going to go and shoot it. And the extremely limited information about it is people going, ‘It’s going to be like Fred Phelps and stuff like that.’ And it is and it isn’t. I don’t think the Phelps are ever going to see the movie and say, ‘Yeah, that is us.’ The characters aren’t anything you’d want to take credit for. For years people have been saying it’s the Fred Phelps movie and it’s really not. In terms of it being political, it’s very political, but I don’t think the movie is… It doesn’t bash Democrats or Republicans, it’s an equal opportunity basher. It doesn’t single out one over the other. Every once in a while someone in the hardcore right-wing, fucking websites will write something about it and you’ll think, ‘Is this fiction? This can’t be real.’ but somebody really thinks and talks about me going against conservatives and this film has nothing to do with it. They’ll see and just go, ‘Oh. Nevermind.’ It doesn’t take conservatives to task, it takes everybody to task and it’s a whole movie filled with deplorable characters.”
We also talked about his work in comics, “The last couple of years have been really fertile for me in comics.” We talked about his reception in the Batman universe and what might be coming ahead from him. If you haven’t read his Green Arrow or Daredevil, you’re missing out and need to click those links and buy them immediately.
This was perhaps one of my favorite interviews that I’ve ever done and I hope you enjoyed it.
