Writer, producer and director Kevin Smith’s Silent Bob character seldom speaks—but Smith, in real life, has a lot to say.
Smith is the creator of cult-favorite movies like Mallrats, Dogma, Clerks and Chasing Amy, and well as disturbing horror flicks like Red State and Tusk. His profound love for comics and nerd culture has led to him writing comics for both Marvel and DC, owning a comic book store, and producing the reality TV show Comic Book Men, based in that comic book store. Finally, he regularly performs An Evening With Kevin Smith, during which he tells stories and answers every question the audience has—even if it takes all night. He’ll be doing so at The Show at Agua Caliente Rancho Mirage on Friday, Jan. 26.
When I spoke to Smith on the phone, he reflected on 2023, and said he’s in a “better place than I was last year at this time.” In January 2023, Smith checked into the Sierra Tucson treatment center for mental health reasons. He made a lengthy video with People in April talking about trauma and his healing process.
“The upside has been a year of people being like, ‘Hey, I saw that video, thank you,’ from a bunch of folks who felt seen or heard because of a chit chat about mental health,” Smith said. “That was really meaningful. You want something to come out of it, and I am a people-pleaser and codependent … so even the codependency of my trial helping you, that’s good; something positive comes out of it. I’m learning to put myself first, which is so strange; because I work in the entertainment business, I think I’m always putting myself first—but really, I do kind of backseat it to everybody else. That’s something that I have not been able to shake just yet, but overall, I’m certainly in a better place than I was last year at this time. I just know more about myself, so now it’s about understanding who’s at the wheel, so to speak, and the different aspects of one’s personality. At one point, I was kind of letting the entertainer take over and run the show.”
In 2024, Smith is putting his patented stoner humor aside (yes, he quit smoking weed) to focus on a different kind of breathing.
“When you breathe, you’re mindful,” Smith said. “You can’t breathe in the past, can’t breathe in the future—you can only breathe in the present, and it grounds you. The last half of 2023, there were just so many times I forgot to breathe, so to speak. I was breathing, but just to stay alive, and not breathing to consciously understand that you’re in the here and now, and nothing’s wrong. What Sierra Tucson taught us is we spend an inordinate amount of time in the past, and that’s where depression is, and then we spend an inordinate amount of time in the future, and that’s where anxiety lives. We rarely spend time in this moment.’”
Smith compared his time at the treatment center to real life.
“When you’re in Sierra Tucson, it’s like fucking adult Disneyland,” Smith said with a laugh. “Everything you say is met with a chorus of people who go, ‘We support you,’ and then they’re snapping their fingers, because clapping is just too aggro. (Sierra Tucson) is a supportive world, but we don’t live in the supportive world, and the moment you exit that, you’re kind of at the mercy of the day to day, just like everyone else, and the key is to try to take what you learned in there and apply it to the outside world, knowing that it’s never going to be the same thing. There have definitely been moments where I was like, ‘Fuck, I wish I was back in Sierra Tucson.’ … It’s more difficult out here navigating this, and that’s what you have to do. We don’t get to live in a place like Sierra Tucson unless you’re silly wealthy, and I’m so not.”
After his time at Sierra Tucson, Smith endured a number of trials in 2023.
“One of the most stressful things you could do as a human being is to move—and we moved twice last year,” he said. “We moved out of our house of 20 years into a new house in the valley, and then four months later, moved back to the old house. It was probably not the best course of action to buy a house coming out of Sierra Tucson, where you’re just like, ‘Everything has to change,’ and then you get to a place where you’re like, ‘Oh, my God, I miss our house.’ … You shed a lot of skin when you make a move, and we’ve been in that house for over two decades, since we moved to California in 2002. Good things came out of the move, and we unearthed things that we forgot that we owned.”
A serious injury to Smith’s wife added to the tumult.
“Four days into the five-day move, Jennifer fell and shattered her fucking hip,” Smith said. “She’s in full recovery now, but it was harrowing to say the least, and most of the pre-holiday was spent convalescing with her and getting her from place to place in the house, so we didn’t really unpack. All of our shit is back in our house in boxes, and only now is Jennifer starting to tackle boxes and unpack them in various rooms. I’ve been working on my office for the last two months—but my office just looks like a hoarder’s office.”
In late 2022, Smith and some friends opened Smodcastle Cinemas near his childhood home in New Jersey; it is a movie theater dedicated to a mix of new films, screenings of cult classics and special engagements of movies from Smith’s catalog.
“Me and my friends were like, ‘What a fucking hoot it will be to own our childhood theater’—and it turns out film exhibition is in the toilet, and it’s not a hoot as much as fucking work,” he said. “This is the most work I’ve done since Quick Stops (a comic book series Smith created). The good news is it’s fun work, because it’s like, ‘Oh, we’re having a screening of Mallrats, and Jason Lee is gonna be there.’ It just means you have to put extra elbow grease behind everything you do, because new movies aren’t making any money. Oddly enough, it’s when we do Tusk with Justin Long that we can sell out and stuff. The next event we’ve got coming up is on Jan. 20; we’re doing “Clerks: Open All Night 2,” where you come in at 10 o’clock at night; we lock you in; and we force you to watch all three Clerks movies until 6 in the morning. Events like that make it fun, but they’re also absolutely necessary to keep the lights on.”
The mix of difficulty and fun made the Smodcastle Cinemas project one of the brighter spots of Smith’s 2023.
“Having that as a small goal-focus last year was really therapeutic,” Smith said. “You can’t sell more than 220 seats, and I’m used to having to sell 2,000 seats. Selling 220 seats in suburban central New Jersey is its own difficult measure, and you’ve got to get people to come down from New York or from Philly and whatnot, so you’re constantly in sales mode. Having those little hills to climb, as opposed to forcing myself to sell out a 2,000-seater, while I was still so tender coming out of Sierra Tucson, seemed like the right move.
“Also, being a filmmaker who owns a movie theater that has an apartment above it that you can live in is being a cobbler living in a giant shoe. It’s just fucking adorable.”
“There is not a day that’s gone by since 1994 that I’ve not said the word ‘Clerks’ out loud. I’m constantly celebrating myself and my minor achievements.”
Kevin Smith
He said he’s happy the theater has allowed him, as well as his friends and collaborators, to take a “victory lap.”
“The fires of fandom have always been lit and warmly burning in my world,” Smith said. “Bringing Jeff Anderson (who plays Randal) and Brian O’Halloran (Dante) into a room full of hardcore fans so they could watch the all six episodes of the Clerks cartoon with them is like this victory lap late in life for a lot of the people who I worked with over my career. I’m victory-lapping every day. There is not a day that’s gone by since 1994 that I’ve not said the word Clerks out loud. I’m constantly celebrating myself and my minor achievements, but it’s nice to bring my friends and be like, ‘Remember we couldn’t get anybody to buy the Clerks cartoon? Look at this packed room laughing at all the jokes, and we get to sit there with them.’ It’s kind of beautiful, man, and like I said, they’re certainly therapeutic for me. I see my friends dig it, too, because they’re like, ‘Oh my god, people really liked these movies,’ and I’m like, ‘Yes! Why do you think I’ve never moved on and matured as a filmmaker? This was always good enough.’”
In February 2018, Smith famously survived a “widowmaker” heart attack. As Smith grows older, he said reminiscing about his accomplishments is not only good for his mental health, but fitting for his stage in life.
“It’s about making it fun for yourself, particularly as we enter the autumn of our years,” Smith said. “I’m 53, and I almost died of a heart attack six years ago now, so you’re never promised tomorrow. It’s nice to kind of have a place to go to where you can have a victory lap and walk down memory lane. A bunch of people are still patting me on the back for some shit I did decades ago, because it aged well, I guess. It (2023) was a good year, all things considered, and there were some therapeutic moments that kind of made up for the big dips.”
Kevin Smith will perform at 8 p.m., Friday, Jan. 26, at The Show at Agua Caliente Rancho Mirage, 32250 Bob Hope Drive, in Rancho Mirage. Tickets are $25 to $75. For tickets or more information, call 800-514-3849, or visit aguacalientecasinos.com.