Kevin Smith Is Growing Up

The indie director leaves the ViewAskewniverse for Hollywood, and couldn't be happier.

By Matt Patches at 3:30 PM
February 22, 2010

http://www.ugo.com/movies/kevin-smith-cop-out-interview

Kevin Smith - Cop Out Credit: Warner Bros Pictures

Kevn Smith loves telling stories. If you've ever seen An Evening with Kevin Smith, the man knows how to lay down a rant and pepper it with his signature, colorful langauge, and he takes that same no-holds-barred approach even when he's feeling successful i.e. his action comedy is about to debut.

Unlike his past films, Kevin Smith was a gun-for-hire, letting writters Mark and Rob Cullen take the scripting reigns...so don't expect any sh*t monsters or crude donkey scenes. But that's just fine with Smith.

On the prospect of casting Bruce Willis:

"[Producer] Marc Platt was the only thing on the movie when I got there. I meet with Marc Platt and he says, 'What do you think of Bruce Willis?' I'm like, 'I'd suck a d*ck to work with Bruce Willis.' He goes, 'Well...you won't have to go that far on this movie, but good to know.' I was shocked that I was allowed to be involved. Bruce is a huge movie star, and I've never worked with a big movie star (please don't tell Ben Affleck I said that), but they let the whole thing stay together."

On Cop Out as a throwback:

"Very 'big 80s homage. Ironically, we were shooting the movie, I'd say to Rob Cullen and Mark Cullen, 'Am I crazy man, I just want Harold Faltermeyer [composer for Beverly Hills Cop, Tango & Cash] to score the movie!' Look, the tone I was going for in the movie was Fletch, and Harold scored Fletch, and I was temping the movie with Fletch cues and sh*t.

At the same time, Faltermeyer apparently went into Warner Bros and said, 'I feel like scoring again, what do you have?' And then all of a sudden I was calling them about, 'Would you guys fight me over Harold Faltermeyer?' So they put us together. I loved him so much."

On Editing Cop Out:

"[Warner Bros] was really nice about letting me edit the film. It gives you a lot of control, and I've been doing that for years and years with Miramax and The Weinstein Company, but those guys are like, 'do what you want,' the parents who send you to Montessori School. Warner is like going to proverbial school, you have to wear a skirt and sh*t like that. Lots of rules."

On letting a "comedy editor" take a stab at the picture:

"I told them, 'If I let another editor touch this it'll be like letting someone else f*ck my wife.' I said that in a room of studio execs and they were all, 'Kevin, it's not like f*cking your wife...' They say, 'Kevin, you can pick your own editor.' I said, 'OK, Stephen Mirrione." The best editor in the world, edited Traffic."

"They brought Steve Mirrione in, Academy Award-winning editor, and he came in and watched it and said, 'You don't really need any help, maybe a few tweaks,' and I was like, 'Thank you Steve Mirrione!' It felt great, I've never really been validated as an editor."

On Green Hornet and how he decided to direct action:

"It was scary. I was hired to direct Green Hornet, but that's why...I don't think I'll do superheroes again, but I think a hockey movie's next. Shooting a lot of action, a lot of fighting. Seriously, just shooting something visually interesting."

"It helped to have a second unit director [on Cop Out], named David Ellis, who'd shoot sh*t while I was shooting other sh*t, so it wasn't like me sitting there for five days shooting one sequence. They do that on big movies apparently [laughs] all the time. I was like, 'What do you mean I'm not directing this?' They were like, 'it's second unit.' And I was like, 'what does that mean?' And I wouldn't agree to it until they were like, 'Bryan Singer does it.' Why was Bryan Singer the end all, be all? But I was like, alright.

Bryan Singer came from my world, he made talky pictures, little pics, and then he's directing X-Men. But really, it's all about diligence. So, going into it we sat down and designed our three action sequences, talked through every f*cking part...and boom we had ourselves a road map."

On his next film, Hit Somebody:

"To me the movie is like...I'm going for the Forest Gump of sports movies, but not in terms of the visuals. It takes place in the '50s, ends in the '80s, and primarily it's a film...it's a valentine to hockey, and an even bigger valentine to Canada. I've been a Canadaphile for 15 years. In terms of influence...the writings of Stephen Brunt, wrote Search for Bobby...it fills in the gaps for not actually being Canadian."

On growing as a filmmaker:

"Dude, growing? This is not the week to talk about Kevin growing. Kevin's getting thinner! You know what it is, with Smodcast, Twitter, where I can express myself and be me, I don't feel the need to put as much of me in the films anymore. Then it was like, 'This is the only way to express myself.' Now, fifteen years later... I don't feel the need to be the same guy.

"I'm interested, in the next few years, in making movies that look like traditional movies and sh*t like that, so when I die in the next two to five years, people won't just say, 'Oh he only made Kevin Smith movies.' I'd like to make a few movies."