Actor and director Kevin Smith’s career started with an unexpected success story: 1994’s Clerks, a raunchy comedy based on the convenience store where Smith once worked, filmed for $25,000 and funded by credit cards and favours from friends.
It has since spawned nine films in what Smith calls the View Askewniverse. You’ll know Silent Bob and his friend Jay (Jason Mewes) from Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Clerks II – and now Clerks III. In this latest, Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) from the original Clerks has survived a heart attack, and wants to make a movie with Dante Hicks (Brian O’Halloran) about their lives at the Quick Stop.
Smith has more strings to his bow than Jay and Silent Bob, among them Zack and Miri Make a Porno with Seth Rogan and Elizabeth Banks, and 2014’s Tusk, a horror movie inspired by a story Smith read about a Gumtree ad for a man who rents out a room for nothing on the condition that the respondent dresses as a walrus for two hours a day.
So with Clerks III in cinemas from 16 September, Smith will be taking your questions on life, the universe and everything, but you need to be quick as he’s only here for a flying visit. We will print his answers in Film & Music and online very soon.
