Kevin Smith was born into a Roman Catholic family on August 2, 1970 in Red Bank New Jersey. He attended and graduated from Henry Hudson High school and went on to attend classes at The New School for Social Research as part of their creative writing program. He ended up leaving The New School for Social Research after a year due to the school’s authorities complaining about Smith’s “undisciplined behavior”. Smith then went on to attend the Vancouver Film School in 1990 for four months. After he left the course he found his life lacking direction and decided to take a job as a clerk at a convenience store in Leonardo New Jersey.
While he was working there, Smith saw Richard Linklater’s low budget comedy “Slacker”. The movie inspired him to write and direct his own work. Smith’s good friend from film school, Scott Mosier, prompted him to write his first script for the movie “Clerks” and in addition to writing the screenplay produced the film along with Mosier. The film followed a day in the life of two central characters Dante and his best friend Randle who work as clerks. Dante works at a convenience store and Randle works at the video rental store next door. Smith shot the film in black and white during the hours after the convenience store he worked for closed, and edited the movie in the store room on his breaks. The film was an acclaimed success, but in 1995 his second movie “Mallrats” ( whose characters hang out at their local mall) was a box office disaster.
Then two years later he released his third movie “Chasing Amy” about a straight man falling for a lesbian woman and the movie was a huge box office success. In 1999 Smith’s fourth film “Dogma” was released and it caused a massive backlash from the Christian community due to its discussion of the religious issues pertaining to Catholic beliefs. The films that followed were 2001’s “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”, and the big budget film “Jersey Girl” (another colossal flop at the box office), 2006’s sequel to “Clerks” aptly titled “Clerks 2”, “Zack and Miri make a porno” in 2008 ( a romantic comedy that failed at the box office. In 2005 Smith wrote his first book titled “Silent Bob Speaks” a collection of essays on multiple topics .In 2007 Smith wrote the first episode of the short lived television show “Reaper” and served as the show’s executive producer for seven additional episodes.
In 2007 he also started his podcast (which he refers to as SModcast). After “Zack and Miri make a porno” Smith took several years off from writing/directing his own movies and went on lengthy spoken word-like tours of colleges and small theaters discussing a variety of topics from screen writing to his personal life. In 2011 he returned to film. He wrote/directed the film “Red State” (his first horror movie) and “Tusk” in 2012 (after reading a bizarre want add). Additionally in 2012 Smith started his second venture in television with his show “Comic book men” which is a reality tv show filmed in a comic book store. The stars are the store’s staff. Smith has been very vocal about wanting to make one last film pertaining to Hockey.
Thanks For The Read As Always,
Les Sober 