Running on about four hours of sleep after attending the closing night gala party for the Seattle International Film Festival, I talked my way into joining a roundtable interview with Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson aka Dante Hicks and Randal Graves in the View Askew universe. The two were in town for their press tour leading up to the release of Clerks 2 and just happened to be at the gala party. Paired with Gareth Von Kallenbach (who fails to give any credit in his account) and a college radio reporter, we pinged the guys with about 30 minutes of questions ranging from their personal take on Star Wars vs. Lord of the Rings to how much improvisation makes it into each of the Clerks movies. A question or two about what the guys do when they are putting flies in a cheeseburger on screen made their way into the interview, but no tear-jerking Terry Gross questions managed to pass across my weakly firing synapses due to too little sleep, to much post festival cheer and far too little coffee for a 10:30 a.m. interview. I think I had better questions while talking to Jeff and Brian on the balcony of a University District hotel the night before, but everything’s a blur at this point. The gem of the interview is Jeff Anderson’s revealing trepidation at doing a Clerks sequel and of course the tip-off that the DVD will indeed have even more than what’s seen in theaters (although this is one film I definitely will see when it hits wide release in July). Environmental noises from the air conditioning and cars driving by outside made this a less than ideal recording scenario, but under the circumstances it turned out well. If there’s any demand for a transcription, I’m happy to provide one, if only to type out such personal moments of brilliance like, “I’m still hurting from last night.” Nice one Jake.
Download the Interview with Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson
Read the Transcript:
Gareth: Okay, I’ve got one for you guys to start off with. Pick one of your favorite scenes in the film, the Star Wars or Lord of the Rings debate — ah, I’ve got to get a little background on that one, so was this all Kevin? Or how much of this was some of your personal beliefs and what is actually your stance on that whole debate?
Jeff: My stance on the whole debate is exactly as I say it in the film — Star Wars. But yeah, no, that was Kevin’s. Kevin wrote that in there. People are usually let down to find out that I don’t have that big of an affinity for Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. But I am a Star Wars guy.
Brian: Yeah, I agree, I’m Star Wars as well. I mean, I’m a fan of the Lord of the Rings movies as well. You know, it fills two different genre holes — there’s this science fiction one, and there’s the fantasy one. But for the most part, Star Wars is the original one in my book.
Gareth: Safer.
[Chuckling]
College Radio: You know, before Kevin gave you the script, when people would come up to you and ask you, like, “What would you think of a Clerks 2?” What was your feeling on the concept of doing another one?
Jeff: I wasn’t a big fan of doing a sequel to Clerks. When Kevin came to me with it, we had lunch, I didn’t want to do it. You know, Clerks is a weird movie. It had a lot of weird things going for it, and it somehow caught on and it’s not a movie that screams for a sequel. And Kevin coming off Jersey Girl, I was curious what his intentions were to go back to this. It didn’t seem like a good move on his part. The whole thing was kind of odd, so I didn’t immediately warm up to it.
College Radio: Do you think the existence of the cartoon maybe helped people say, “oh, well we can go back to the universe without ruining the original?”
Jeff: I don’t know, because the cartoon is so different.
Brian: Separate world.
Jeff: It’s completely different. You’re doing stuff in the cartoon that you could never do, you know, shoot on live action. So I think it’s kind of a different animal.
Brian: Yeah. It was something that had no time, effect or storyline to the original and the other parts of that world. So, it was just something that reminded people of these characters pretty much about all. When he approached me to do it, being a working actor, I was like, “Yeah, sure.” Just having faith in Kevin and his writing that he’d be able to tackle it. When we were doing the cartoon, I remember he was telling me about some ideas of some of the future episodes if it had gone on, where he was drawing some of ideas for the sequel from. I thought it was pretty funny.
Jeff: [lowly] He’s just here to hang out with us.
Brian: [laughs]
Jake: I’m still trying to recover from last night.
Gareth: And I guess on that note, how much of the version of this movie that existed that was going to be — that turned into Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back — did you hear about any of that? Did he give you a script for that version?
Brian: No.
Jeff: I don’t even know, that was in– I very rarely keep up on any of this.
Brian: Yeah, I don’t think any of this came out of Jay and Bob at all. He had ideas that if he were to ever do a sequel, he just had like, I think three elements that eventually made it into the film, just like, you know, I want this in it, I definitely want to have something like this in it and I kind of want it to end up where they’re like this. And then the rest was all done, because the idea came to actually do it when we were working on the ten year anniversary DVD. We went into the studio to put down the vocal tracks for the missing scene, which was the funeral scene, which we animated similar to the style of the cartoon. And I guess after coming off of an under-performing Jersey Girl, and hearing these characters and reminding himself of a fun time shooting a very funny script, and came to us, what do you think, do you want to do a Clerks 2, and then after we said yes and Jeff saying, well, you know what, let me see a script first, let’s see what happens. When he pounded that out, I think it was only within 30 days or 40 days that he pounded out Clerks 2, and then us reading it, that I was like, wow, this is great. So the elements from the other world and the other films…not much from it.
Jake: Did the Miramax / Weinstein breakup cause any problems in getting the film made?
Brian: It delayed it. It delayed it by about a year and a half, I know that much. Between that happening, and Kevin getting involved, being cast in a film called Catch and Release, which comes out in January with Jennifer Garner. Between that, the push back that Miramax, with the Weinsteins leaving Miramax, and then also him being cast — just it — a year and a half, I remember putting things on hold for quite a while, and kind of thinking, “Oh yeah, we’re going to do it next month,” or, “oh yeah, we’re going to do it in two months.”
Jeff: That actually almost caused almost more trouble than anybody knew, because in that push time, my feet were cold. [chuckles] And Kevin got a few phone calls during all that time pushing it and pushing it where I was like, “Still not convinced.” We went to dinner a few times, he had to talk me off the ledge a couple of times.
Jake: Now is that what — how you happened to end up making your film then, in the interim? Or was that already in the works?
Jeff: No, I had already done mine by this point. It did screw me up with mine, because mine was originally bought by Miramax. I was like, “Woohoo! Miramax!” and then the split-up, so it’s held the release of mine for a while now.
Gareth: But it’s still scheduled to come out on DVD this year?
Jeff: Scheduled to come out on DVD by the Weinstein company. It should be out alongside of Clerks 2.
College Radio: Just as a curiosity, exactly what’s it like auditioning for that live action Clerks pilot? The fabled, really bad television show? And what were your thoughts on what the show was going to be when you were doing it?
Jeff: You know, that was really weird. That came about, and I don’t think actually any of us knew about it.
Brian: Yeah, I found out, I was actually meeting with different agents at the time, out in LA, and I remember this one agent who I was having a meeting with, I was interviewing with, said, So you’re going in for the Clerks TV sitcom, right? And I thought he was KIDDING, like, “Hahahah! Well, yeah. Wouldn’t that be appropriate?” that this agent would, and I’m like, “yeah, you’re ” and he’s like, “no, there is,” and she brought out the treatment, and she’s like, “look,” and I’m like, “Oh…no, that’s the first time I’m hearing about this.” And she’s like, “Well, would you like me to send you in on that,” like trying to gain my business, so to speak. And I was like, “Yeah, sure, set it up.” And I had called Kevin and Kevin didn’t even hear about it at the time either, and I was like, “Kevin, what’s going on?” And he wasn’t involved in it at all. Because Disney owned Miramax, they had the rights to — and Warner Brothers came and wanted to get the license to do it, and they were given the permission to do it, then that word got around the circle of us, and were were like, “did you hear about this? No, I didn’t [inaudible]” and they started sending us in. And we were like, late in the audition process.
Jeff: When I went in there, it was again, I heard about it, it was already, my part was cast already and it was a TV show, I don’t know, we were doing some sort of publicity thing I was doing with a film crew. And they thought it would be funny to film me going in and auditioning for this, and I’m like, “But my part’s already taken.” I actually went in and auditioned as Dante, and I read the script, and I thought it was HORRIBLE. And I’m like A) I’m not going to go here, because it’s horrible, but B) I’m auditioning as Dante?! That’s a little bizarre. They were like, ‘It’s going to be fun for TV!’ So I went in and did the audition, but really had no interest in being a part of it. And actually, when I saw it afterward, it was a couple of years later, I think Kevin got a copy of it and I watched it and it was like Saved By the Bell Clerks. It was just horrible.
Brian: Yep, it was the production value like that.
Jake: So no dick and fart jokes?
Brian: That’s the thing, it was a television thing. I mean, if it’s going to make a sitcom like Clerks, it’s got to be on an HBO type of thing.
Jeff: Didn’t the Randall character work in an ice cream parlor. It was an ice cream parlor attached to a convenience store. It was horrible.
Brian: I remember Kevin just flipping out and going to the production company, saying, “You can do anything you want, but you can’t have the Jay and Bob characters.” He arranged it somehow where they couldn’t do it. They had no intention to apparently, but yeah.
Jeff: And it’s kind of funny, because when it all came about, Kevin didn’t know about it right away, and then all of a sudden, he became the executive producer on it and then when I was going to audition, I’m literally walking onto the lot as Kevin and Scott came walking out and I was like, “So, you guys are producing it?” and they both went, “no, we’re out of here.” And I was like, “I’m going to go in and read for Dante for these TV guys, then I’m leaving too.”
[Laughter]
Jeff: It was a whole bizarre thing.
College Radio: Do you think like a live action, a new live action show could work if Kevin was involved, following the events of Clerks 2? Or…
Brian: I don’t know, I don’t think so.
Jeff: Yeah, I think pretty much the live action Clerks stuff is over.
Brian: If there was any interest, I mean, if they threw boatloads of money, and even then it would be hard. It would have to be on a cable format. It could just never work on mainstream TV.
College Radio: Would you do another animated series?
Brian: Well, that’s actually in the works. Not a series as much a straight to DVD unrated movie. I think Kevin has talked in interviews how people are working on that for 2008.
Jeff: That animated stuff was hard to believe we were paid to be there.
Brian: So much fun.
Jeff: We were in there cracking jokes, like some of the stuff that was going on in those recordings..
Brian: Exactly. Just to get to meet some of these great guest stars, were just so hysterical. Michael McKean was just a pisser to work with. Dana Gould, who is the executive producer for the Simpsons now, he was funny as hell. And Mario Joyner, all those guys. It was always like, “God, so much fun.” I think one of his decisions was, we should do an episode where we’re all just in our underwear and record it that way. And I was like, “oh…okay.”
Jeff: And that’s the thing, it was the kind of show where you can do that.
Brian: It was just so funny.
Gareth: No, that’s good, it’s worthy of all the questions I have. I was curious — kind of a softball question, but, I’m very curious about the differences between Kevin in terms of writing and directing this film now in terms of the original film, what do you think has changed over the years, if anything?
Jeff: He’s awake a lot more while we’re filming this time around. The last time I know he slept through a few things.
Brian: Quite a few things. Where we would just look at each other and go, “You like that? I like that. I like that. I guess we’re done. I guess Kevin will like that when he sees it.”
College Radio: [laughs] That happens.
Brian: Well, the poor guy was working the convenience store all the afternoon shift into the evening, then we’d shut the store down with them, and then we’d film. So by the time the end of the night or the morning would go, and it’s 5:30 AM and we have to help him start the store again, he was just exhausted because apparently he was on the clock continuous until like ten or twelve. So he was losing sleep like you wouldn’t believe towards the end of the shoot.
Jeff: I think the original Clerks thing, he slept through that fight sequence, and the only think that he said was, “make sure you hit him with a loaf of bread,” and then he went to sleep.
Brian: Yeah, and then he went over to the video store and took a nap. That, and also you know what, because we were such a tight budget and we didn’t have the film stock to take multiple takes, he kept us pretty much close to the script, and everything was pretty much right on with the script. This one, in Hollywood terms, we’re still making a $28,000 film, because it’s $5 million, which is basically just the catering budget on other films. That after the first couple of the sit down read throughs, he gave us, he asked us, which was actually surprising, “So what do you think? Do you have any problems with it? Do you have any suggestions?” and stuff like that, he opened it up for us, knowing that we’ve done these characters throughout the years, up in the other movies and doing the animated series and we did that flying car short for Jay Leno, he finally knows that we pretty much know these characters — what they would and would not do, or their feel on certain subjects, and he was just more open to suggestion, even while shooting.
Gareth: Do you think, like, he said he needed — if Clerks was about being twenty, then this was about being thirty. I think he basically inferred that he needed to be where he was now to make this movie —
Brian: Absolutely. All of his films are that way, it’s definitely every one of his films is pretty much where he stands on life and what’s the issue he’s questioning about life at that moment. Religion in one sense, and relationship with best friends and lesbian being thrown in and Jersey Girl and Mall Rats, I mean, it’s pretty much you can see him all going on. And so now he’s pretty much in his thirties, and he felt like he can see where these guys would be and what their fears would be of where they were lacking are to be, or rather shall I say are not being. I think it was totally something he could pull from his heart and get the best of each film and pop it into this.
Gareth: Do you think you needed to be in the same place?
Brian: I think so. If he wrote these characters as they are in their fifties, I think it would be kind of hard to relate in that sense. It’s helpful to be playing characters that you are age appropriate for. You can relate and identify with the problems and the fears.
Gareth: What single element did you feel was most important to preserve when you were making Clerks 2? Or what about it?
Jeff: I don’t know if there was a specific element. Like even when Kevin came to me and was trying to sell me on the idea of doing it, and when I walked away from it, even in my own mind, I didn’t know what it had to be, the sequel. That’s why I couldn’t figure out why he was so set, like, “I know what it has to be” it didn’t seem so obvious to me but I know it was something and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, so I was curious just to read it like that, and I think some of the stuff that helps it, the new one, is the emotional stuff that’s in it. And I wouldn’t have thought that that’s what it needed. If you had asked me, I would have said, “I don’t know what it needs, but it can’t just be us sitting behind the counter and making fun of people again.” But I wouldn’t know what it is that it needed, but I think the surprise thing and the thing that’s going to catch people off guard is the emotional levels this time around, as opposed to the first time around, where it’s similar that it’s a day in the life, but there’s actually stuff that’s going on with these guys this time around. So I think that’s what it needed.
Brian: Exactly, I wouldn’t have been able to pin it. I mean, yeah, you’re going to want to have one or two customers being shouted at or whatever because people love that kind of shit, but yeah, he tackled it I think brilliantly.
Gareth: And it seems like — of all of his films, this seems like the one he has the affinity for. Because as good as the other films were, there was just something, it’s hard to say, there’s just something about the Clerks films that just stand out a little bit more than all of his other films. And of course, I know, sadly some people the moment Mall Rats came out, there was a lot of backlash, the people that were praising you the year before were saying, Oh, now you’re selling out. Where, to my eyes, they’re still the same quality films, just with bigger budgets, and he still does a remarkable job of writing about characters and some of the stuff that people don’t talk about in film, but yet people are thinking about. He’s really good at capturing that.
Brian: Yeah, I think this is a really good bookend. It’s really nice to have started with Clerks. And he says that he’s probably going to close out the live action stuff, although we’ve heard this numerous times before, that it’d be nice if this is really the book end to the live action stuff, anyway.
College Radio: If out of an animated movie, because there’s always the example of Family Guy, if the animated movie does really well, do you think you’d be willing to go back, if, I don’t know, like if a channel offered to restart the Clerks animated series, would you be willing to do that?
Brian: I’m already reserving my seat at that microphone. I’ve been crying that cancellation ever since 2000. I was thinking I was set, this was actually the job where I could do other projects, and then just come in and lay down tracks, not even have to be in the city to lay down vocal tracks or dialogue tracks for it. As a kid I’ve always had a fantasy and a dream of working on cartoons, I’ve always mimicked voices and stuff like that. That was my dream job, you’d just have to tell me when and where and I’d do it.
Jeff: Yep, animated, I’m there.
College Radio: Do you think if the animated series was still going on, do you think you might have done Clerks 2?
Brian: That’s a good question.
Jeff: I think the animated series the way it was, helped to put it back in Kevin’s mind, the way the movie was sort of back there. But that’s a good question, if it had kept going, maybe we wouldn’t have come back to this. He might have exercised some of the stuff he wanted to tell in an animated fashion.
Gareth: Last I check, they still haven’t locked down the final rating for the film. Do you know if Kevin is still editing it, because there was a slight bit of buzz, not a lot, but there some saying, “Well, this might have to be an NC-17 or an unrated” because of the bachelor party scene and the donkey and the whole thing and this might be. Have you heard anything about that? What kind of thing do you know has been trimmed from the final roll?
Brian: It’s really kind of funny. We’ve had this really, really, really weird karmic fate going on with this. Before we went to Cannes, there was this week, this crazy week where so many things were happening. Number one, we were finding out when we were going to Cannes, which we then found out, yeah, we’re going to go, and then within that same two or three day span, we found out that it came back as an R, as an R rated film, which was kind of weird, because Kevin had it in going like, this is such an NC-17 and we’re just going to imagine what’s going to happen. Now we had two screenings prior, one in Burbank in California, and one in New York City, where it was pretty much some people who wrote in from his website would be able to see it, plus people from the Weinstein company, and then other people that they filled in. I think the audience number in Los Angeles was like two hundred and something in Los Angeles and like another two hundred and something, and when it screened in Los Angeles to two weeks or three weeks later when it screened in New York, five or six minutes trimmed out no scenes completely cut out, well, actually, there was this really funny one scene, which was the second half of the driving scene coming back from the go-karts, which was Randall’s, which hysterical, which I’m kind of upset to see go, because it was just hysterically funny.
Jeff: You’re upset.
Brian: Well, I know, it was all you —
Jeff: Seven pages of dialogue, and they cut the scene out.
Brian: But that had nothing to do with getting a rating. So when they submitted it for the ratings board, we were like, “pfh! Just imagine what they’re going to say” and then it came back rated R with no cuts whatsoever that Kevin had to do.
Jake: Do you think we’ll maybe see a different version of the film when it hits DVD?
Brian: I’m sure there might be an extended version, but not by much.
Jake: So the seven pages might come back?
Jeff: It’ll definitely be a deleted scene. And I hate to start hawking the DVD already, but that scene alone is worth the price of a DVD. It’s a scene coming back from the go-kart track whereby I, in a quite convincing fashion, I try and convince Dante how he could in fact impregnate his mother by masturbating. It’s a seven-page scene where I lay out every possible argument.
Brian: It’s funny as hell. All during this drive.
Jeff: It’s a funny scene.
Brian: And then there’s another scene between Wanda Sykes and this standup comic by the name of Earthquake, who are two customers waiting for food, and there’s a scene going on between us and Rosario while making the food and then there’s their little side conversation, and Kevin just said just talk to yourself, just to make it look like on camera that they’re talking. And it was so funny that he immediately flipped the camera around and said, “all right, just go.” And for a full 11 minute mag of film, we just let them riff. And that was just so, so splitting that I’m sure you will have that customer rant on the DVD as well. But no, nothing was trimmed for the R rating, and yes the R is confirmed.
Jake: Now Kevin writes great dialogue, but how much of what we see in the final films is improvised, if any?
Brian: You know, if the first one was maybe 95% scripted and 5% improvised, this one is probably just like 85% scripted and maybe 15% improvised. And that has to do with —
Jeff: All the good stuff is improvised.
Brian: And that has to do with like, you know, improv with you know, Wanda and this other guy Earthquake, and Jason, and I think that is pretty much it.
Jake: Have you done anymore with any other films? I mean, you did Vulgar, which I thought was a great film.
Brian: Why thank you. I did a film up in Panama called Drop Dead Roses, which you can find on DVD in certain places. That’s a romantic comedy. I did another one that’s still like, in editing hell, it used to be called Groupies, it was with Ally Sheedy and Justin Henry about these four child stars from the seventies who had like a Power Rangers type of show that gets unceremoniously cancelled right at this cliffhanger part of the season, and these two groupies go around and kidnap each one of us. Like it’s now fifteen years later and we’re adults, from different parts of the country, because they want to remake that ending, and find out what happened, how did it finish. So that’s still being edited or trying to be remixed, something went on with the sound that they’re trying to get funding for.
Jake: Now is that something that will actually come out in theaters?
Brian: Hopefully. Hopefully. You know, it’s either that or final distribution through DVD. I haven’t been in touch with the director for like six months. I’ve got to find out where the cut’s at. I live in the New York area, so I do a lot of theater and stuff like that. As far as other film projects, I’m always talking to other people about certain things, I just need to read scripts and —
Jake: Any plans to direct?
Brian: Yeah, actually. I have a screenplay that I’ve been working on for a bit, that I’m hoping to get finished, and hopefully get some funding for to direct. I’ve directed stage plays so I kind of know what needs to be done, I just need to catch up and surround myself some people who are more technically apt. A really good DP is strong, and a good editor is always good to have. So eventually. I wouldn’t say next year, I wouldn’t say not next year. But I think immediate…
Gareth: I thought it was amazing that — I know, I realize we touched on you guys have been doing the characters and the voices for a while, but I think it was amazing you guys were able to just nail it instantly. Because I did it in reverse, I went and saw Clerks two and then I watched Clerks one again, because it was still very fresh in the mind, but it was just amazing how even the nuances and movement of the characters was identical.
Brian: Yeah, that carbonite really helps us out. We’re well preserved that way.
[Laughter]
Brian: Kevin’s like, “okay! CHHSSHHH! Here you go, Bri.” “Oh, god, what year are we in now?” ‘It’s ten years later. God, the carbonite fattened you up.” “Well, what do you want me do, it’s edible. Sorry.”
Jake: How much of those personalities is actually you guy coming through?
Brian: You know, there’s a good bit of Dante in me, where it’s kind of like on indecisive type of days, for the most part I’m a nice guy, I try to be a people please, but I wouldn’t say that I’m paralyzed with indecisions. But I do get all the ladies — no, just kidding.
Jeff: Randall and I, we’re right there.
Jake: Speaking of ladies, does playing slacker characters make it harder or easier to get girls? Does that lower expectations?
Brian: Well, for one, the ladies don’t watch these films for the most part. And so as, well, when Kevin asked me to come to like PhillyCon and stuff like that, it’s those type of ladies, the con ladies, the ones dressed up in really hot, tight outfits who are like, “oh yeah, you’re cute” and then they move on. There’s never any chicks. Whenever we see any hot women in our audiences, me and Jeff always like, “what is she… what is she doing…”
Jeff: It always ends up hurting me. I’m like, “Oh my god! You’re that guy? I don’t want anything to do with you, I’m out of here.”
Brian: So thank god he writes the roles with the ladies in it, to be honest with you.
Jeff: Why does he get all the chicks?
Gareth: Do you guys think that Kevin — this one, to some people, they’re saying, “Well, this is going to be more the arthouse version of Kevin Smith” as it were, because like Clerks started as the arthouse, the Sundance darling, and then the big studio step didn’t work quite as well. Do you think that Kevin actually — knowing Kevin as you do, do you think that he would prefer to do the big studio blockbusters, or the small, tighter independent films?
Jeff: It’s obvious.
Brian: Well, it’s obvious because he was offered to do Green Hornet. He wrote, and they wanted him to direct Green Hornet, and he just didn’t feel like he wanted to do it. He felt intimidated by it, and he was like, you know what, this isn’t my type of film, I like small, talky films. That’s what makes me tick, that’s what make me go. So he purposely said, here, look, I’m not going to do the direction, here’s the script, I wrote it, I finally finished it, I want to do the movies I want to do which are these. And that’s what he wanted to do. So there’s no doubt about it that that’s what he wants to do, and he purposely kept the budget low for that reason, like, I don’t want big name stars, I don’t want the large budget to be indebt to other people or the large budget where they’re going, we’re spending 15 or 29 million, 30, 40 million, you’d better get this money back.
Gareth: I kind of got that impression when he was in town promoting Jersey Girl, he spoke of that in Fletch but it didn’t seem like he was really into it as much.
Brian: Right, exactly.
College Radio: Just a totally out there question, how many members of the Hicks family do you think there are, since there’s one in every…
Brian: Ah, it seems like they’re very well inbred, that’s for sure. The name alone, a bunch of Hicks. I don’t know! There’s probably like twenty or thirty of them. They’ll take over the town, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a mayor Hicks as well. The mayor of Leonardo.
Jeff: And there’s only one Graves.
Brian: Yeah, only one Graves. He kills everyone else. You can’t be in my family!
