Kevin Smith said, "The first year I guess it's easy for you to be like, 'Ah, that's just something that I did. It was fun to do, but I'm not really into acting.' After 10 years of that question it's just like, 'F**k Randal Graves! That's the worst thing that has ever happened to me!' So he had kind of got used to the idea, he had come to peace with being Randal and then all of a sudden I'm like, 'Dude, I want to do Clerks II. He was like, 'You're out of your f**king mind.' He was like, 'Why would you want to do that?' He was the lone hold out and so I did want to talk to him before I started writing because if he was like, 'Never, never, never,' there wouldn't have been any point in writing it.
Smith continued: “We went through it and he was like, 'People seemed to like that movie for whatever reason, but why would you want to f**k with that? What if the movie sucks and then people retroactively go back and hate the original one?' I said, 'Well, let me write it first and base it on that. Read it and if you don't like it, if you really hate it we won't do it and I won't bring it up ever again.
So I wrote the script and I gave it to him and I waited for him to call me. He made me wait like a day. I was like, 'Oh, s**t. This isn't good.' He called and I asked what he thought and he said, 'I have to tell you, man, I think it's funny. It's way funnier than I thought it was going to be. I thought that you were going to retell the old jokes.' I was like, 'Where's the vote of confidence, Jeff?' He said, 'But the nice thing is that there is some touching stuff in it. It's kind of heart-warming in a weird way.' He said, 'I don't know what you're thinking of with that jail scene though. I can't act.' I was like, 'Dude, I think that you can do it. I think that you can really pull that off.' He was just like, 'Look, I'm in, but I'll ask you one last time. Are you sure that you want to do this for yourself because you seem to be on a career path? You can do Green Hornet. Why do you want to do this?' I said, 'Well, you read the script. That's what it's all about. It's about figuring out how much you can remain the person you've always been and actually grow at the same time. It's kind of me working issues out.' He was like, 'Can't you just hire a therapist and deal with this s**t, and then work on movies really separately?' I said, 'The two are intertwined as far as I'm concerned.'”
Is Smith Randal or Dante? “In the first one I was more Dante wishing that I was Randal. This time around I'm definitely more Randal than Dante, which is odd because Dante is the one kind of going through 'I'm having a baby and I'm getting married' type thing, but I'm definitely more in the Randal headspace in terms of like I don't want things to change. I'm a guy and so naturally change comes very hard to me. It's a weird struggle all the time where it's like how much can you remain the person that you were and still grow at the same time? I look at this movie and I definitely identify with Randal so much.”
Smith’s Films are a Family Affair:: Kevin Smith’s wife Jennifer Schwalbach was in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jersey Girl, and is part of the cast of Clerks II. Smith’s daughter Harley also acts in his films. “We put the kid in the last three flicks. The first time she pops up is in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, she was in Jersey Girl and I tell her she's the reason that Jersey Girl flopped. I have to blame someone (laughing). I figure she's going to be on a therapist’s couch years from now anyway going, 'Silent Bob was my dad.' Then I put her in this and really I do it because it's nice to kind of chart the growth of the kid on camera, and it's cheaper than taking her to a Sears portrait sitting. So it's just like put her in the flick and then years from now I can watch her kind of age and whatnot.
I like to include everyone I know in the movie. I still love what I do. It's a career now and I'm kind of used to it, but there is still a part of me that's just like, 'I can't f**king believe that this is my job. This is awesome.' I keep expecting that day where I wake up and I'm like, 'I knew it was all a f**king dream. I knew that I was still f**king working at the Quick Stop.' Because it's that, because I still have that feeling there's always a feeling that this is the last one that you're going to get do. Something is going to happen and they're going to pull rug out from under you so I like to put as many people as I know in the flick because each flick is kind of a snapshot of what's going on in my life at the time that I wrote it. The people in the flick then are the people involved in my life at the same time. I like to pack it with my friends in the background or in the foreground and stuff like that."
