I saw it on IFC and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve heard about this film,’ so I just left it on. I immediately liked it. It’s got a really cool attitude. The dialogue is really sharp and funny and those guys give great performances, especially Jeff. Just real sharp, like really good, slick dialogue. Stuff that I hadn’t really heard before. And two weeks later I got the call for Jeff’s movie.
Although Jeff’s movie and the Askewuniverse are significantly different, there are also some similarities. Like Jeff’s first movie was Clerks and so that greatly informed his sensibilities as a director. Similarly, seeing Clerks greatly informed my audition for Jeff’s movie. So like I was saying, if I hadn’t been in that room at that time on that channel and had I not seen that movie, there’s a good chance - I still maintain today - that I wouldn’t have gotten cast in Jeff’s movie. I wouldn’t have gotten his aesthetic when I read the script and I just would have botched it. Jeff wouldn’t have liked me, I wouldn’t have been cast for it, Kevin wouldn’t have seen the film, I wouldn’t be here sitting in front of all you fine people.”
Developing His Character in Clerks 2: “How I came up with this character… all I can say is a couple of the mannerisms came from a couple people I know. It’s sort of a cross between my friend Paul from Long Beach who’s like the best guy in the world, but people always think that I’m describing him as stupid. He’s not stupid. He’s smart. He’s an amazing drummer. He’s just one of those guys who’s very single-minded. He completely thinks something through before he moves onto the next thing. He does stuff in order. So whenever you explain something to Paul, he does this look where he goes like, ‘Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, I got you dawg.” So there’s a little bit of that in Elias, where he’s trying to wrap his mind around something.
There’s also it’s a mix between Paul and my 14-year-old cousin Lindsay, who’s the best. I love Lindsay but she’s a 14-year-old girl so she’s a little bit like a space case. I just think that mixed with Jesus freaks, but yeah, I don’t do research.”
Being One of the New Guys: Fehrman says he was immediately accepted by the returning cast. “Going into this, I really admire these guys and I really want them to like me because I want them to give me more work in the future. And just on a personal level, I really want cool people to think I’m cool too. So I’m kind of scared going in that they’re not going to like me or whatever. But when you step into this world, the people that Kevin [Smith] surrounds himself with, it’s like just little things that happen dozens of times a day, little things like they don’t interrupt you. They don’t say mean things just because they’re funny. They make fun of themselves.
Everyone was like this, everyone just made this really warm, inviting atmosphere like a family, but two people more than anybody. One was Kevin’s wife Jen, who is extremely, extremely warm. It seemed like she almost considered it her job to make me feel and to make other new people feel like part of the family. She felt like it was her duty or something, because she really went way out of her way.
[Jason] Mewes was the other one. Jason Mewes is one of the most congenial guys I’ve ever met in my life. He’s so cool. And then on top of that, it’s hard to not to feel intimate with a group of people when within days of meeting someone, you’ve seen their testicles. We were all playing poker, Mewes will show you his testicles with very little coaxing - and I don't know why. It’s not like they’re particularly beautiful. I don’t get what the deal is. But we were playing poker one night and of course they say all roads lead to Rome, all conversation topics lead to Jason’s scrotum...”
