"But it’s cool as long as they’re saying nice things," added Smith. "Really, I don’t even care if they say nice things as long as they’re laughing and copping to it because I feel like, you sit in the audience and laugh and have a good time. Then, when you actually have to write a review, you get a lot of people who are more circumspect. Like, 'It’s funny if you’re into this kind of thing.' It’s like, 'Motherf--ker, I know you were laughing. I was there in the back, watching.'"
Smith credits Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Craig Robinson and the rest of his cast for making Zack and Miri Make a Porno actually work on the big screen. "It’s one thing to just have a bunch of dirty words on the page, but they made it all spring to life," said Smith.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno follows roomies/childhood friends Zack (Rogen) and Miri (Banks) as they concoct a plan to shoot a porno in order to get their electricity and water turned back on in their apartment. The two have had a strictly platonic relationship since kindergarten, but they make a pact to have sex on film and not let it affect their friendship. Oh yeah, that's going to work, right?
Asked if bringing in the romantic element to Zack and Miri Make a Porno was done to draw in more female ticket buyers, Smith replied, "Only as much as one of the titular characters is a woman but it’s not like I’m, 'I’ve got to bring more chicks in.' I don’t really think like that. If I could honestly plan on how to bring more people to a movie, I would’ve been way more successful than I’ve ever been. For me, it’s the luck of the draw because ultimately I just make the flicks I know how to make. Nine out of ten, it’s not mass screening. In fact, ten out of ten. Wait, what is this? Eight movies? Seven times out of ten, it’s not been a vastly commercial film. So I didn’t go into it thinking, 'I’m going to get chicks in it this time around.' But I figured with a chick in the title, some chicks might be curious. Although most people don’t seem to know it’s a woman’s name."
Comparisons to the romantic comedy structure of Chasing Amy are justified Smith says. "When I was making it, I thought it was as close to Chasing Amy as anything I’ve ever done before in terms of structure and whatnot. I mean, we’re definitely a lot less serious than we were in Chasing Amy. Chasing Amy is a very earnest movie. Funny, but very earnest at the same time. This movie is more funny than I think Chasing Amy is, but it does this weird shift in the third act where it becomes kind of emotional. It catches people off guard, but, I don’t know, it works for me. It’s the kind of movie I enjoy watching. I love romantic comedies. I love rom-coms. I just can’t stand it when they’re sanitized and cleaned up, and it ends with a kiss. I like mine to have the f--king happen, and then everything falls apart. And I like people to speak candidly and frankly and use harsh language. Not to be a show-off, but because everyone I know speaks like that. When I see something like Made of Honor, I’m sitting there thinking, 'Why am I watching this?' And my wife is going, 'Yeah, why are you watching this?'"
So why did he watch it? "I like romantic comedies and I like Patrick Dempsey. I’ve loved him since Loverboy. He was awesome in Loverboy. And he was awesome in Can’t Buy Me Love when he was doing the dance and sh-t."
In truth, Smith's an ever bigger fan of romantic comedies than he is porn movies. "I like romantic comedies more, but I do like porn very much," admitted Smith. "Not so much for titillation anymore. I mean now… I’ve been married for 10 years, so sex is built in and free. So porn isn’t something I use as a tool anymore. I haven’t jerked off to a porn in I can’t tell you how many f--king years. But I look at porn every morning. Every morning I wake up, I do Google news, Guardian UK, and then I go to the free porn sites – any of the numerous ones I’ve bookmarked. Just by virtue of the fact that it shocks me that every time I click on it, I never see the same face twice. Always different people, always. It just makes you feel like the whole world is taking naked pictures of themselves. And I’m always looking for that one person I know because, by sheer process of elimination, I’m going to see someone I know. Only recently I realized I’m looking at the wrong pages. Everyone I know is, like, 30, so I have to start looking at cougar-like sites."
Smith got the once in a lifetime opportunity to merge his love of Star Wars and porn movies in Zack and Miri Make a Porno. "That was awesome," said Smith. "For me, when I wrote the script, and there’s the moment in the script where it says, like, 'The flap opens on R2D2 and you see a ball sack,' that made me laugh so hard while I was writing it, I couldn’t wait to get to the set. But I was like, 'You know what? It’ll never be as good as when I wrote it, so let’s just face the fact it will never live up here.' It went beyond my expectations. When the flap opened, I was the one leading the laughter. I was like, 'How f--king hysterical!' His name’s R2-TBag and he’s got a big set of nuts. It was kind of cool. It was really cool. There was some part of me, after shooting the sequence thought, 'Maybe the porn should’ve been Star Wars and maybe we should’ve followed it all the way through.' But that wouldn’t have made much sense."
