Arriving next week is the debut film from Susannah Grant. While she has never directed a feature film, she has written a bunch of them - like Erin Brockovich, In Her Shoes and Charlotte's Web. And while debut films can sometimes be a bit shaky, thankfully Catch and Release is a winner. It’s not too sentimental, it’s not too cheesy, it feels like these are real people who are dealing with real problems.

The film takes place in Boulder, Colorado and it's centered on Jennifer Garner’s character. She plays a woman who is about to get married and has her life completely figured out when her fiancé dies unexpectedly. The film is a mixture of her dealing with the loss and trying to move on, and at the same time discovering some significant secrets about her fiancé.

When I went to see the movie I figured Kevin would be the token friend, you know the one who pops in every once in awhile but is just a bit character in the overall film. Needless to say I was completely surprised when he was not only significantly in the movie, but was practically one of the leads. He’s in the movie more than I ever thought he would be, and here is the shock, he was pretty good. Yes, Kevin Smith can act. I cannot believe I just wrote that.

He has some pretty meaty scenes, and some actually show emotion. Now I don’t want to say he’s the next Brando, but he never took me out of the film, and in typical Smith fashion, he has some great one liners. And after attending the roundtables and hearing him talk, I can confirm he wrote some of his own dialogue.

Anyway, you would think Kevin Smith should do an interview on his own, but due to whatever reason they paired Kevin with Sam Jaeger, and while Sam does talk a bit, it’s mostly Kevin.

He talks about everything. His involvement in the new Die Hard film, his horror movie, his Showtime Pilot called Manchild, he even talks about Kyle Newman’s Fanboys. If you are a fan of Kevin, you’e going to love this interview.

While I normally write the word (laughter) during an interview to let you know that people were laughing, if I had done it for this piece it would have been half the article. And while I normally suggest just reading an interview, in this case I strongly suggest listening to it as it’s really funny and hearing him speak is much better than reading his answers.

So if you want to listen to the interview, which I strongly recommend, then click here. It’s a MP3 and it has no copy protection so you can easily throw it on an iPod or portable MP3 player.

But for those who just want to read it, I think you’ll enjoy it. Catch and Release arrives next Friday, January 26^th.

Kevin, is this a new direction for you?

Kevin Smith: Every role that Jack Black says ‘no’ to – pretty much. It just feels like the industry is saying, ‘Look, stop directing; go be in movies if you got to be involved. Just be in ‘em; f*ck directing.’

Susannah (the director of Catch and Release) said ‘you tend to denigrate your own talent.’

Kevin Smith: Yes.

Bruce Kirkland jumps in: Kevin, can you not smoke?

Kevin Smith: Who objects?

(a few people laugh, and some people raise their hands)

Kevin Smith: You know what Bruce, if you would have given Clerks II a good review, I wouldn’t smoke. I will do half a cigarette, and then put it out. When it comes down to moments, that was one.

Why do you think you denigrate?

Kevin Smith: I’ve grown up fat so it’s always the ‘steal the thunder’ attitude for me, the idea of ‘making fun of yourself before someone else can.’ So that’s why, of my entire repertoire of stuff I’ve done, Jersey Girl takes a beating like a red-headed step child because it’s always easier to be like, ‘Jersey Girl sucked’ ‘I made Jersey Girl and it sucked,’ than to have somebody say it to you first. That way, they’re sitting there waiting to tell you, and they’re like, ‘Oh, he knows; alright.’

(Inaudible question)

Kevin Smith: And for some of us, even Jersey Girl; I like Jersey Girl. It’s just kind of easier to make fun, and it’s hard to take the whole thing serious, which is good and bad. It’s good because it kind of armors you, but it’s bad because people tend not to take you serious, but that’s fine; I haven’t made any serious movies and what not. But I don’t know, it’s always the way I’ve been; it would be tough to change at this point to not be like, to be like, ‘Hey, I’m pimp, I’m good, aren’t I?’ Believe me, I say that behind closed doors when it’s just my wife and kid – not to strangers, though. And oddly enough, my wife and kid are the only ones who don’t believe it.

Can you talk about your role in Die Hard?

Kevin Smith: I play a character that has a lot of expository dialogue; I’m the only person in Die Hard who talks, and doesn’t shoot somebody.

Everybody else blows up?

Kevin Smith: Pretty much. When I got there, I was like, ‘Len, can I get a gun?’ He’s like, ‘No.’ But it’s fun; it’s that role in the action movie where you provide a bunch of information that they need to head into act 3. And my character gets talked about throughout – and it could all change. But the time they get in the editing room, they might be like, ‘He sucks, yank him out.’ But as it stands now, in the script, and as I shot it, they talk about me a lot and then they meet me; and I provide a lot of information about the villain.

Do you riff as much in that movie as in this one?

Kevin Smith: Sure, they were – what’s nice about working on those big, awfully expensive Hollywood movies, is they have so many writers, they don’t even notice if you’re one of them. So, I got there, and I wrote myself a one page monologue, and I got to deliver it; it was hysterical, they let me do it. Bruce Willis was like, ‘Do it up, that was a good speech.’ So, you do it, and they totally went for it; so that was kind of cool, and I got to give that speech in that movie. They were kind of riff friendly. There was one motto on that movie, and they kept saying it, which was, ‘Keep it Die Hard.’ So you didn’t want to – you couldn’t get in there and do a Jay and Silent Bob type monologue, but you had to make it germane to the movie. So I don’t give a funny speech, I wind up giving a very paranoid, Joe Pesci in JFK type speech, which was fun.

Susannah also said you didn’t deliver the lines the way she wrote them.

Kevin Smith: That’s – yeah, but not because I don’t respect Susannah’s writing or anything; I just learned so quickly that I’m not a good actor. A good actor is someone like Sam, who I only say that cause he’s sitting here – but also Jennifer and Tim. A good actor can take what’s written on the page, and not change a f*ckin’ word, and make it sound like they’re coming up with it off the top of their head. I would try to do that, but how bad was I?

Sam Jaeger: No, you were pretty good; but what I found fascinating is, he’s the only actor you’ll find who asks for a line read. He’ll be like, ‘Just give it to me; how do you want it said?’

Kevin Smith: Susannah would be like – cause there’s that director move where you’re supposed to lead the horse to water, where you’re supposed to make the actor think he’s discovering it for themselves. ‘Well, you want to say it with a bit more emotion here, like you feel like you’re an emu in the scene, and all these people are lions,’ or something like that. And finally, I’d be like, ‘Susannah, just tell me, just say it, and I’ll say it like you say it.’ And so she loved it, cause that’s shorthand. The other actors – I can’t speak for Sam.

Sam Jaeger: That’s a no-no. Hack. And that emu line, really works for me.

Kevin Smith: I just believe in the quickest way there, man; and if she could just tell me how to say it, I could just do it. And it’s one step away from having her hand up your ass, and her working your mouth.

Sam Jaeger: That’s so bad; that’s such a great visual.

Did you have all the room you needed in a scene when Kevin is next to you?

Kevin Smith: She’s not talking physically.

Sam Jaeger: No, no; one of the things we set up early was Kevin and I had a good rapport. It was mostly trying not to steamroll everyone else because we tend to talk over one another quite a bit. But that said, he’s a writer and director that I respect; so when it was his turn to talk, I would step back and bow.

Kevin Smith: Sam and I just tried to say as much as we could because we just wanted to be in the movie.

Sam Jaeger: Yeah.

Kevin Smith: So we were like, we’ll do what’s on the page, but we’ll also keep adding sh*t. That way, if they cut other sh*t, there’s still more sh*t that we’ll wind up in it.

Sam Jaeger: Our hope was to have four times as much footage of us as Jennifer, and I think we got pretty close.

Kevin, is this going to make you think about acting more full time or are you writing something?

Kevin Smith: I would up – not really – I wound up acting more at the end of this year than I thought I would; I did the Die Hard thing, and then I did this thing for Showtime called Manchild. It’s fun, and it’s kind of interesting; but at the same time, it’s not, I’m limited. It’s not – in acting, you can hand someone the contameter and they can go off; I can do one thing fairly decently, and that is play myself – and I wouldn’t call that acting. So if people come to me and they’re like, ‘Hey, we want you to do something that you, here to have, haven’t done,’ I’d be like, ‘You’re out of your mind.’ I’m very, very limited. So it’s fun when someone offers you something cause you’re like, ‘Well, I can do this, this is fun, and it f*ckin’ pays well!’ So that’s cool, but pursuing it like this is my new job – no.

Susannah told us about the DVD commentary track; why were you trying so hard to get sexual information out of her?

Kevin Smith: Because no one listens to those commentary tracks for the technical aspects; if you’ve ever listened to those commentary tracks, some of them are so dry and boring. It’s like, ‘Tell me if you f*cked a lot on this movie.’ That’s the interesting thing.

She wouldn’t answer the question?

Kevin Smith: She wouldn’t answer anything; I was like, ‘How much did you get laid making this movie?’ She was like, ‘We’re not going to talk about that.’ It’s like, ‘Come on, man.’

So is it a fruitless, two-hour track?

Kevin Smith: I got other things out of her.

Like what?

Kevin Smith: If you want to know the biography of Susannah Grant, it’s all there; and I do get a lot of other information out of her, but she would not provide that. I asked her, cause there were so many chicks involved in this movie – there was her, Garner, there was Casey, one of the executive producers, there was Jenno, Amy Pascal, the head of the studio. I was like, ‘Did all of your cycles get in sync?’ She didn’t want to talk about periods; that was weird. That to me was interesting; that’s the kind of sh*t, if I was listening to a commentary track, I’d be like, ‘That’s a great question!’

You’re voicing a tubby bastard in TMNT -

Kevin Smith: Yes!

Sam Jaeger: Way to go!

Kevin Smith: I know, I got that.

Were you completely geeked out when you went to Imagi? Did you lobby for the quick part?

Kevin Smith: No, Harvey Weinstein called me up and wanted to know if I wanted to do a voice in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; cause Weinstein has a piece of it. And I was like, ‘Absolutely.’ The dude that lobbied, and didn’t get the part, was Jason Mewes. Cause Jason Mewes was like, ‘What are you doing today?’ I’m like, ‘I’m going to do a voiceover for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they’re doing the CG cartoon.’ ‘What are you talking about?’ I showed him the trailer, and he was like, ‘Oh, I want to f*ckin’ be in that.’ I was like, ‘Well, dude, you’ve been in Weinstein movies; call them up, they’ll put you in the picture.’ And he called them mercilessly, especially after he found out I got paid to do it. He kept calling and they were like, ‘We don’t have anything left, dude;’ they were like, ‘I’m sorry.’ He was like, ‘Add a character;’ ‘Can’t I be the girl turtle?’ But, he just said there was something they wanted to re-voice, and they brought me in; it took maybe an hour, or something like that. But no, I want to see that movie; I lobbied to see the footage, which they finally showed me when I did a voice over.

Which movie is that?

Kevin Smith: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the CG cartoon.

What about the Showtime show?

Kevin Smith: The Showtime thing is called Manchild; it’s a pilot. I don’t know if they’re going to pick it up; God willing, they do. It’s me, James Purefoy from Rome, Paul Hipp, and John Corbett.

Based on the British show?

Kevin Smith: It’s based on the British one; yeah, based on the British one.

The one with (inaudible question)

Kevin Smith: The one with who? I didn’t see it; but I know it’s based on a British show.

Sam Jaeger: (whispering) Say ‘yes,’ say ‘yes.’

Kevin Smith: But in the UK, they were all in their 50’s, and in this one they’re all in their 40’s – but I’m not even 40, I was 36, so that was a real performance.