My Boring-Ass Life (Revised Edition): The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith (38 page)

Mewes drives me to the airport, and I jump on the plane, taking some pics in the terminal with fans who’d been at the Con. On the plane, the dude who played Fat Albert (either Keenan or Kel) chats me up, saying he’d seen
Evening With
on cable, and was wondering if I’m a standup, and if not, what I do for a living. He’s seated beside the chick from
ER
and
The Grid
, and as they seem pretty chummy, I’m assuming they’re heading up to Vancouver to shoot a flick together.

I slap on my headphones and listen to ‘Freak Me’ about thirty times in a row, while playing Gameboy Advance Tetris. Before long, we land, and I shoot through Customs and wait for my bag to come down the carousel. I get to the valet desk, but nobody’s there. I talk to Jen while waiting for half an hour, and then call the main office of the valet joint. Somebody comes down to give me my keys, and even though I’ve been waiting and I’m pissed, I still tip the guy. I’m dumb like that.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m back in City Center, at the hotel. I get into the apartment, throw on the woobs, and relax to some
Fight Club
, to which I crash.

Monday 18 July 2005 @ 4:38 a.m.

The will-notify I get at 10 a.m. notifies me that it’s looking more like a 2 p.m. call time, so I opt to catch up on the diary.

At two, I get the call from Karen, telling me that they’re knee-deep in another scene, hence not getting to any of my scheduled stuff today. I’ve got the day off.

I call Jen at home to let her know, and she’s even worse than yesterday. She’s gone to the doctor’s office, where she was told that what she has started as strep has turned into something worse. She tells me she got a throat culture done, took a shot in the ass cheek (not like that, you fucks), and was prescribed a heavy duty antibiotic, before heading home to lay in bed. I tell her I’ll call her later, and let her get some rest.

Meanwhile, over a thousand miles away, I make it an Anne Coates mini film fest in my room, watching first
Erin Brockovich
and following it with
Out of Sight
— the latter being one of the best edited films of all time.

I’d forgotten how good
Brockovich
was, too. The script is tight, and the performances wonderful. Susannah wrote it, so I suddenly feel a little chuffed peeping it out. The person responsible for a flick I’ve enjoyed/am currently enjoying likes me enough to put me in a flick she not only wrote, but is also directing. Maybe I’m not such a goon after all?

I spend the rest of the day/night playing far too much Ultimate Bet with UB points, as my account’s out of cash. I do this until eleven or so, when I fall asleep watching
Fight Club
.

Tuesday 19 July 2005 @ 4:40 a.m.

Get up, shit, shower, and shoot the flick.

Between takes, I call Jen to see how she’s doing. She insists that as she feels no better the antibiotics can’t be working. Four hours later, Jen calls back to say the antibiotics finally kicked in, and she suddenly feels fifty percent better, and almost human again.

We wrap, and I head back to the hotel. I pop in
Crash
while playing some poker at
UltimateBet.com
, however twenty minutes in, I’m so sucked in by the flick, that I put the laptop to the side and devote all my attention to, what turns out to be, a great, great flick.

Post-flick, I put on some
NewsRadio
eps and jump back into some Ultimate Bet. Annie Duke pops up on my iChat Buddy List, so I bullshit with her a bit. She’s kind enough to reload my cash account at UB, so I play Hold ’em ‘til I fall asleep.

Wednesday 20 July 2005 @ 4:41 a.m.

Back to the stage, for the final few days of Vancouver production on
Catch
. Afterwards, at night, I head over to the River Rock for some blackjack. Jen calls me to let me know she’s made a complete comeback, and that all the power’s gone out in the Hills, so she’ll be staying at the Standard for the night.

I get back to the hotel and play Ultimate Bet and watch
Fight Club
. I talk to Jen again, who’s now back in the house as the power kicked back in. I tell her how much I miss her and love her, then hang up and go back to playing UB. I lose five hundred bucks and fall asleep.

Thursday 21 July 2005 @ 4:42 a.m.

X-Men 3
is taking up most of the lot at the Vancouver Film Studio, so this is the last day at the old lot. As of tomorrow, we move to First Light Stages, a few miles down the road. Between takes, I head up into the production office on the lot and IM Scott copies of the watermarked
Clerks 2
script for Ratface (our production designer), Tracy McGrath (our production supervisor), and Jim (the new locations guy). Once that’s out of the way, I play some more Ultimate Bet until I’m called back to the set.

We wrap, and I head back to the hotel, stopping at the food store, where I grab some cereal and milk. I get back to the apartment, climb into my woobs, and play more Ultimate Bet while watching
Fight Club
.

I talk to Jen, who’s booked herself on a flight out tomorrow, so she can pack up the room and drive home with me after wrap on Saturday.

When we hang up, I play some more Ubizzles. At first, I’m up a grand. Then, over the course of three hours, I donk out of not just my winnings, but my initial buy-in. On Tilt, I head to the $5/$10 table and throw up $400, of which I’m fleeced in a matter of fifteen minutes — a sure sign that I should go to bed; which I do, watching
Fight Club
again.

Friday 22 July 2005 @ 4:42 a.m.

Since my call time’s not ‘til noon-ish, I sleep in. When I get up and head to the kitchen, I notice an envelope stuffed under the door. It’s the checkout bill. I call downstairs just to double-check that the hotel knows I’m not leaving ‘til tomorrow, and I’m informed that they rented my apartment out already, as they were under the impression that I was leaving today. I tell ’em it’s my fault that I never told them I was staying one more day beyond the contracted dates, but it’s impossible for me to move out of the room today, as I haven’t even started packing and I have to go to work. The front desk ultimately accommodates me, giving me twenty-four hours to check out. That fire put out, I shit and shower, then head over to First Light Studios, where the production’s built a fake motel room that I’ll be spending the next two days in.

This is the scene I’ve least looked forward to, as it’s a scene in which Juliette Lewis’s character gives my character a massage. And while it’s not written into the script, I’m thinking that a massage means I’ve gotta take my shirt off.

Now, mind you, I almost never take my shirt off. I’ve always felt that, since I’m so fat and out of shape, it’s kind of my civic duty to keep my white, flabby belly covered, and my man-boobs out of sight — just to keep the folks around me comfortable. Oh, sure — the wife asks me to take it off when we’re fucking; she says she likes to feel my body against hers. But I rarely oblige, out of fear that she’ll feel too much of my body against hers, realize she’s been fucking a fat guy all these years, smarten up and leave me (or at least start fucking someone relatively toned-up on the side). I’ve got ‘love handles’ that go beyond the standard spare tire, and they’re both lined with stretch marks. I mean, nobody should have to be subjected to laying eyes on this shit, which is why I leave my shirt on at all times — even when I’m being intimate. Fuck, I sometimes think about leaving it on when I take a shower, just so I don’t have to deal with the view.

So based on all that, you’d imagine I’d especially never dream of taking my shirt off in public. Susannah, however — God bless her good heart — does dream of it... or at least assumes I’m okay with peeling. I discover this when I hit the set and chat up Susannah, feeling her out about what she’s looking for in the scene.

“Suz,” I say, “I don’t have to take my shirt off for the massage scene, do I?”

“You don’t want to?”

“Not really.”

“Then no. But I thought you would.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Okay.”

Alright. That was easy. No more worries.

I head to hair and makeup, then back to my trailer, to get into costume. Then, I get the word that Suz is gonna pop by the trailer. I already know what’s coming.

“Suz,” I say, before she can get her thought out, “I don’t even take my shirt off in front of my wife.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. When we fuck, I leave my shirt on.”

She measures this, then shrugs, heading toward the door.

“It’d be a kind of breakthrough for you if you did.”

“I love you to death, but it’s not gonna happen.”

The whole moment — a director talking to an actor about being topless — takes me back to the set of
Mallrats
, when moments before we were to shoot the scene in which Silent Bob crashes through the wall of the changing room at Popular Girl just as Gwen is closing her shirt, Joey had a massive change of heart about doing the onscreen nudity.

Me? I didn’t care. I like tits as much as the next guy, but having tits in the movie wasn’t my idea; it was Jim Jacks’s. He said his exhibitor friends always lamented that they missed the days of the teen titty comedy. Based on that, since we were already making something of a teen comedy, we might as well put some nudity in. Eager to please, I conceded.

So when Joey expressed hesitancy about flashing, I was like “It’s cool. We don’t need you to do it.” However, Jim got super-pissed, insisting Joey had signed a contract saying she was going to flash in that shot, and if she didn’t do it, why’d we bother casting her. On and on this went, with Jim getting more and more mad, and Joey getting more and more upset.

Finally, Joey pulled me to the side and said, “How long does it need to be?”

“You don’t have to do it at all. Really. I mean...”

“How about this?”

And with that, Joey flashed me, on the second floor of the Eden Prairie Mall, during shopping hours. I was a bit flummoxed, going so far as to avert my eyes — which she pointed out was dopey, as she needed me to sign off on the duration of the flash. She was right, but I couldn’t ogle her boobs — not even for work. It never felt right. It was just too weird a moment for me to be involved in — particularly because I’d have rather not include the shot in the flick in the first place.

And here I was, almost exactly ten years later, trying to keep from showing
my
tits in a movie.

Life takes you strange places, I swear.

Waiting to shoot, Juliette and I have a nice long bullshit session for the first time over the course of the shoot. With her character coming into the flick late, Lewis wasn’t always around on set, so aside from the scenes we shared and some chit-chat in the vanities trailer, we never really hung out that much on set. Today was different as it was just us in the scene, and since it was something of an intimate scene, I think we were both kind of relating to one another in that “We’re in this thing together” type of fashion. Regardless of why we’re so suddenly bonded, I enjoy the hell out of talking to her.

We spend the rest of the day shooting two parts of the three-part scene, and Juliette does a brilliant bit of physical comedy on top of me, after the last take of which, we’re given a round of applause. We watch the shot on the video playback, and it’s really, really hysterical. Great stuff... and I got to keep my shirt on, bless Susannah’s heart.

Right before we end for the day, the crew wrap gift is given out. Earlier, Jenno and Susannah had given everyone
Catch & Release
jackets, and Garner had given everyone LL Bean tote bags with
Catch & Release
stitched into them. Excellent swag indeed, but this wrap gift took the cake: a beautiful, printed and bound book of black & white behind the scenes photos taken by A.D. Dave Sardi over the course of production. Flipping through the pages, I see the last three months of my life splayed out across the pages, and it immediately fills me with warmth for all involved in the show. It’s a brilliant wrap gift idea, and one I intend to steal and use myself.

I head home to find Jen waiting for me in the room already. We make out a bit, then chit-chat and get caught up, before I collapse onto the bed and order room service, while Jen starts packing up the apartment. After I gorge on my chicken sandwich dinner, I fall asleep watching
NewsRadio
while Jen continues packing.

Saturday 23 July 2005 @ 4:56 a.m.

This is the last Vancouver day of the show. Everything’s all packed and ready to be loaded into the Hate Tank by noon. The big question is whether or not we bring home the three TVs we bought while up there. I decide to keep two of them and bring the third to the set to give to Lori, who — as the 3rd A.D. — had to put up with a lot of grief for my lateness.

I get to set, give Lori the wrap gift TV, get my hair and makeup done, get into costume, and get my ass over to the set, where Juliette and I do the more tender part of our characters’ motel misadventure. Juliette, as always, is amazing, and so convincing that — for the first time ever on the show — I feel like I stop simply playing Sam for a moment and slip into
being
(not just
pretending
to be, but actually
being
) Sam.

The caterers do a massive lunch, and rather than eat in my trailer, I enjoy my steak sandwich in the lunch tent, with the rest of the crew.

Post-lunch, I realize I don’t have my cell phone, so I borrow Shelly’s and call Jen, who’s already loaded up the truck, checked out of the hotel, and is at the Vida Spa, enjoying some treatments while she waits for me to wrap.

Post-lunch, as we set up for the last few shots, Susannah, Henry and I bond over Springsteen lyrics, and I drag the Bose iPod doc onto the set and hook it up at the playback monitor, where the three of us listen to the Boss. It’s a wonderful, small moment I don’t think I’ll ever forget, as former Jersey girl Susannah reveals her lifelong crush on my one-time Rumson neighbor, Bruce.