Kevin Smith Interview, Zack & Miri Make a Porno

Kevin Smith enlightens us on making a porn with Zack & Miri! MoviesOnline had the pleasure of sitting down with Kevin Smith at the Toronto International Film Festival to talk about his new movie, “Zack & Miri Make a Porno.” What happens when two best friends up to their eyeballs in debt decide to have sex on camera for money? Kevin Smith was desperate for answers. He took a group of ragtag actors to Pittsburgh for two months to find out.

Lifelong friends and roommates Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) are facing hard times and a mountain of debt. When the electricity and plumbing get cut off, they seize upon the idea of making a homegrown porno movie for some quick cash, enlisting the help of their friends. The two vow that having sex will not ruin their friendship.  But as filming begins, what started out as a business proposition between friends turns into something much more.

“Zack & Miri Make a Porno” is a feast of dirty talk, raunchy scenes with real love and caring amongst the characters, cooked up by the originator of the genre—Kevin Smith. Here’s what he had to tell us about his new film, appealing an NC17 rating, and making Superman gay:

Q: How did you get the concept for Zack & Miri Make a Porno?

KEVIN SMITH: The concept has been swimming around in my head since we finished Chasing Amy because I wanted to do this – not this exact movie but a movie about amateurs making porn with Ben Affleck, Jason Lee and Joey Adams. But we never got around to doing it. We did Dogma first and then life just took us in different directions. Since late 96, early 97, it’s been kind of germinating and germinating and I never wanted to do a movie about the porn industry because Paul Thomas Anderson did a great job with Boogie Nights and why bother trying to do better than that. I was always really interested in the DIY porn, the people who were just like “I’m going to shoot myself having sex and throw it up on the internet either for money or just to be an exhibitionist.” That I always found kind of interesting and then I just wanted to kind of meld it with a subject that’s always been interesting to me which is the difference between fucking and making love and that’s how it kind of came together.

Q: How long did the process take once you really started?

KEVIN SMITH: When I sat down to write it, I was done in a week and a half. But it had been stewing for awhile so I just went blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Q: Can you talk about your two leads who are essential to this movie?

KEVIN SMITH: Absolutely. There’s nobody…that role was written for Seth Rogen. Seth Rogen was born to do many things and to play that role was definitely one of them. He was genius. I fell in love with him when I saw him in 40 Year Old Virgin on DVD. I was like “This dude has kind of a supporting role in this flick. I’m going to write this dude a lead role and he’s going to love me forever. And I’m going to turn him into a leading man.” I gave him the script two weeks before Knocked Up opened and I started seeing his face on billboards everywhere. I was like “Fuck! Judd Apatow beat me to the punch. This dude is going to be super famous.” Thankfully he liked the script and then it worked out double because I wrote the script for a dude in particular who then wound up being a movie star so I was like “Ooh, this is great!”

And Elizabeth Banks came into it after Rosario. I’d written a role for Rosario Dawson because we worked with her on Clerks 2 but she had signed up to do Eagle Eyes so she was out of the running. So we were kind of at ground zero in terms of finding a Miri which made Seth really happy because he was like “You don’t know how many actresses I’ve seen over the years” because they audition everybody whenever they do Judd’s movies. So we went through the list of availables and Banks was one of six people, six actresses, who were available in the time that we were shooting who might be inclined to like the material. So I gave Seth the list and before I could say a word, he was like “Elizabeth Banks. I fucking love Elizabeth Banks. She was in 40 Year OId Virgin but she got really far on the casting process on Knocked Up so I think she’d be great. She should totally do it.” So we went to Elizabeth, she read it, dug it, and we were off and running.  And those two had such amazing chemistry together. Like really they bounce off one another because that dude is an organic comedy machine and that could be intimidating to stand opposite and try to act against. But man, she more than held her own. She was able to give back just as good as he gave. So we got lucky. Without those two, the movie sucks.

Q: When you finish one film, do you ask yourself how outrageous can I be on my next film?

KEVIN SMITH: I never think like that. Each one has to be its own unique entity and I don’t do them with a mind toward what we did in the other one or what we’ll do in the next one. It’s just what’s best to tell this story. That being said, I didn’t think we could go further than we did with the donkey show in Clerks 2 [laughs] and I honestly don’t think we did it in this movie. I think that’s about the furthest we’ve ever gone was that donkey show. Everything else felt tame compared to that in this movie. That’s why when we got the NC17 I’m like “Are you crazy? There was a donkey show in the last movie. You should’ve NC17’d that movie.” And that was a little too late for them to do that. Yeah, I don’t feel like this movie…yeah, it pushes the edge of the envelope a little bit but at its core it’s a rom com. You know, remove the trappings of porno and it’s a traditional rom com.

Q: Are you a closet romantic?

KEVIN SMITH: I’m not even closeted. I’m an unabashed rom com fan. I just like my rom coms to be a little more risqué than 27 Dresses or Made of Honor or something like that. Not that there’s anything wrong with those, I just like people to say fuck in my movies, in my rom coms, or to show fucking in my rom coms as well because that’s part of the romantic aspect and includes that sometimes.

Q: My impression was that Zack and Miri were in love from the very beginning and it’s obvious they belong together.

KEVIN SMITH: Yup. They’re definitely a couple who just don’t realize they’re a couple yet.

Q: But the sex is important to clarify that?

KEVIN SMITH: Absolutely. It’s what changes every relationship, isn’t it? Everything else is just kind of a friendship until you cross that line and then it becomes something else. And whether it becomes something lasting or not, it’s still…you can’t go back from that.

Q: I recognized some of the porn actors from the HBO series Real Sex Down in the Valley.

KEVIN SMITH: Katie Morgan definitely. She does a show on HBO, one of those Real Sex shows.

Q: How important was it to have them as part of this?

KEVIN SMITH: You know, initially it wasn’t but Seth was the one that said you should get porn actresses in this. I was like “Interesting. Why?” And he was like “Well, it’s called Zack & Miri Make a Porno.” “Yeah, but it’s not really that kind of porno. It’s home grown kind of DI Wad porn.” And he said, “There’s a practical reason for doing it.” He’s like “Once you have a porn actress in the movie, you never feel weird about being like ‘Okay, so here is where you take your clothes off.’” He’s going “because the most outrageous thing you’re going to ask her to do is tame compared to what she does on a daily basis.” And I was like “Wow, you’re absolutely right about that.” And we followed suit too. We got two gay porn actors for the end of the movie as well. Nobody recognized them though. At least no guy has said, “I recognize them, man!” That’s totally hip.

Q: I recognized the location.

KEVIN SMITH: Do you recognize the location? I loved it. They showed me 5 different houses. I was like, “This looks like a porn palace. We have to shoot here.”

Q: How hard was it to get Traci Lords to do this?

A; Traci Lords was a real Hail Mary. We were just about to start shooting. We were about two or three weeks out and we still hadn’t cast that role. We had this book in our office, a look book of a bunch of classy photographs of porn actors and actresses and we went through the whole book. It was a coffee table book. One of those, Tassion makes them. And when we went through the book, we were like “Wow, man. Katie Morgan is in it. Traci Lords isn’t in this book.” And then we started going “Traci Lords! Why don’t we get her to play Bubbles and do it as kind of like a cougar of sorts?” And then immediately we were like, “No, Traci refuses to have anything to do with anything remotely porn-related.” She keeps that part of her life at arm’s length now so it’s unlikely she’ll do it, but we were like “Let’s give it a shot.” Seth was inspiring. Seth is the kind of guy that’s like… We needed somebody to play Bobby Long and he was like “He should be a real salt of the earth type.” I was like “Like Superman?” He was like, “Yeah, yeah, like Brandon Routh.” He’s going “Why don’t we just ask Brandon Routh if he can do it.” And I was like “Because that dude’s never going to do it.” And he was like, “Just ask. What can he do? Just say no.” And we asked him and he totally loved it and did it. So following through on that, we were like, “Let’s ask Traci Lords.” And she came over to the house and read the script and she was like, “You know, I was all prepared to say no but this is funny and maybe it’s time. It’s 20 years since I’ve done an adult film and maybe I can do it and just make fun of it.” And I was like, “Yes, please do it and do it in this movie.”

Q: So was making Superman gay kind of an F you to the Superman franchise?

KEVIN SMITH: [laughs] No, it’s total coincidence, but it really works the more you look at it. It’s like “Wow, that movie would have been awesome if Superman was just out gay.” But it was a total happenstance that it worked out like that. I did ask Brandon at one point and I waited until we were done shooting and I was like, “Hey man, don’t you have some kind of morals clause since you’re playing Superman?” And he said, “As long as I don’t play another superhero, Warner Bros. doesn’t care.” I was like, “Right on!”

Q: Didn’t you write a Superman adaptation for Warner Bros.?

KEVIN SMITH: Yeah, a long time ago, like back in ‘96.

Q: So was that your way of getting back at Superman?

KEVIN SMITH: No! No, but I guess I could kind of look at it like that in terms of here’s my revenge. I honestly don’t think they care. They’ve got The Dark Knight, what do they care, you know? They’re very happy over there.

Q: So coming up with the porn titles must have been a fun game?

KEVIN SMITH: That to me is the easiest joke in the movie. I felt a little ashamed about it but I was like how can I make a movie with ‘porno’ in the title without doing that because people just sit around and do it anyway. You know, take a mainstream movie title and porn it. So it felt like it was one of the hoariest jokes in the movie for me but I felt like if I leave it out people are going to be like “Why didn’t you do this?” So we included it and it’s actually kind of cute.

Q: Do you have any favorite porno movie takeoffs?

KEVIN SMITH: Yeah. Not take offs. My favorite porn title of all time is Jerk My Cum Crown and Color Me White. That stuck with me and I’ll take it to the grave. It’s such a weird…it’s almost as blatant and non-subtle as Zack & Miri Make a Porno, in fact, even more so. It just tells you what you’re going to get in that movie. But I don’t have a favorite riff.

Q: Have any of your titles ever been…?

KEVIN SMITH: Just one, Chasing Amy. There’s an actress named Asia Carrera and she did Chasing Asia which is, you know, not great. I mean maybe the movie was great but in terms of a porn title of mine, that was as close as we got.

Q: What happened with the NC17?

KEVIN SMITH: We got an NC17 from the MPAA and we kept resubmitting the movie. The first time I submitted it, I submitted this hour and 45 minute cut that we had just test screened in Kansas City and it went really well but I found 10 minutes of it. I can take it out. It’s chubby. It’s just not working. So I found 10 minutes I was going to take out. I said, “Let’s submit this version because if the worst happens and we get an NC17 for some strange reason, I can turn in another copy next week and boom, we’ll look like we’ve done a shit ton of work. So we did it. We did get the NC17 and I said, “Okay. On Friday we resubmit this new cut.” And we resubmitted it and they still maintained it was NC 17. They were like, “Look, you did a lot of great work here but it’s still NC 17.” And I said, “Okay, what are the areas to look at?” The two they pointed to was the first porn scene between Stacey and Lester – Katie Morgan and Jason Mewes. And then the other was – how to say it without spoiling it – the shit shot. I guess which totally spoils it. [laughs]  That was another moment. They were like, “That will never play in an R-rated movie.”
 
Q: Not Jason’s nudity?

KEVIN SMITH: No, that was the surprising thing. But I think I get that. If it’s outside of a sexual context, they can’t really attack it. Do you know what I’m saying? Like it’s just a dude walking out of a room.

Q: Or walking out of a shower?

KEVIN SMITH: Yes. Although if they studied it really closely, and I was on the MPAA and I was one of those people that cared about this sort of thing, I would have been like “That’s the offending shot.” Because clearly – I don’t know if it’s clear to anybody else but it is to me because I’ve seen his dick normally in real life – that dude is like…even Affleck said it. Affleck came and watched the movie at the house and he goes, “Mewes is one pump away from a complete hard on.” I said, “I know. Isn’t it weird?” Right before he comes out of the room, you know the dude was just like “Everybody is going to see this. I gotta look my best.” So the dude is tugging it like crazy right before he comes out the door but stopping just short of lift off. So if you look at his cock and I have many times while editing the movie, it is filled with blood but just not crowing yet, just not climbing, one more pump and he would have been like noticeably off the ground so to speak.

Q: And that’s an automatic NC 17?

KEVIN SMITH: That would be it. That would have killed it but for some reason they didn’t zero in on that.

Q: So semi-hard doesn’t count?

KEVIN SMITH: Semi-hard doesn’t count. Turgid doesn’t count. Hard counts. This is what I’ve learned.

Q: What about a prosthetic penis?

KEVIN SMITH: I don’t think that would have mattered at all because, I mean, Boogie Nights, Mark Wahlberg had a fake cock.

Q: So would you have done that?

KEVIN SMITH: For Mewes?

Q: If he’d said, I feel uncomfortable. I want to be bigger.

KEVIN SMITH: The chances of Jason Mewes being like “I feel uncomfortable naked” are very nil and none. Mewes is the kind of guy you know him 5 minutes, he’ll pull his dick out for you. Just like a baby with his genitalia. He’s so interested in it even at age 34.

So they didn’t zero in on that. They zeroed in on those two moments. The last time I took a look at the movie after they gave it a NC17 the second time, I found 6 seconds because they were like “Look at that again. The Stacey Lester scene, there’s too much thrusting.” And they were like “The shit shot’s never going to play.” And I was like “Well that shit shot’s not going anywhere. I’ll fight for it.” So they said “Well maybe you should bring the sound down. Maybe it just sounds worse than it looks.” And I was like, “I doubt it, but I’ll give it a shot.” So I took 6 seconds of thrusting out and took down the sound in that sequence and resubmitted it and they were like “You’re so close but there’s still a little more work to do.” And at that point I was just like, not for nothing, but I’d like to just move to the appeals process.

For the appeals process you get to present the version of the movie that you want to present and that’s what we presented so back went the 6 seconds, out went the movie. So there’s nothing that’s not in the movie that I was like “Fuck. I wish we could’ve kept it.” We got to keep everything we wanted. I took that to the appeals process and that’s where you’re screening it – not for the MPAA members of the ratings board, but you’re screening it for members of the MPAA who aren’t on the ratings board as well as members of NATO, the National Association of Theatre Owners. To me, those are the people who should make up the ratings board because that’s the last line of defense. Those are the cats that deal with the public on a regular basis. They know what gets people out of their seats and out into the theater. Like never mind just putting some random parents to work and being like “What do you think about this movie?” Go to the people who actually deal with the public and they know what incenses the public.

So you screen the movie for them. You get 15 minutes to stand up and make your case. The MPAA is headed by Joan Graves who’s a really, really sweet woman. She gets up and does her 15 minutes on why she feels the movie should be NC 17. You get 10 minutes to rebut. She gets 10 minutes to rebut. Then you leave and they let you know what happens. So I got up and just kind of made the case, like “Look, with a movie called Zack & Miri Make a Porno, we knew going in that we were going to be scrutinized pretty heavily so we went out of our way to make sure that nothing we did crossed the line. And we were able to cite precedent. You used to not be able to cite precedent in an appeals screening. Now you can point to other movies that have done something similar or the exact same thing.

So I was able to point to different movies to be like “Look. Taking Lives, Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke have sex on a dresser in the movie. Her breasts are bared. It’s almost but not quite the same as ours, but the same mechanics:  man, woman having fake sex, boobs on display. And that was an R. Clearly that scene is meant to be erotic and titillating. Ours is comedy. Like it’s a caricature of sex that’s already a caricature of sex because you’re lampooning porn sex so it has to be even bigger than normal sex because I don’t know about anybody else at this table I do not do 26 positions in 10 minutes like they do in porn. So that’s unreal to begin with. We’re making something that’s even less real than that. So they seemed to buy that. They went for that and for the shit shot I was able to cite films like Trainspotting where at one point they whip the sheet and the whole family gets covered with shit. The America Pie 3 where Stifler eats shit. And then there’s the one that I think put us over the edge which was Jackass. There’s a segment called The Fart Helmet where Steve-O is wearing a helmet like a bubble helmet and there’s a hose attached to it and a funnel is attached to the hose and his buddy’s farting in it and then he shits in it and Steve-O is throwing up in his helmet. And my point was this was an R-rated movie and it’s a documentary. They don’t fake that stuff. That’s real. They’re really doing it. Ours is very clearly fake poo and you’re not seeing where it’s coming from and this shot is 14 frames long. It’s not even a second long. It’s 14 frames of film. How on earth can this movie be an R and this movie be a NC 17? And I guess that kind of worked.

Q: What is it like going through that process where your film is your baby?

KEVIN SMITH: You know it’s really strange. I don’t get really particularly protective of the movie at that point because it’s just part of the game. You know you’re going to face it if you’re going into this. If you’re going to push the edge of the envelope in terms of material, you may have to face it so you accept it going in. But you just sit there going “What a weird job!” I’m like “Look. The Fart Helmet was an R-rated sequence in a movie. Why can’t our shit scene be an R-rated sequence in a movie.” You step back and think “I can’t believe I’m arguing on the merit of fake shit.” But that’s my job at that point in the game.

Q: You’ve told us that you think nothing’s off limits. Do you get a feel from the audiences when you push the envelope too far?

KEVIN SMITH: I always feel like the audiences for the stuff that we make very clearly share my sensibilities but I feel like if there’s something that is off putting to me, it’s going to be off putting to them. But if I’m okay with it, they’re probably going to be okay with it.

Q: Did you particularly pick Kansas City for the test screening?

KEVIN SMITH: Yeah. We screened Clerks 2 there the last time we were test screening and it was a great screening and it’s totally indicative of the middle of the country. You test in L.A. or New York you’re kind of dealing with different beasts altogether. I believe in the Kansas City test screening. It totally works. It totally worked for us. It was a killer test screening. That was one of the reasons I didn’t want to lose the shit shot. I watched it play and you watch 300 people jump at once and it’s not a horror movie. That’s a cool thing. I remember watching every Jaws documentary ever made. Whenever they talk to Spielberg, he talks about the moment that he shot this quick insert of the dead Ben Gardner’s head popping out of the boat and Richard Dreyfuss going nuts and he talks about the test screening when the whole audience went crazy. That moment. like I was watching Kansas City when everyone went crazy, it’s the Ben Gardner moment. I’m finally Spielberg! [laughs] And then I realized I was crazy and put that away.

Q: Do you think you’ll give some porn producers some ideas about doing Star Wars?

KEVIN SMITH: I can’t believe it’s not been done. In a world of infinite possibility, it just seems that it had to have been done at one point.

Q: All of your movies have had some element of comedy in them, but you’ve talked about doing a horror film.

KEVIN SMITH: That’s next. We’re going to do a movie called Red State, a flat out horror flick that’s a 180 from all the stuff we’ve done so far because everything has been comedically bent.

Q: Is it going to be about America with McCain as President?

KEVIN SMITH: No, I don’t know about that. [laughs] I don’t know about that but it’s definitely a movie about… To me, after September 11th, America turned to the enemy without and started concerning themselves with that and forgot about the enemy within its own borders and that’s what the movie kind of concentrates on. It’s pretty far away from everything we’ve done. Not a laugh in it, just a straight out political horror film.

Q: Is it cast?

KEVIN SMITH: No, not yet. I’ve got to find money first. It’s shocking how difficult it is to find money when you say “I’d like to make a horror movie” and people are like “Hmmm.”

Q: Are you thinking about other projects that will take you in new directions?

KEVIN SMITH: No. For me, right now, it’s a one-off. Like I’m not “Okay. Now I’m gonna do this, now I’m gonna do a courtroom drama.” Like right now I’ve got Red State down to a science and I feel confident to move forward with it. But after that, I don’t know. I imagine I’ll do a comedy again.

Q: You write comic books too, don’t you?

KEVIN SMITH: Oh always. I haven’t done one in about 3 years but now I’m working on a Batman arc for DC.

Q: What is the comic book sci-fi movie you’re doing?

KEVIN SMITH: That will be after Red State. That’s one that’s still stewing right now.

Q: Is it a character you’ve created?

KEVIN SMITH: Yeah. It’s a character I’ve created and god willing, Seth plays.

Q: Is there a certain delicious irony in having your Miri play Laura Bush next?

KEVIN SMITH: Totally. It was weird. We wrapped and like a week later, two weeks later, she sent me a text. She’s like “I’m gonna play Laura Bush.” And I was just like “How ironic, from one movie about bush to another movie about Bush.” But yeah, it’s kind of cool. It’s a big Fall for Elizabeth Banks. She’s got that, she’s got this, she’s got Role Models coming out right afterwards. She’s on fire.

Q: How do you think the film ended up now that you’re finished and what do you think Pittsburg lends to it?

KEVIN SMITH: Absolutely. It’s a great town to shoot in. They were great to us on Dogma. They were doubly great to us on Zack & Miri. There was never a moment where there was anything that they could do they didn’t do for us. The weather wasn’t as agreeable with us as we thought it would be. It would snow when we didn’t need the snow and then when we needed snow, there was none. So we had to create our own. There’s only one moment of authentic snow in the movie and that’s when he’s fishtailing in the parking lot. That was a really snowy day. Everything else we had to kind of create ourselves. I think what it lends to the movie is you look at the Pittsburg area and particularly Monroeville and it’s just like this is the last place in the world that anyone would shoot themselves having sex. And that’s what I think was kind of ideal about the location is it’s the last place in the world where you’d think about somebody trying to kick off a porn industry. So it was just nice. We got to shoot the Monroeville mall. For a movie buff, that’s a very cool thing. We had Tom Sivini in it. It’s as close to a zombie film as I’ll ever get.

Q: Are Kevin Smith movies profitable? Do you make money?

KEVIN SMITH: We have a $30 million dollar ceiling on pretty much everything we’ve done. We’ve never made more than $30 million bucks. Hopefully, god willing, this one goes beyond that. I always felt there was no way you could mix raunch with sentimentality and make more than $30 million and then Judd proved that absolutely wrong. So that’s great. He kind of opened it up and took that sensibility and that kind of movie that we’ve been doing since 94 into a mainstream arena. Hopefully, not only did we get to borrow one of his guys but also we’ll get to live off some of the trailblazing that he’s done as well in terms of reaching the mainstream. I feel kind of confident in saying this movie will definitely make more than $30 million bucks.

Q: What’s on the DVD? Are there extras?

KEVIN SMITH: DVD is wonderful. The only reason I continue to work is because our home video numbers have always been really, really strong. That’s where we apparently shine. But it’d be nice to have one that shined just as well in theaters. It’d give me bragging rights. It’s like being able to fuck really well but having a small dick. You know what I’m saying? It’s like “Well it’s not a big dick, but I fuck really well.”

Q: Something you’d never know about?

KEVIN SMITH: Something I know about very well. I could spend hours discussing it with you guys but I wasn’t going there. Thanks a lot.