Kevin Smith’s public speaking engagements prove that he is an improvisational master. For his first major acting role in someone else’s film, he couldn’t help contributing to the script. He plays the comic relief in Catch and Release.
Interview: Kevin Smith on Role-Playing in Catch and Release
“Not because I don’t respect Susannah [Grant]’s writing or anything, I just learned so quickly that I’m not a good actor,” Smith said. “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?”
So bad that he asked for the one thing actors hate, line readings. “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, because that’s shorthand. I just believe in the quickest way there, man. 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.”
It’s Garner’s movie but Smith gets a lot of screen time, along with his screen buddy Sam Jaeger. “Sam and I just tried to say as much as we could because we just wanted to be in the movie. 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 other sh*t that we’ll wind up in it.”
Things get physical between Jaeger and Smith in a slapsticky man fight. “I don’t know how that happened, but it’s the only fight I’ve ever been in in my entire life. I’ve never been in a real fight. That’s why I look so f*ckin’ bad. It really is a few of these [slapping motions] away from being a slapdown.”
Catch and Release
Catch and Release
As the best friend of Garner’s character’s fiancé, it may seem Smith really is playing himself. He is best friends with her real life husband, but Ben Affleck is not dead. “Affleck was around as much as the Grady character was around. He didn’t spend a lot of time on the set. He would bum by and say hi to her and sh*t but generally, because it was up in Vancouver, it sucks being on a set you’re not, you have nothing to do with. It’s kind of boring, so it’s not like he hung out all the time but when he did hang out, he was f*ckin’ hanging out with her, naturally, in her trailer. I was like, ‘Come to my trailer.’ He was like, ‘Dude, you don’t f*ck me.’ I was like, ‘Right on. I’ll go to Olyphant’s trailer.’”
Famous for his loose hanging Jerseys, Smith had a problem with his movie wardrobe. “I wish I had input into my wardrobe. I lobbied to get that f*ckin’ jersey on. I was like, ‘Give me one thing to cover up with. You keep putting me in these skin-tight, fuckin’ tie-dye shirts leaving nothing to the imagination. I do have a character in the movie where people look at me and feel better about themselves. They’re just like, ‘As bad as I got it, I don’t look like that.’ It’s weird because I just wear this [long trench coat] in generally every movie I’ve been in and suddenly I had to wear what they told me to wear. And I remember Susannah was always going for less. At least with the tie-dye shirt, I got to wear a shirt under it, so it gives you the illusion of ‘well, there’s one more layer, so they can’t tell I’m fat yet.”
Catch and Release opens to theatres Friday, January 26th.
Stay tuned for updates.
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