>>PREVIEW
AN EVENING WITH KEVIN SMITH
Sunday, February 5
Jack Singer Concert Hall (Epcor Centre)
You would think it would take a lot to rattle Kevin Smith.
As a film director, he parlayed his low-budget, black-and-white debut film Clerks into a dick- and-fart joke empire. As an actor, he has created one of cinema’s great straight men in the form of Silent Bob (a staple character in all of his films), and in 2005 he landed his first starring role in the upcoming Jennifer Garner vehicle Catch and Release. As a writer, he has not only penned every one of his seven features (Clerks II is due this August), but all manner of on-line blogs, issues of Daredevil comics and a book entitled Silent Bob Speaks chronicling his time in and on the fringes of Hollywood.
In fact, his personality is so recognizable that he has also made a name for himself on the lecture circuit, hosting Q&A sessions all across North America. But, as it turns out, his upcoming speaking engagement in Calgary has him a little worried.
"Please go out and buy some damn tickets," says Smith, slightly concerned at his ability to fill the Jack Singer Concert Hall. "The place is a fucking barn man. The place is fucking huge."
The 2,000-seat venue wouldn’t be a record audience for the Red Bank, New Jersey native, but with a $50 ticket price, the outspoken director is worried that he might not have the drawing power for audiences to put their money where his mouth is.
"I don’t think I have 2,000 fans in the world. I don’t know how we are going to do it," he says. "We gotta fill this place or at least a little bit so we are not mutually embarrassed when you show up and I step out onstage and there is only 10 of us. At which point I imagine I would just invite you back to my room for a more intimate Q&A, rather than stand there in a big empty theatre."
Anyone who has seen the DVD version of An Evening With Kevin Smith knows that despite his sense of modesty, Smith is a worthy keynote speaker. You might think that hearing one man speak for hours about his misadventures in Hollywood would wear thin, but Smith’s keen ear isn’t only for scripted dialogue. He fields questions with the timing and delivery of a great standup comic. His storytelling falls in line with such greats as Bill Cosby, where his attention to detail becomes as engaging and hilarious as the grand arc of the wild tales. And let’s face it, even if you feel his act lacks quality, he more than makes up for it in quantity.
"I have never done a Q&A in four years that has been shorter than four hours," he says. "I try to keep it as entertaining as possible and lightly informative. Hopefully no one is going there to learn anything because I don’t know how to lecture."
Of course, the proceedings would never be as stuffy as a lecture. Smith says that everything is driven by questions from the audience and in some cases his answers can stretch out to 45 minutes in length. He’s ready to talk about the new documentary on small-town gay bars that he produced, the fact that he is in talks to direct a Degrassi feature film or which TV shows have turned him into a Tevo whore (for the record it’s Lost, The Simpsons, Battlestar Galactica, Desperate Housewives, Law and Order and My Name is Earl). Smith is so notoriously free with personal details of his life there is almost nothing he won’t talk about.
"There is not much that I don’t really make known," he says. "I pretty much put everything there is to know about me out there. I don’t really keep much for myself. Dick size – I haven’t really disclosed that yet, but I assure you, it’s very small."
And still, even with the insecurity that must come with having a smaller than average unit, Smith is more concerned with the size of the Jack Singer Concert Hall and the ticket price.
"Here they are charging like 50 bucks. That’s pretty high, especially for the likes of me," he says. "The one thing I can say is that I will try and make it worth your while time-wise. We’ll try to keep it like a five-hour, six-hour Q&A. That way you will feel like you got your money’s worth, ’cause that’s like 10 bucks an hour. It’s like babysitting.
"It’s gonna be a good time. You will laugh a lot, hopefully. You can’t put a price on that. Well, actually you can. The price is 50 bucks." |
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