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The Boys Are Back: Chatting with ‘Clerks II’ Denizens Dante and Randal

After taking a beating over movies such as Dogma and Jersey Girl, writer/director Kevin Smith has returned to his indie roots by revisiting his two most popular characters: Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson), the hapless convenience store slackers from his breakout hit Clerks.

Hollywood.com sat down with O’Halloran and Anderson to talk about Clerks II, the continuing saga of Dante and Randal, who find that life must change now that they are in their 30s. The Kwik Stop has burned to the ground—so, they take jobs at the local fast food joint, Mooby’s, where they can once again sit around, dissect pop culture and talk about sex. All kinds of sex. Even bestiality—or as it is lovingly refer to in the film as “interspecies erotica.” Good times, good times.

Hollywood.com: When Kevin Smith approached you about doing Clerks II, were you reticent?
Brian O’Halloran: I actually said immediately yeah, sure! I’m a working actor. I’d been doing stage before I met Kevin and then after since in New York. So when we were working on the cartoon [version of Clerks], he had some ideas on other storylines he wanted to take these characters through. He told me, “Remember the storyline about such and such that the cartoon characters were going to do? I’m thinking about expanding on that for the sequel.” And I was like, “Great, can’t wait to read the script!”
Jeff Anderson: I wasn’t really excited about that at all, to put it mildly. I just didn’t want to do it—for a lot of reasons. Kevin was just coming off Jersey Girl, which he got a little beat up for and I was curious on what his intentions were, running back to [Clerks]. I feared he would get a lot more beat up running back to this than he ever did with Jersey Girl. And I tried to point that out to him. “As bad as you think you have it for Jersey Girl, if you make Clerks II and it doesn’t fly, you’re going to kill yourself.” It’s funny, I guess everyone was kinda onboard, except myself and his wife. Kevin said, “Even Jen doesn’t really want me to do this, but I really think this is one I have to do.”

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HW: Do you think this is Smith’s way to reconnect with his hardcore fans?
BH: Like you said, Kevin certainly took a beating with Jersey Girl. I’m sure he might have felt that if the personalities involved in [Jersey Girl], if that wasn’t the story that drew it away from the actual script, I think people would have seen the script for what it was, which was a heartwarming tale of a guy who finally finds himself having to raise a child and raise a child alone. Kevin at that time had just had his first child, and was going through those changes. Being responsible for the influence of this human for the rest of their lives. So I think that’s where Jersey Girl came out of. But getting beat up and the whole media spin on the Bennifer [Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez] situation, I guess he might have felt nostalgic. We had also just finishing doing the 10-year anniversary DVD edition of Clerks, in which we put down dialogue to the missing funeral scene, that we never got to shoot in the original. And so–this is my interpretation, anyway–I think Kevin was reminiscing about a time when the film was about the film, the characters were about the characters and the dialogue really flowed again. And I guess these were the characters he wanted to attempt to do it with.

HW: What was really different this time around? Better craft services?
JA: Oddly enough, better craft services only the day [Ben] Affleck was there. “Look at this spread! OK, who’s coming in?” The real difference was the amount of people we had this time. We actually didn’t have to carry equipment. I didn’t have to clap before the scene.
BH: There were only, like, four people in the first [Clerks]. Plus, at the time, we all had regular 9 to 5 jobs, so we would shoot from 11 at night until 6 in the morning and help Kevin get all the equipment out of the store and help get the store ready for business.

HW: What were your jobs?
BH: I was a national sales manager for a barware company. You see these hotel ice buckets and trays? That was me. I still recognize stuff. It’s a weird habit I have.
JA: I was working for AT&T at the time and going to school for architecture. Lucky for the world I got out of that.

HW: Was there more of a familiarity this time, more room to play around with the lines?
BH:
There wasn’t much improv—like, take the lines and do what you want with them. But it was more of delivery choices. Kevin would have his choices that he’d want, but then people would be able to try things out. It was kinda nice having the flexibility this time around. I guess he trusts us as actors, knowing these characters and playing them from time to time over the years.

HW: You’ve also got a sexy new co-star, Rosario Dawson, who added a nice touch to the proceedings.
BH: Verrrry nice. As you can see, she’s featured predominantly in the poster. She was great. I mean besides her obvious beauty and talent, she just totally fit us with her sense of humor. It was very similar. She grew up in the New York area, she’s a big sci-fi fan, an avid comic book reader. She really could sit down with a beer and a bunch of guys and talk about some subject matter that wouldn’t shock her. The first few days on set, as we were waiting for a set-up, Jeff finally asked, “Just curious…why did you say yes to the project? Did you get a ton of money? Did someone have some kind of blackmail material on you?” Tell them what she said, Jeff, ‘cause I think its hysterical.
JA: Well, I had to address the big pink elephant in the room. She said, “I’m here for one reason: the donkey show.” I said, “You realize this is a movie. We probably won’t go through with that.”

HW: Ah, yes, “interspecies erotica.” Was that originally in the script or did Smith think, “What’s the most outrageous thing I can put in this sequel?”
BH: Oh, it was in there from the beginning, from the first draft I read, at least. Ever seen those photos on the Web? I was actually once looking on the Internet for things regarding nativity scenes and…you know how pop-ups are! [Laughs] But Harvey Weinstein had a lot to do with getting us Rosario. The man is a crazy genius but you can’t be a genius without being a little eccentric and crazy in that sense, and wanting to take risks. We thought, there’s no way she’d want to do this. There were other actresses considered too. I think one was even Rachel Weisz. Imagine that. She probably took a look at the script and said [Doing a British accent] “Am I being punk’d? Is this a joke? A donkey show? You must be kidding me!” But Harvey was pushing, saying we are going to take it to Cannes and make it one of the last movies they see. It got an eight minute standing ovation [at Cannes].

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HW: From Clerks to Clerks II, any life lessons learned?
JA: The biggest lesson I’ve taken away from [the experience]—and this is probably going to sound wrong—it’s not as hard to do it if you just believe in it and put your mind to it. Clerks wasn’t a fancy movie. Kevin just wrote about what he knew, scraped up his money to get his equipment together and shot it. I sort of took that into my own film [the indie Now You Know], went out and raised the money and shot it. If you want to take a shot it, you can do it. And today’s technology makes it even easier. Just shoot on DV and edit it on your own computer.
BH: Have a contract from the very beginning. Own a piece of the merchandizing rights. [Laughs] No, just the general growth of an actor, what you do and don’t do. I’ve learned more from mistakes than I have from successes. Successes obviously you did every thing right, so there’s nothing to learn. I thoroughly enjoy working with Kevin and that circle of people. And it’s heightened my appreciation and critique of what comedy is. And what you can and cannot do and say on film. Which is pretty much blown out the window in Clerks II.

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