Let's Be Mallrats...with Kevin Smith (Part 1)

In this episode, we revisit the cult classic 'Mallrats'...the film that birthed a life-long friendship between Shannen and Director Kevin Smith.
Kevin recalls the days Shannen broke the internet before there WAS an internet...and the fun they had working together at a half-empty mall in Minnesota. Find out how 'Mallrats' affected their careers in the 90s...and why the movie resonates with audiences nearly 30 years later! 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Let's Be Clear with Shannon Doherty. Hi, everyone,
welcome to another episode of Let's Be Clear with Shannon Doherty.
And I have a very special surprise for everyone, which
is the lovely Kevin Smith.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
This episode is Let's be Marats.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Let's be Marats.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
How are you?

Speaker 3 (00:23):
I'm good?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Let me paint the picture for the kids at home.
Like you know, I've been around now I've been doing
this is a January of twenty twenty four marks thirty
years that I have been in the business, So thirty
years from the moment Clerks played at Sundance. Look, it
only took me forty five seconds to say Clerks, I
have been around. That's I only say that just so

(00:46):
I can tell you like I have experience not just
this business, but in this town and specifically in the
dwellings of those who work within our industry. That is
to say, I have been in some really nice houses
in my day. This is a staggering palace to oneself,
a shrine to the hard work put in by a

(01:07):
little girl who I remember seeing in Ron Howard's movie
Night Shift. Mugger.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Mugger.

Speaker 4 (01:14):
Yeah, from the little girl who worked with Wilford Brimley.
If Wilford Brimley could see where you how you live,
oh my god, he would be like, I should ask
for a lot more money from them diabetes commercials or
or whatever it was.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
That's right. This place is staggering. This is just go.
Are you allowed to curse on your product? Fucking gorgeous?
You should see this kitchen. You might see it behind
her and you're not. It's not even doing a justice.
I pulled in and I was like, holy shit, this
is what I need to know. Is this nine O

(01:50):
two one oh money or charmed money? Because I know
it as.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Money it was.

Speaker 4 (01:57):
If this was Marat's money, I too would live in
the taj Mahal. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
I think this was charmed money.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
This charm money.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah, it was a combination of nine two and oh
and charmed money.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Let's talk about that, because you like had a show
two shows in an era when like residuals were like
a thing.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
No, when residuals were terrible even they were bad then,
because yeah terrible now yeah, so nine O two and
oh it wasn't like a full fledged.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Network yet Fox.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
It was the beginning.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
It was the beginning. So our residuals were always extremely low.
I mean, now I think it's like, you know, for
an entire season, they'll send me a residual for like
seventeen dollars. Are you kidding?

Speaker 2 (02:40):
That's that's what happened to nine oh two and oh kids.
I was there for nine oh two and oh. I
watched nine oh two one oh in quick stop behind
the counter before we made Clerks, while we were making
clerks and whatnot, so much so that when I make
my second movie and Shannon's in it, like that was
an absolute sign that I'd made it. Like I watched

(03:03):
this person like a year ago, I was watching you
on TV at my job, and a year later my
job was to hang out with you in a fucking mall.
I was like, this rules so that I was there
when that show broke and to say, to try to
explain to people how big that phenomenon is, you would

(03:26):
have to point to like the Swifties and shit like
that at this point, and maybe people are you're over
saying it bullshit. This nine O two one oh was
like literally everywhere, and Shannon was like everywhere as well.
They hunted you, they did like constantly, Like Shannon was
in every piece of media. If there was an internet,

(03:49):
you would have broken it multiple times. Yeah, I'm not
even speaking out of school. You could probably go on
the internet and fucking go back and see. But Shannon
was like the first person like the proto influencer, but
wasn't an influencer. She actually is an actress and had
a career and shood. But the person that they focused
on your personal life almost more than your performances.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Not even almost one hundred percent, focused more on my
personal life than and look, you know, to be fair,
I gave them a lot to focus on.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Was also fun back in those days. And as much
as headline after headline was like Doherty punches out motherfucker
with camera Doherty and Judd Nelson and that was like
a dream pairing because it's like, oh my god, the
girl from Heather's and the boy from Breakfast Club, like
just as an outsider from that, from that world and
then entering the world and working with you as a

(04:48):
good temporary was just so like that. That to me
was the first syndication like, oh my god, I've I've
made it. My question is this and we'll get back
to this fucking majestic estate that apparently Charmed pay for it,
So it wasn't Charmed residuals. It was like the Charmed
per episode.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
It was I mean, listen, it was a combination of
stuff because.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
There were residuals on Charms.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
Yes, that's where the money profit participation.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
So is that does that still exist? Yeah? So whenever
they sell Charm you get a piece. Yes, you're lucky.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
So wait, how deep is that you attached to every
season of Charmed or just the ones you're in.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Supposed to be every season, so that you definitely got.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Paid for the ones you're oh for sure, and they
sold that fucker everywhere.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
And it continues to like you know, the thing about Charmed.
It's what's interesting is that I think, uh, if you
if you put them together right in the same time frame,
I think nine was still the bigger show.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yes, yeah, I would agree with that. Charm definitely had
a charm well, and it also seems like it's had
a longer shelf life. Maybe I'm wrong.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
Our I think our fans are probably the most loyal,
dedicated Sam.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
You know number one is right. So here I follow
you from like your early career like up till mal
Rats and then I'm busy making movies. But the guy
who's not as busy making movies and there's a lot
of time to watch TV and has literally watched Charmed

(06:22):
No Bullshit from fucking season one to the end and
then starts again and loops back no less than twenty
five times the course of the last ten years A
long Jason mues.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Are you serious.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Such a fucking man, I'm not overstating it. By being
in front of you. You could go listen to him
talk anywhere in public. He doesn't know the Smith's song
how soon is now? He just knows the theme Charmed,
so when it comes on, He's like, fucking charm bitch,
And I'm like, well, yes, but it pre exists Charmed

(06:56):
as well. But he like lived and still to this day. Now,
you you lived in a maybe twenty four to forty
eight hour news cycle. If you did something at fucking
the China Club or whatever fuck or what was that place,
the formosa, you had about twenty four hours forty eight
hours for the rest of the world might find out
you lived in a pre TMZ world. Yes, who covered you?

(07:19):
Who was your nemesis? Who was the outfit?

Speaker 3 (07:21):
The National Inquirer that was the one.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, so wild because they don't I mean, correct me
if I'm wrong. I don't want to pick any fights.
But they just don't seem to have a presence or
an existence now like they used to.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Right, they used to be huge. They were like it
was Star magazine and National Acquirer.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
So they were the predators. They were the ones where
it's just like, get me a fucking photograph of her
punching you, and holy shit, will run it.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
But the great thing about that time, to a certain degree,
was that you were able to sort of say to yourself,
you know, okay, great, so fine, it's in the press,
and that sucks. It's in a newspaper, but that newspaper
you knew was going to be, you know, lining a
cat litter box and forgotten. Now you google my name

(08:07):
and it all lives there forever.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
At this point is any of it? Are you ever? Like, well,
I'm fucking glad because it adds to the mythology. No,
you were like you were like, if I go back
in time out of race, yeah shit, would you?

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (08:24):
I would?

Speaker 4 (08:24):
You know?

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Like that's to me as part of like the DNA
of who you are. You have the unpleasant, you know,
business of having to grow up in front of people,
like have an adolescence in front of the world and
do shit that everybody does, but like, fucking they put
a camera on it and they were like, how dare
she do it? And shit like that. But that being said,
at your DNA, at the core of your DNA has

(08:47):
always been a fighter. That's why when the cancer stuff
kicked in, I was like, naturally, like, oh my god,
my heart's breaking. But at the same time, I'm like,
anybody's gonna fucking fight it. It's fucking dodo is she?
She fought less and for less, like this is so
much more so, you know, I'm no doctor and shit.
But I was like, well, it may have met its match.

(09:09):
And having noted her as all as that, I hope.
So do you know how you how we even come
into each other's world? I do. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
So it was after nine o two one zero and
my agent at the time, where were you?

Speaker 3 (09:28):
What agency? It might have been? William Morris and.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
Shannon couldn't be more famous kids at this point. Like, honestly,
Shannon was probably one of the most famous people in
the world period. She was absolutely hands down, I'm not
oversteading it because I'm in her fucking palace, one of
the most famous people in the world who was written.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
About, who had to audition for you. Yes, I had
auditioned for you, like.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
That was the whole I trust me.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
They were like, you know, there's this movie, but you
have to audition, and I I was like, okay.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
Let me read it.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
And then I read it and they're like it's Kevin
Smith and he did Clerks and I'm like, okay, let
me watch that. And I was like, yeah, okay, I'll
audition and I did. And I remember that audition with
you because you guys did not give anybody auditioning from
my part easy material to audition with. No. It was

(10:24):
like the monologue and I was like, oh my god.
And I was the girl who I don't know if
you remember, I don't ever want to read off of,
you know, sides off of a piece of paper, so
I had to memorize it all.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
But it was like a page long monelogue. She would
have to like memorize.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
It was crazy, but I did it and you were like, Okay,
that's great, do it faster, and I was that was.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
My direction to you for all of the mall rats for.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
All of the mall rats, You're like faster, faster, faster
because you have.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
The ability to write it tet like you could. The
original intention was kind of like, you know, I want
to make a John Hughes John Landis movie. But at
its root, Jim jacks the late Jim Jackson, who was
our producer, was like, you know, from the early draft,
it was like, it's kind of like a screwball comedy
as well. He's going he got that pace going on.
And Shannon was like the first professional that I worked

(11:22):
with who could ratitat the dialogue in a very Howard
Hawks his Girl Friday kind of way. And so if
you watch the elevator scene between her and like Jason
Lee where she's like, I'm a girl, damn it, it's
it's so it's so fucking fast.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
The kids some of the absolute best dialogue. I always
say this when people.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
As it is, but you some of.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
The best dialogue I've ever gotten to say. And you
know what, you can be as humble as you want
right now.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
You got to put it beneath the damn waters heather stuff.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
For me personally, that was maybe it was the pace,
you know, but it was also just how you wrote
for Renee was so impressive to me because you're a
dude writing exactly what a girl was thinking.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
The women, I was always kind of drawing to have
a very strong mother figure in my life, my mom literally,
so naturally, every like woman I gravitate toward is a pretty,
you know, a strong figure and very well spoken and
usually the smartest person in the room. So all that
went into the dna of like all the female characters

(12:41):
that I wrote, and when I wrote them at the time,
like people were like, oh, he can really write female characters.
I wrote a thing with my kid. I got a daughter,
Harley Quinn. She's like twenty four, and we had this
writing gig and we wrote the script together and in
it it's like two generations of characters, so there were
from the young people and older people, like so she

(13:04):
would have the voice of the youth and I definitely
have one of the other side. So you know, I
was waiting for the right one scene. I was like, fuck,
I'll take a crack at it. And so I wrote
the scene and I was like, hey, kiddo, I took
a run at the car scene with kids, like, let
me know what you think, and she wrote back, She's like, Dad, no, no,
twenty something talks like this. Oh. And I was like,

(13:26):
what are you talking about. I was like, I'm fucking
like the king of gen X dialogue, like literally, like
that's my bread and butter and fucking in the world.
And she was like, yes, dead in the nineties. And
it was like, I know, it was a dagger in
my fucking heart. I was like, but I was. She
wasn't wrong. I'm like, yeah, I guess I am in
my fucking fifties and that era. You know, I could

(13:50):
sell have a good ear for dialogue, but like being
the person who knows the voice of youth, you know,
it's like when I turn on Euphoria and get scared
because I'm like, oh, that's youth culture, right, I don't
it's you know, I don't understand teens anymore. So generally speaking,
when we go back in time, Shannon, we had the

(14:13):
merity to ask her to to audition.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
That was Phillips twice.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
You went in twice, I went, so, yeah, So I
auditioned and then and then.

Speaker 5 (14:23):
One of the most famous people in the world whose
work we were like familiar with, like it wasn't like
I don't know what she's capable of, right the Shannon,
She's like, you know, we've seen her for a couple
of seasons on IO two.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
No, she was in fucking others. She's been working for
a while. So it was like, we all know what
Shannon could do. Why they kept making you audition? And
I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus, but
like you know me, I'm like, fucking, oh my god,
she's famous as cast. I mean like I've watched her
movies and she's legit. She wants to be in it.
Fuck like quick say yes. But for some reason they
were like Don Phillips is like all right, we're gonna

(14:57):
have her come back in and I'm like, why she's
the one?

Speaker 4 (15:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (15:02):
I mean then also, by the way, like the Key
to a green Light on that movie as well, like
that movie, Yes, that movie was That's how And again
I'm not like blowing smoke of brass, but like that's
how fucking popular Shannon was. Universal was like, oh, Shannon
Door is interested, well, now you have a blinking green light.

(15:22):
That's what they literally said. I thought, like that's an
expression in Hollywood, and it was that nobody used it anymore,
but the idea is, like, you're halfway there. They wanted
one more like TV star. Later on, we were able
to convince him that Jeremy London, who had done one
season of a TV show called I'll Fly Away, which
was very critically acclaimed, had Sam Waterson in it, like

(15:43):
he's on a TV show. Look their ads and shit
like that, and they're like, hey, all right, there's two
TV people. Let's go. But Shannon was the one that
got them. You know that Shannon was the viagra for Universal,
for them to be like, oh, we're suddenly very interested
and it's only a matter of time before we closed steal.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
By the way, that's that's literally all I want people
to say from now on.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
Shannon was the biakra.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Like if that's.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
Anyone ever like goes away with anything from this podcast,
it's exactly that right there.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
So I did.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
You guys did want me to come back for a
second audition, and you guys called it a pizza party,
which is something that.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Pizza party, which was a formality. You were getting the
part at that point.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
And they told me I was getting the part, and
so the second audition wasn't really an audition.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
Scandals story about the Pizza Party. So Pizza Party kids,
as Shannon was about to explain, and then I started
man explaining it for in her own fucking house, but guessed,
I am, but the Pizza Party was. Don Phillips was
our casting direct Yes, Don Phillips was super fucking well
known in the cast.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
Like Fast Times at Richmond High.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
The lady knows her, Yeah, Times Richmond High now cast it,
but single handedly discovered Sean Penn. Right then he cast
Richard link Later's Days and Confused and discovered you know,
with the help of course Richard link later, Matthew McConaughey.
Right then we made a little picture called Marats Together
and he discovered an actor named.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
Jaj Jason Lee.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
So Don's got a stellar track record and stuff. So
Don Phillips had this thing called Pizza Party, where basically
it was a I mean, pizza party is such a
misleading title, because yes, there was pizza party.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Who's eating pizza and then going into like spout dialogue
very quickly, the.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
Lady's right, there was a lot of leftover pizza. Yes,
the actors weren't eating it. But it gets worse than that.
You're you're bringing in Don Phillips. Pizza Party is bringing
in three actors that are up for the same role. Yeah,
and you see your competition all throughout the day, and
then sometimes you were cast opposite your competition in a
scene where they're just playing somebody else for the read,

(18:03):
so you're forced to sit there and watch somebody do
the lines that you studied very well. And shit. Now,
for me, that was like my first motion picture, right
other than Clerks. We made ourselves as the first legit
movie and I was like, I guess that's how it's done. Oh,
I've heard for years since then is like, do you
know what a horrible experience that was? All? That's Pizza Party.
They're like, Pizza Party, it was like that fucking train

(18:24):
that looks like a circus, but it is bringing you
to a death camp. They're like, it's so fucking horrible.
We all got there and just found out that, like
we had to compete against each other and around Robin
style and knock each other off one by one. So
nobody ate. Pizza and Amanda Pete came out of New
York and even though we knew that it was you

(18:44):
playing the part, Universa was like, well, you have to
bring out two other people for Renee as well. So
there was one other person I forget. But the other
person was a man of Pete, and Amanda Pete was
in New York and she had to come to West Coast,
so they flew her like they paid for a fly.
But at the end of the day, she's what they

(19:06):
called out a straw man, stalking horse or whatever, like
unless you came in and took a shit on the table,
she was never getting the part. It was gonna be
you because everyone wanted you to have the partner shit.
So she came out and like, GI, have a wonderful
audition and whatnot. But she had figured out at a
certain point that it was she was never like truly
in the running. In our minds, it was like, oh,

(19:29):
maybe she'll take one of the other parts, like Glenn
or something like that. And we offered a Gwen and
she said no afterwards because she felt disrespected by the process.
She was mad that we had flown her all the
way out there, and she truly had no chance to understandable.
But in my young twenty five year old mind, I
was like, man, that was a free trip to Los Angeles,

(19:51):
Like I would have been like, I don't giving shit,
I got to go to Los Angeles. I had a
different mindset back then. I was still coming in from
like the real world and stuff. So Shannon, we do
the second the round Robin, and like Joey Adams hates
that day, like Jason Lee is the only one. He
was like it was hard, and he was like it
was weird seeing other people that worked for the part.
But Jason was meant to be a stalking horse or

(20:13):
a straw man. He was not the guy that we
thought was going to get the part. He was just
the third guy, and then throughout the day wound up
being the guy.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
It was pretty amazing, yeah, because I remember reading with
three different guys and there was.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Another guy who everyone thought was gonna be it.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, But towards the end, I think, I think you
kept bringing Jason and I back in, and you worked
with both of us a lot.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
And that was more about like, oh shit, let's see
how we know we want her. Let's see how she
is with the new guy. Because he was like he
hadn't done anything. He was in Nvita Loca and Alison
Andrews movie one shot him and Spike Jones, like buying
drugs from somebody who like raised the hand to him,
wordless and shit, And that's the closest he'd come to acting.

(21:02):
He was a professional skateboarder, so everyone was like any
act like, let's see.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
How he answer.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
He did, he was ready, and boy he grew into
a wonderful actor. But how it even gets to the
point where I say to Jim Jackson, you know who
we should go after, the Shannon Doherty Because even though
I sit there and watch you, and probably because I
sit there and watch you on TV, and probably because
like you were constantly in the news, and probably because

(21:29):
I saw you in Heathers, you never occurred to me
to cast because I was like, she's way too fucking
famous for this movie. Its like gonna be a four
and a half million dollar movie, Like and she's coming
off of nine oh two, one oh. She ain't gonna
spend that fucking cred on a movie like this. So
never entered my mind. I might as well have been like, oh,

(21:49):
Julia Roberts might want to do mal rats, Like that's
exactly you were in the same caliber in my head.
Malcolm Ingram, who interviews you later on or any use
all of us for mal Renz Canadian Malcolm. I had
just met him at the Toronto Film Festival for the
Clerk screening and we go out to eat. So while

(22:11):
we're sitting there, like you know, people are like, so,
what's coming next? What are you gonna do next? And
I was like, I've been talking to Universal, to the
guys that made Days Confused, Jim Jackson, Sean Daniels, Alphaville
about making this movie called mal Reds, and they're like,
what is it. I was like, Clerk's in them all,
and they're like, holy shit. Malcolm goes, well, you gotta
get fucking Doherty and I was like Shannadherty and he goes, yeah,

(22:34):
I gotta get fucking Dorty. She's a queen. And I
was like, Shannondorty is super famouss like that's why I
got a fucking get HER's the only chance your movie has.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
Oh my god, I didn't know this.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Malcolm was the one that was just like fucking Doherty man.
He's like, look, you're gonna go back to the studio
and shit, say Shannadory watched their faces and so when
I went back, you know, Jim Jackson is like talking
about who could be. Joey Adams was somebody that Jim
Jack's was leaning toward because he had a friendship with her. Shit,
And I was like, I'm like, what about Shanon Doherty

(23:06):
and Jim Jack's like Shannon Doherty, she's like really famous,
And I was like, I know, I know, but like
she is like age appropriate and she's coming off of
fucking like I know two and oh, like maybe she
needs something to do, like I don't know, like isn't
it worth asking? And it begins with Malcolm. So Malcolm
came out for like the casting process. When I was like, Malcolm,

(23:27):
like Shannon Doherty's coming in, He's like, oh, fucking coming on, California,
I gotta see this. Did he come to the audience?

Speaker 1 (23:33):
I think he did come to the audition, Yeah, as
I remember him sitting in on the audition.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
And that was supposed to be it. But then when
we went to Minnesota to shoot the movie, and Malcolm
was supposed to stay for five days and then stayed
for the whole fucking shit. Right, he was always had
this like fucking sense of product and still to this day,
like whenever he wants to bring me down, a peg
or whatever. It's just like you didn't fucking think of Doerty.

(23:57):
I did.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
Oh, Malcolm, I love you.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
But it was not because I'm like, I'll never think
of Doughty because she's good enough, but I was like,
she too fucking big for us, and shit, and mercifully
you were like, why did you do it?

Speaker 1 (24:10):
I freaking loved the script, to be honest, I really did.
And it was, as I said, for me, coming off
of nine O two one O, your dialogue was so
interesting and Renee was so interesting, and I really I
wanted to work with a young, up and coming director

(24:34):
and you were, you know, you had all of this
like attention on you from Clerks, Sundance, all of that stuff.
So it was it was kind of like my reps agreed,
I agreed. It was, yeah, you got to, you know,
if you wanted. I kind of wanted to shift gears
in my career anyway, because I had gotten so much
hate from playing Brenda, because Brenda, you know, went through

(24:57):
way too ens drama and angst and.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Which the audience confused with the with.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Me, yeah, and Renee was just not Brenda in any way,
shape or form, and so it just felt like a
really good career move, and I freaking like, still to
this day love that dialogue. Somebody recently at a convention
asked me if I would say some of the lines,
and I was like, I really have to prep for that.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
It's been a long time between me and Malrats. I like,
for me, those movies never die, right, Like the casts
go on to other things and whatnot, But like, those
movies are active and vital in my world all the time,
not just because I fucking sequalize them to death, but
also just because I've had a deep connection with the
audience and fostered it for years and years. So in

(25:47):
my world, those movies like never end. There's always somebody
coming in and being like I fucking love Malrats ways
and where I'm like, where were you when we fucking
put that movie out?

Speaker 1 (25:59):
And That's kind of the interesting thing about mal Rats, right,
is that it wasn't a box office success.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
It died.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
It died, So did my film career.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
We took it down and we took chance.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
I'm like, that was it?

Speaker 2 (26:14):
What did you did you do a movie after that?

Speaker 1 (26:17):
Uh? No? No, like that was that was it? People
literally thought that like I was carrying the movie. So therefore,
if it was a box office failure, it was completely
on me. So there was no film career after that,
which was a little brutal. But at the same time,
I I I got to carry that cross now and

(26:40):
carry that cross.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
I never put two and two together.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
It's okay, Like I think the fact that it is because.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
You really never shoot like another feature film. I mean like,
I mean you did, like I don't know the Reunion
movie and ship, but.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
Like TV all TV still like.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Two hours of a movie and it anymore. Man, TV
and my kid I can't tell you what network her
favorite shows are on.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
Wait yeah, now, But back then it was very different.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
There was a very big difference, and I just wasn't
I didn't necessarily want the grind of a TV show
so soon. So I really thought that like mal Rats
was gonna kick me into that gear.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
Oh man, I mean, here's the thing that might be
aged like fine.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
Wine, fine wine.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
But in the moment when a movie, when a movie flops, kids,
this is the experience, at least my experience. Like when
a movie ends, it's like fucking love each other, man,
and you sign each other's yearbooks like it's high school
like I'll see you next summer, A fucking bond it
forever and shit, and then when a movie dies, like
if you know your your biblical stories, like fucking remember

(27:44):
when like Christ gets arrested, like all the apostles scattered
and they're like, do you know Jesus? Like who Jesus? No,
I know, I know, I know this guy Jeter get Us,
but Jeebus, maybe I don't. I don't know Jesus. That's
what happen. But everybody goes running from the fucking bomb,
so you scatter, so you know. I quickly pivoted and

(28:09):
started writing Chasing Amy, which would then go on to
like resuscitate my career and and kind of like I
don't know. It was weird because like I went, I
went to the Independent Spirit Awards the year before Chasing
Amy came out just to present because I had written
the show that year and so I was one of
the presenters. I was there with Lord Dern and I

(28:31):
went up and before we present, I was like, hey, man,
I just want to take this opportunity to say, like
to apologize from all right. I don't know what I
was thinking as a joke, and we're there in front
of like a bunch of indie folks under the tet
in Santa Monica and they're all like, h Roger eber
took that seriously. So when he reviewed Chasing Amy, he's like,
Kevin Smith made a movie so bad he apologized for

(28:52):
but like Chasing Amy on the other hand, now, so
I'm just saying this kid's because for some people, you know,
for younger people, it's like what so they're out of
the conversation, sadly. But for the older people, you know
maybe or the mid range w picked it up and
you know, on home video like in the late nineties,

(29:12):
and shit, this movie came and went in a weekend.
It played on five hundred screens and was off of
all of those screens within yeah, eight we had eight days,
like basically an eight to ten day UND. It was

(29:35):
like like I remember going to a test screening at
San Diego Comic Con long before Hollywood like descended on
comic Con and stuff, and we screened it. Tom Pollock,
who was the head of Universal Studios at that point,
he's there and he's like I was there for the
Animal House test screening and he goes and this is
that he's going this movie's gonna make one hundred million dollars,

(29:58):
and he was off by ninety eight million, but he
was close, you know close, you got round up a
little bit. So when very well, and I mean well
it's screened that that version of its screened very well,
we had by that point we had cut the longer
beginning which you could see on like the Mall Rats

(30:18):
fifteenth Anniversary DVD or whatever, because we had a test
screen unofficial test screening out in Los Angeles, and what
we learned from the screening was like, if you have
a movie called Mall Rats, you better get to the
mall as quickly as possible. We didn't get to the
mall u till like the hour mark. So we went
in and did some reshaping. Paul Dixon was the editor,
and then we did some reshooting out here in Los Angeles,

(30:40):
and so we were able to dive into the movie quicker.
So those tests were like positive. The studio was high
on the flick. We were a Grammarcy release, which was
a co production between Universal and Polygrin. Grammarcy put out
shit like barbed Wire with Pamela Anderson. They put out
Days Confused, but so it was a small kind of

(31:01):
boutique label within universal. See it was a universal release
but not a universal release. And she's right, man. It
was like, all right, man, if this works, fucking here
goes the movie career. Yeah it really did not. I
apologize for that, but now so so in the moment,
kids like dire, like Marats is a career killer. Yeah yeah,

(31:26):
and like you know, a fucking ball in Shane and
Albatross around the neck. Thank god, chasing Amy critically lifts
me above it and stuff, and I kind of go
on to have the career I fucking have. So Marats
comes out and dies this miserable death and then has
this ten year ascension to cult classic, cult classic, and

(31:51):
like kids, you would think if the question is, oh,
you guys know, no, no, because the world told us
we were bad, like we got chastised and as you
just hear, got fucking punished. They took away a movie career. Yeah,
so there was no like, ah, one day those kids
are gonna love this movie. It was just like you
did bad, all of you, never do this again. And

(32:12):
then the movie found it's it's audience, like when it
went to home video. Then ten years after mal Rats
and probably even less. But in my head it was
like it took it. It was like a ten year journey.
People would be like, I fucking love that movie and
you'd be like, well, where were you that movie flop?
They're like, no, I couldn't have been a flop. I
have that on DVD, And you're like, those two things

(32:33):
don't necessarily conflate, like one thing could be unsuccessful and
you could still own the dvd, right, But what they're
talking about is how many fucking times they spun it,
like how often they watched that movie. And I've met
everyone professions across the fucking boards to whom like mal
Rats ment I was like for years, I did interviews

(32:55):
up up for the IMDb folks, and so I met, like,
you know a lot of people that I'll never work with.
What's your name? Wanda Elizabeth Olsen? She comes in for
like that movie with Hawkeye Jeremy Renner, But before like
we even start talking, she was like, oh my god,
she goes, you have no idea how many times I

(33:17):
watched Malrats with my brother and I was like, that's
the one, and she's like that one summer all we
did was watch Malrats together. He loved that movie, and
I love that movie because I love my brother. She's like,
I could still quote that movie, and it was tough
to do that interview without being like crying. That was
before Wanta Vision, you know, after that. I believe me,
I was a big fan of Wanta Vision, and maybe

(33:38):
a little more so because I was like, she likes Malrets.
But I've met so many people like that. There are
people who worked with me later in my career who
do it predicated on fucking malrads. Marats became currency for us.
It bankrupted us at one point, yes, but.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
Now it's very much like we got the cool kid passed. Yes,
all of a sudden, it was like we were not
allowed in a classroom or even at the school we were,
you know, and now of a sudden, we were like
the kings and queens of the school. We were the
prom queen and prom king. Basically, It's funny because I

(34:23):
do a lot of conventions same and I signed so
many malrats posters and DVDs and my doll from Mall
Rats and like all sorts of things, and it is
those fans are just the coolest. They friggin love mal Rats.
They're so dedicated to it. And they also always ask

(34:44):
me two things. One is when are you and Kevin
going to do a convention together? So we'll figure that out. Yes, Two,
when are you doing Marats too?

Speaker 2 (34:53):
I'm with them, When are we doing Marats? We've had
a script for quite some time, which later on, if
your kids are good, I will force in into read
or a scene.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
I mean I have read the script.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
That's true.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
I have read the script. I've read it like, this
can be.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Edited, so you can easily, Like I can give you
five minutes to look over the dialogue.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
Yeah, why not?

Speaker 2 (35:14):
You're like, look, I auditioned for the movie fuck It
once before. We'll get to that and a bit.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Look, guys, he's making me audition from all rights to
right now that.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Part has written for you.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
When are we going to do it?

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Look, I'm game. I know they're talking about doing a
Chronicicon next year, like a real life Chronicon like we
did in Jane sombab reboot. We did this fake con
called Chronicon, So we're talking about doing that in real life.
Like in February, we're doing our first cruise, Jane Somobob's
cruise eskew uh and then I think at the end
of the year we're doing that. So I know sooner

(35:48):
or later somebody will hit you up and be like,
oh my God, come out for that. But what I'll
hit you up for personally is I bought a movie
theater back in my hometown with my friends and we
call it Smarckcastle Sen and we have done mall Rats
with Jason and Jeremy because they were both in town
for something. So I was like, fuck, I let's screen it.
We did Chasing Amy two separate screenings, one with Jason Lee,

(36:13):
one with with Joey Adams and Russo brothers just came
at the top of November and we did like a
big Q and A with them. So you come out
to when's the next time you're.

Speaker 3 (36:23):
East, I can go back whenever.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
I mean, I'll send you like I have a whole
bunch of cons that I'm doing, so like I have
one in May in Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Oh shit, yeah, that might be perfect. If you're going
to be out in Philly for May, that would be
a time to double up, unless you're like, bro, I
feel like going to the coldest fucking place in the
world in March.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
In March, I'm in Scotland. That's not anywhere close to
do You're.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
Going over to Dokan there going back to Mall Rats.
You know, when we did Mallrats, I didn't have this
like side hustle where like I was professionally Kevin Smith,
where I stand on stage and fucking tell stories and
shit that came out of Mallrats. Also because after Malurats
came out and died like a couple months later, like

(37:10):
I was sitting around looking my wounds, going like what
the fuck? Man, Like I was on top and I'm
fucking like I was a flavor of the fucking year.
And so we Uh. I got a call from the
University of Delaware. They were like doing a screening of Mallrats,
So like you want to come out and like talk afterwards,
And enough time had gone by a couple of months
where I was like yeah, yeah, I guess, And it's
within driving distance, Like it was like less than two

(37:31):
hours to get there. So I drove out and found
this insane healing I heard you talk about, and I
think you're absolutely right with with Holly. On the episode
you talked about how this is cheaper than therapy, doing
podcasting something I've believed in, you know, since I was podcasting,

(37:51):
I was like, oh my god, there's no need for therapy.
You just get to talk about all your shit everything
and good things, bad things. But so there I was
nineteen ninety five and doing this Q and A after Mornce,
and it's like a packed room full of college kids
with no fucking pretenses about like your second movie flopped,
this pre internet, so it's nothing liking things not tribal yet,

(38:14):
and it was probably a free screening on campus and shit.
And then here was the filmmaker came out just for
the fuck of it, and it was such an ego
boost where it was like, oh my god, not only
is the theater packed, which didn't happen when this movie
was out, all these fucking kids love it. And they're
also like, hey, you're one of us, because I'm not
that far removed from them twenty five. These kids are

(38:36):
anywhere between eighteen twenty two at this point and stuff.
So I become an aspir to figure where people are like,
holy shit, like that's only a few years away from me.
You just make a movie and shit, and you can
make a movie with like Shannadari. So that begins my therapy.
There's a chance I could have went south with the

(38:59):
recess to mallrats, because clerks have been so over praised,
you know, in our business being what it is, there's
plenty of distractions to save your wounds. It could have
been booze, it could have been drugs. But what I
found was people being like, no, this movie's good and
standing up in in front of audience and shit. That

(39:21):
fed me and also created this entire side hustle through
which now I make a majority of whatever I earn
more as just being Kevin Smith than what Kevin Smith
does for a living, all tied to fucking mallrats. Yeah,
do you what do you remember about shooting at the mall?
The Eden Prairie Mall, you know, which I've revisited many times.

(39:46):
Not only evidence of us because they changed, like the
food court with those weird neon palm trees and shit
like that, which was so weird because we were in Minnesota.
The only evidence of us is in the pot Belly
sandwich shop. There's a malrat sposter hanging up.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
Well, at least there's something or acknowledging it. I what
I really remember about shooting was the atmosphere I remember
the hotel, all of us just like I mean, Muse
was skateboarding, so it was Jason like down the hallways. Yes,
could smells some pot, you know, we were. I think

(40:20):
it was just so it felt like a bunch of
kids who were just in a frat house basically like
hanging out together.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Had you, like when you shot Heathers were you shooting
in La? Had you ever gone on location to shoot
a movie?

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Uh, I'm not I don't. Yes, yes, because I did,
like Robert Kennedy in his times when I was young,
and that was it hyena sport.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
So I had been.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
But remember it was like nine o two one zero
was my life for four years. I think you were
working constantly and in La, you know, riving so to
be in a location and and also to be working
with everybody that was just having a good time. Like
nobody took themselves too seriously, and.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
I think I did. I think I was like trying
to be the indie film like Icon.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
It was a weird tri He was also the captain
of the ship, you know, and you had a studio movie,
so that you know a lot of pressure on you.
But you know, Claire for Lonnie, her hotel room was
directly across from mine, and so I would hang out
with her a lot. I remember she just kept on
eating kiwi's and I had never eaten a kiwi before,

(41:35):
and she was like peeling and eating her kiwi while
talking to me, and it was it was like a
nightly ritual that we had to sort of just decompress
from the day.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
I was excited because I'm like, wow, this is like
a movie movie in this school. And I had Tony
g was my makeup artist at the time, who then
went on to do Angelina Jolie and then became like
a huge prosthetic girl.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
Was that the girl that you hung out with all
the time.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
Yeah, with the like perfectly toned arms and like the
quirky personality.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
Was like your right hand person. Yeah, and you had
the dog. Which dog did you have? It was a
German shop.

Speaker 3 (42:12):
I had Elfie Elfie and she was.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
Straight out of Germany. She responded to or she responded
to German commits.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
She was straight out of Germany. And she was shots
in three, like hardcore trained security.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Yes, because she Shannon could be like and the motherfucker
would like go choose somebody's throat out.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
Yeah shit, yeah, And we taught her also like street
like street training. When she came here from Germany, we
had taught her street training, so she didn't go for arms.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
She went through for like next the way shepherds do.
It was like I remember, while we were shooting, Shannon
would come in and because we shot at an active mall,
The in Prairie Mall was this shopping center, you know,
in inan Prairie, Minnesota, which is maybe about twenty five
thirty minutes away from Minneapolis, but definitely at least twenty

(43:01):
thirty minutes away from the Mall of America, which had
opened the year prior, which I don't know if it
still counts as this, but at that point was the
world's biggest fucking mall, so it had sucked all the
business out of the other local malls. So the Eaton
Prairie Mall was operating at less than fifty percent capacity
of stores. So that's why. And we got that mall.

(43:22):
I mean, I know, it's nineteen ninety five and shit,
so naturally everything's going to sound cheap. But in nineteen
ninety five, kids, this was cheap. They gave us that
mall for two months for ten thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
That's cheap.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
That's even by today's standards. I think people would be
like what it was nuts. And in that mall that
became our studio, so it.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
Was like dressing rooms were stores shut down.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yes, there were no trailers or anything like that. Like
I'm sure on nine oh two, we know you guys
had fucking trailers. Yeah. Here the dressing rooms were built,
as Shannon said, inside fucking closed down story. So here's
the gap next to you. The depth just closed down,
and we built a bunch of fucking stalls.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
And in the living room, like I think you guys
gave me like a whole storage just to myself. It
was probably like you know, a Claire's ear ring store
that had gotten did not.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Even exist yet kids where we are we are, and they.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Almost like a shoved couch in there and like one chair,
and it was like, here's your dressing room, and I
was like cool.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
She would come in through like the front door with
el and like walk up the escalator stairs to like
where the dressing rooms were and stuff like that, and
the people that ran the mall would constantly come into
the office like I look, I know she is who
she is, but like, can she go through the back door?
If people see her bringing a dog into the mall,

(44:45):
they'll think they can bring a dog into the mall.
And so we were like, yeah, we'll talk to her, like, Shannon,
you can't bring it through the you go through the
back door. And she goes, now I'm gonna go through
the front door, and we're like all right. So we
were like we talked to Shannon as the best we
could deliver. I A'm gonna tell her to kill her dogs.
She can't go through the fucking ball. And yet like that, I.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
Don't even remember that it.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
Was that the dog was absolutely adorable, but it was necessary.
Like again, I'm not overstating how fucking famous an it was.
And we were now outside of like her natural stomping
grounds where you could be famous in Los Angeles and
there are other famous people, although she was fucking stalked.
We were in Minnesota where people were like, where your
fame is magnified ten thousand times.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
I mean, by the way, Minnesota. The twins were from Minnesota, Minnesota.
It was like, you know and listen, at the end
of the day, everybody was wonderful. But I think again,
coming off of nine O twoe oh and having that
amount of fame at that age where and you're getting
letters from crazy people saying that you know you're married

(45:50):
to them, and you you know they're going to come
and get you and bring you back home, and you're like,
oh my god, like this person thinks we're actually married,
and what are they going to do to me if
they ever?

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Did? They? Nowadays, they you know, the kids ship relationships
on TV shows. It's called oh I ship this real hard.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
What the hell does that mean?

Speaker 2 (46:10):
It means that they love that particular pairing of couples.
So they're like, oh, I shipped this. I shipped this
couple so hard. And you were definitely before there was
an internet. Your relationship with Dylan broke that Internet, and
people shipped Brenda and Dylan so fucking hard. Yeah, So
did you get shipped from people who are like you

(46:31):
can't fucking we how come you're not with Dylan and ship?

Speaker 1 (46:35):
I mean yeah, but I think it was more I
don't your mind. Yeah, it was definitely more your mind,
very scary stuff where you're you know, having to get
the FBI involved, right, And and that was the dog
because I didn't like at that point, I didn't really

(46:55):
want a lot of I didn't want like a security
guard that was that would have a.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Fucking bodyguard, which would have made like a hell of
sense at this time, would have but like that we're
really trying to keep it. Yeah, just.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
A bodyguard would have felt to me as if I
believed in my own hype, right, and also invasive because
I'm not someone who wants to hang out with someone
twenty four hours a day. I really enjoyed my my Space,
but as a dog I can hang out with twenty
four hours a day.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Were you a rich kid growing up or no, I was,
were the opposite. Yeah, So I think that also has
something to do with it, because you know, you've always
had an air of street wise to you that one
wouldn't have if they were born into this world. You

(47:48):
came from a real place, and even you know, though
you started acting at a young age, you were surrounded
by fucking real people for at least the formative years
of your life. Yeah, enough that you understand reality. So
even when you were super famous, I never felt you
leaning into that as much as leaning more toward I'm

(48:11):
an individual and I have a life and you're not
entitled to that, But fame was not a thing that
you particularly cared about. In fact, at that point in
your life, it had become a hindrance.

Speaker 3 (48:25):
Yeah, yeah, I hated it.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
You always came across, for lack of a better description,
more normal, somebody who grew up in the normal world
who then found fortune based on her talent. So I
feel like you not having a bodyguard really tracked because
that was something that like, yes, people in the business did,

(48:49):
but you were kind of like, I'm not of that world.
I'm myself and I come from a real place. And
you could absolutely debunk it, but I think it had
a lot to do with you all are from a
world that's not make believe. You may work and make
believe world, and make believe world made you famous. You
came from family, the street, fucking like people who had

(49:11):
to work for a living, Yeah, in order to fucking
keep roofs overheads and stuff. What I never asked you, though,
is when did it start? Whose idea was it to be, like,
I want to fucking act.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
It was my brother's idea.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
Actually, So my brother, who's four years older than me,
he really wanted to be an actor, Sean Sean Doherty,
Sean Doherty, Sean Bryant Doherty. The Bryant is named after
Bear Bryant, who was the coach for Alabama at the time.
So we were doing plays at church and what it was.

(49:55):
We were raised Baptist, but we were going to a
Methodist church and somebody saw us and you know it
was like, I have an agent's number. You guys, they
should really, you know, get into the business. And my brother,
now this was now in LA.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
What were you doing.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
So we had moved from Tennessee to like Palsferties area.
Why for my dad's business. So it was a family business.
My grandfather, my mom's father had a shipping company, like
truck transportation company, and so my dad was opening up
a West coast version.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
So he moved the entire family, which is at this
point him, your mom, my brother, and myself, so just
four in the family. Just for in the family. There
was probably a pet, yeah, I mean I know that
when we were living. Yeah, there was Curious George who
was like a you know, we got him at a
pound and he was a half Schnauzer half poodle and yeah,

(50:59):
his name was here is George.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
So to your parents are working people. My parents were
working people. My dad worked really hard. That's probably like
the one time in my life that we that we
did have money. But then my dad got really sick.
He had I was I think my mom had an
aneurysm when I was probably nine or eight, and she

(51:23):
almost died.

Speaker 3 (51:24):
And then, you know, that's.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
That's my fears. That's how I'm going to go because
you can't do anything about that. Yeah, later I almost
died of a heart attackle six years ago. But the
thing I've always been afraid of is aneurysm or embolism
because it's like taking time bomb you don't necessarily know about,
keeping very deep in your head, and you're just going
about your dad, what happened in your mind.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
So I was doing a play called The Mound Builders
at like the Burbank Playhouse, and.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
So at this point you're already into acting, yeah, but
like not really working working.

Speaker 3 (51:52):
I'm like doing plays and it's fun.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
I think I was like eight or nine and my
mom was going with me, and it was during a performance.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
Yes, I was on stage, but she.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
Started having horrible, horrible, horrible headaches, like so bad. She
got dizzy. She couldn't stand. She was throwing up. Once
the play was over, the director put her in. He
had a Volvo like station wagon volvo, and he put
the whole back down and I just remember that somebody

(52:23):
drove us back to the house and they held her
head very still the entire time we got to the house.
She took Tyler and all and went to bed very sick,
but woke up the next day and she felt a
little funky, but she was like, I'm buying. My dad
was like no, no, no, You're going to the doctor and

(52:43):
they did a scan and they were like, we have
to take you in the surgery immediately. That was on
Friday the thirteenth. She went into an eight hour surgery
on Friday the thirteenth, with the doctor saying ten percent
chance of living and if she survives, you know, here
is the best case scenario for her. And it was like,
she's going to be paralyzed, she's not going to be
able to talk. Like it was crazy, Yeah, how old.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
Are you at this point?

Speaker 3 (53:08):
Eight or nine?

Speaker 2 (53:10):
A lot of information and heartbreak and trauma to have
to process and yeah put into place, and so essentially,
even before she heads into surgery, you're prepared for like
the worst, something bad is going to happen in my mom. Mind,
you kids, you can't do microscopic surgery like you can today.
So batman fucking opening up her cranium.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
Right, Yeah, So they went.

Speaker 1 (53:30):
They they opened her up right here, and you know,
the big thing was like her eyesight, because the aneurysm
was sort of behind an eye. But they did it,
and and she came into surgery with just one eyebrow paralyzed.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
And I remain that way.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
She would stare at the mirror and work and work.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
That eye really rehabilitated her eyebrow. I met your mother.
She's a wonderful woman, but that really fucking edges it
up a not yeah, willing ones fucking paralyzed eyebrow back
to work. Yeah, No, wonder you keep her around you
all the time?

Speaker 1 (54:09):
I no, wonder I have, you know, the inner strength
and the will to work comes.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
So, and then my dad obviously had like by the
time my dad passed away, he had had something like
eleven strokes and like twelve heart attacks and quintuple bypassed
heart surgery and on dialysis.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
And I think that was it.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
Fat eating or was it bad genetics.

Speaker 3 (54:30):
And diabetes, just like my dad.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
Yeah, she took my dad as well. How old was
your dad.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
When he passed away? Sixty seven?

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Maybe truly the same age as my father age sixty seven. Yeah,
and it's like, think about now, how old are you
when he passed away? Was this before nine or two
went hour?

Speaker 3 (54:48):
No?

Speaker 1 (54:48):
No, no, no, it was after to see all that
he got to see charmed. My dad was my best friend.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
So I always tell your mom was your best friend.
My dad was my best friend, right, yeah, your mom,
you's seck best friend, because.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Yeah, I mean my mom and I were super close.
But like, my dad was my hero. He was my rock.
He was like everything my dad was. Anytime he went
to the hospital, it was always the most devastating thing
in the world for me because I was, you know,
that fear of losing somebody who means that much to you.
I honestly didn't think I was going to recover when

(55:21):
he passed away.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
Who was the one that took you to auditions and stuff?
What did Dad think about the career?

Speaker 3 (55:30):
He was okay with it.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
I mean he would get very mad, mad at the
press and would always say to me, like I told
you should have been an attorney.

Speaker 3 (55:39):
And I was like, I know.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
That that was fucking fixed for it. He's like, you
should just not be in that horrible business. Nobody writes
this shit about attorney.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
Yes, he wanted me to go to law school.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
I mean, look, I've heard you speak over the years
not just how smart you are, the things you know,
but also your delivery. You could have easily been a.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
Lawyer, thank you.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
I think so a fucking lawyer.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
Yes, really, really, really had journey.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
I think we all benefited more from you not having
a career in law. But yes, I think you could
have nailed it. And also it's never too late. That
being said, he saw Charmed as well.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
Yeah, did he ever?

Speaker 2 (56:23):
Like my father, my father passed away twenty years ago.
It just came up on twenty years ago that he
died this year twenty In June of twenty twenty three
was twenty years so I loved him to death. He
was a guy that took me to movies and stuff
like that. But my father was also the guy who
was a bit of the internet before the Internet. So like,

(56:44):
you know, I'd come in and I'd be like, oh
my god, did you see what the new York Times
said about the movies, like, yeah, but did you see
what the Ledger said? Man? And the Ledger was the
shitty one, like the shitty review and not the shitty paper,
but like the negative review. And I'm like, well, yes,
I did see that, and I'm really trying to focus
on like the positive one, which also happens to be

(57:05):
the New York Times, which inarguably, you know, most people
are more familiar with than the Ledger. I know the
Ledger is our paper because we're in New Jersey, but still,
and my father was kind of that not like remember
in the movie Jerry Maguire, Google Gooding Junior's character had
that brother. His name was TP Yes, and he's always

(57:25):
like I told him he's too short to be in
the NFL stuff, like just always throw them just a little,
a little jeb I. Honestly, I know my father adored me.
I know my father was insanely proud of my career.
But I think my father was very interested in making
sure that I.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
Didn't you stayed humble become an asshole, like is what
it comes down to.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
So as much as he was proud, he would he
was the voice of and you know in the Clerk's era.
That was hard because Clerk's was a beloved fucking film, like,
and I'm not saying that with any sort of like
fuck everybody, but it. If I'd known it was going
to be so beloved, I would have tried harder. But
I think not trying is what made it what it was.

(58:05):
So the whole world was like, kid, you're a fucking
wonder kid, genius and ship like that, except for my
old was like, yeah, no, doesn't think you're so smart kid.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
You know that's funny because my dad used to always
say to me that, you know, if you read the
good reviews, you better read the bad as well. Percent
keeping they were keeping us humble. They were making sure
that we had humility.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
I could see that as being a dude who would
want to beat up everybody who wrote about you or
the people that you ran with. Would you? Did you
get lectured a lot? Like you shouldn't hang out with
this one, that one or that one.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
I mean like at some point when I was eighteen,
there was no lecturing me because I really thought that
I knew what I was doing.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
Unlus you had like the job to back it as well.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
Yeah, I was hanging out with kind of a bad crowd.
And this was I think right in the beginning of
it or right before, and you were on in your
I think I was.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Like eighteen eighteen nineteen kids, yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:08):
Fast, like Iro Ensuring was one hundred and eight. I
think when he was on he was a grown ass man.
Let's be honest. So was what so was? Weren't they all? Like?
That was always the joke. These kids are like in
their fucking mid thirties. But you were young?

Speaker 1 (59:20):
No, not really, I mean Brian was, you know, he
was the youngest.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
You know. I bought the house right next to his,
which used to be I bought the house. The house
was sold to me by Ben Afflecks. His house he
lived right next door to Brian Austin Green when he
was mostly with with Megan Megan, I think, but he
had like a studio in the house next door and stuff.
So in the beginning when I first so whild I've
thought about this in years. When I first moved into
that house, like every once in a while I would

(59:46):
see bag you know, out in the earth that's what
they called them back day.

Speaker 3 (59:50):
That's what he's under in my phone.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
I was never close enough to call on that and
he probably doesn't even remember living next to me. But like, again,
you know, I was somebody who watched nine O two
one o long and not just like, oh, I'm in
the business and not like that show. I was an
outsider with no hope of ever being in the business
who watched that show. So working with Shannon and then

(01:00:13):
eventually like being like, oh my god, my neighbors is Brian,
it was like, you know, fucking it was wild. He
was a wonderful, wild adjustment. But he was always a
nice guy.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
Brian is Brian is awesome. He's really I left him
to death. And actually, do you talk to any of
the other kids?

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
I mean I speak to almost all of them, really
and sometimes yep.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
TA to Toy against.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Tory in a fucking TBS show that during COVID during
the lockdown, TBS did the show called Celebrity Show Off.
Tory and her family was one of the competing contestants.

Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
How did you do on that?

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
It wound up being me and Tory at the end,
really and then Toy won. Now he asked me, I
think we were rob or whatever. You know, it's just
a pink belt that I really would have cherished and
ship she won it. But oh my god, bro, like
that's look one by one. I'm checking the nine O
two one o kids off.

Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
I know they live next to.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
I didn't work with Luke, but I met Luke late
in life.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
I feel like, didn't you meet Luke and Vancouver also
when you were shooting That's where I met him.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
Later you were flash and he was there for is
how I judge people in this business. If a motherfucker
is willing to come up to you, that's the motherfucker
worth talking to you. Because I'm not the person that's
ever going to go up to somebody because I'm always
like I'm a bother. That person he like literally came
over and like started this fucking conversation and was so

(01:01:49):
goddamn lovely and he couldn't have been fucking lovelier. And
this is right before he did like the Quentin thing.
He did make it into the Quent once. I think
that was the last thing that he.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
Was in and he was so excited. Oh god, yeah,
because I.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Must have felt legitimized.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
Yeah, way of it was like me getting cast from
Mall Rats, probably more so because it was Quentin. I'm
like Marats again, gonna have a big film career, Like
I know that for Luke, Like I mean, you know
who doesn't want to work with Quentin Tarantino first off?

Speaker 3 (01:02:27):
Yeah, I mean I.

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
For him, it was just I remember he called me
on the phone and he was like over the moon,
a static and he was telling me all about his character,
things that he was going to do and what he
was going to try. So I'm I'm really glad that
he got to do that before he passed away.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Did you ever do Simpsons? No, he did. I always
think of him as as when he played side show
Luke Perry. They called him on the show he was
like Crusty's cousin the He was absolutely well you guys,
you guys were tight, and it sounds like you were
tight even after.

Speaker 3 (01:03:06):
We were tight.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
We became a lot tighter after the show.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
Did you like them on the show? Like like them?

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
Like them?

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Do you ever find them attractive? What does it like
to kis?

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
We had like a little like minor like fleeing attraction,
but it didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Like actors are so cool they talk about it like
that where it's like we had a little thing, but
it didn't. And it's like, that's that's fucking huge, man.
Could you imagine anybody else in the world, Like, oh,
I had a little thing with fucking looke pair, Like that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Was the thing that defined it was like my second
and it didn't really you know, go anywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
Oh my god, bro, just looking at you. It is
so crazy because I just remember watching the fucking show.
I have a very vivid memory of a show out
one act break where they were playing there was a
very popular song Don't want to Fall in there, and
you guys were like at a club and it goes
out on you the fade out and shit like that. Like,
I have very distinct memories of watching that show is

(01:04:04):
culturally very huge and one of the first shows that
broadcast new episodes in the summer. Yes, we used to
be a very seasonal world where it's like you watch
new shows all the way up to time.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
All of a sudden, we were doing like thirty two
thirty six episodes.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
You guys shooting and much smart because it actually like
you guys have brand new ship while everyone else is
in rerum.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
That's how it became popular.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
That was their Netflix of the day. Like some shows
go to Netflix it get popular. You guys.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
The fact that like you could turn on Fox and
see brand new episodes of during the summer when everybody
else was showing reruns is what blew that show up.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
And it was all bathing suits shit.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
And it was at the beach club, so everybody was
in bathing suits.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Yeah, folks can't see. You're not doing video yet. One
day you will. But folks are just hearing this, not
saying this. So what they're not seeing is how like
fucking insanely great the chann looks good.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
I love you, thank you so much, and see you
for the next episode.