The Real Clerks

Film directors like Kevin Smith take the heat for not turning out a masterpiece every time. But all films are not destined to be instant classics, although Smith’s debut Clerks captured the zeitgeist of the mid-90s unlike any other phenomenon of its time. For your humble scribe, Smith’s films, good and bad, fill a void in my life, much like Eric Rohmer’s films with their unmistakable similarity are welcomed like friends at a reunion.
It was no slight thrill to interview the stars of Clerks and Clerks II, Brian O’Halloran (Dante) and Jeff Anderson (Randal) during their recent press stop in Houston. In a way, it’s the ultimate sign of coolness to have been the star of a single film that every member of a generation (gen-Xers in this case) can recite by memory. Kind of like the French director Jean Vigo who only made one full-length feature before he died, but a film that is still discussed relevantly by cinephile today (L’Atalante).
With the wide release of Clerks II (July 21) O’Halloran and Anderson are hardly residing in the where-are-they-now-file. Kevin Smith made Clerks II for a sweet $5-million, which has already been recouped by foreign pre-sales. Every penny this film makes is pure profit.
Anderson attended Henry Hudson Regional High School with Kevin Smith. When Anderson auditioned for Clerks it was an easy fit for Smith. “He didn’t go to college,” laughs Anderson. “ He enrolled so he could get the student discount on film stock.” How Smith used a few credit cards to pay for the under $30,000 Clerks is a feat which many have copied, and the success of which so very few have attained. Although they knew each other from high school Anderson and Smith formed a friendship when Jeff would stop by the video store where Smith worked. It’s the same strip store site where the original Clerks was lensed.
O’Halloran mentions the eight-minute standing ovation Clerks II received at Cannes. An actor on the legit stage since the original Clerks, O’Halloran comes off every bit as the opposite of Anderson in real life as the characters they portray on screen. His look is clean, nails polished and cut, clothes quiet.
Anderson on the other hand looks more like the rebel, jeans, pull-over shirt, a no-bullshit way of talking. I ask the duo if they had a back-end on Clerks II. Brian mulls over the answer and in a vague way and gives an answer that’s ambiguous.
Jeff smiles and arches his head, and replies just like Randal: “I would say that that’s a big no.”