When I enter the room at the Ritz Carlton Kevin Smith, lord of geek aesthetic, is sitting casually on the floor. The window is open both to let in a gentle breeze and to let his cigarette smoke waft outside. Smith is wearing black-rimmed glasses, while smoking at an impressive rate. He is wearing a bowling shirt embroidered with the name of his daughter-Harley Quinn. He has a tattoo that reads "Jenny" below his wrist, and seems relaxed, comfortable and mellow. justArts: You must meet, like, 50 people a day.
Kevin Smith: I meet some people man, I do.

JA: Hey, that's cool though, you know?
KS: It's all right. The city part is cool because, like, flying to different people is cool. I haven't been to Boston in like two years so it was nice to come back.

JA: [Do] you like Boston?
KS: I do, I do like Boston. I got such a place in my heart for it because they were so kind to Chasing Amy, and kinder to Good Will Hunting, of course.

JA: First off, I thought Jersey Girl was great.
KS: Thanks, man.

JA: I really thought you tried something different.
KS: It's the audience that you're used to, and then to suddenly turn around and be like here's something that's p---y soft. Thankfully the fan base is what it is, and there are people that are, like, big fans of Chasing Amy, but not all Jay and Bob guys. But you know that 13- or 14-year-old Jay and Bob guys are gonna lose. You have the older Jay and Bob guys who can go either way and are, like, "Jay and Bob are funny" or " can watch something a little more serious too," or the hardcore younger ones. Yeah, they're probably gonna feel like I turned my back on them and they're the ones most vocal on the Internet. They're like "You fucking sellout!" and I'm like, "Come back in 10 years and tell me if you feel the same way."

JA: This is your most personal movie to date?
KS: Very much so. Actually, this and Chasing Amy are pretty neck and neck. But this one wins out because I actually have a kid, whereas I never fell in love with a lesbian. But then my wife is still alive, so they're probably neck and neck.

JA: Do you think you could have written the movie before having a child?
KS: I don't think so. I mean, it wouldn't have occurred to me because, like, what do I know about fucking kids? I don't know anything about a seven-year-old. The germ of the idea was there because I had a kid. It came from that thought that a lot of first-time fathers have: Sooner or later it's like, "what if my wife died and I was left to do this by myself?" which is a very selfish-guy thing to think. But it came from a nice place and I couldn't have had that thought without a kid.

JA: Do you foresee any more movies to come up this vein?
KS: I can't imagine I'd ever do another family flick until Harley's a teenager and I gotta work some of that shit out. You know, when she's rebellious and fucking everything that walks and I'm just like, "I'm gonna make a movie about it." Up until now I think I've said everything I could possibly say about fatherhood.

JA: Compared to the other scripts, was Jersey Girl a lot harder to write?
KS: This stuff actually comes more naturally than the stoner humor because I'm not a stoner but I am a kind of mushy melodramatic person who likes the Terms Of Endearment kind of pictures. So it was much easier to write. This was kind of the direction I was headed with Chasing Amy at one point, but when I was writing Chasing Amy I was like "This is totally touchy feely and I'd totally alienate anyone who likes Clerks." I gotta throw in Jay and Bob and boom. Jay and Bob wind up in the movie. And they do a great job in the movie-it's a fun scene and they serve their purpose-but, to me, it always represented a chicken-shit move cause it's me going "I don't trust myself and I don't trust the audience to go with something more emotional that isn't so hell-bent on making you laugh." So this time was about committing and saying "I'm gonna pick a direction and stay with it."

JA: I feel like in this movie you picked a direction and let the characters speak for themselves.
KS: It's about the characters, really, and what little plot there is, is almost unimportant and secondary to what they're saying or how they're relating to one another.

JA: Speaking of great acting, this is Ben Affleck's best acting recently, especially after his last few films.
KS: Right, right. What was the last three, one was Gigli, one was Paycheck and one was ... Oh, Daredevil? You're coming down for Daredevil? He was an excellent Matt Murdock, dude, he really was. Do you know the comics? He did a good job.

JA: Would you ever direct someone else's film?
KS: No, no I'm not good at that. I don't think I could realize someone else's script. That, to me, would be the definition of selling out, which is something I get charged with all the fucking time. Anytime you make a movie that's a little different than last time its like "you're fucking selling out," but me directing someone else's script would be. The closest I ever came-and this wasn't close at all-was on Good Will Hunting. [Smith was an executive producer on the 1997 film, written by Affleck and Matt Damon]. When we brought that onto Miramax they were like "do you want to direct it?" And I was like I would love to because I love the script, but you know what? I'm not gonna do it justice. You should find a guy who will do it justice because I would constantly refer to the two guys who wrote it. I don't see myself so much as a director as a writer.

JA: Everyone got behind you and gave such great performances in Jersey Girl.
KS: The only difference between me and a first-timer is that some people are like, "Well now, he must know what he's doing, he's done it six times." But I'm still the same person as when I made the first one, and that's still the same guy who thinks, "I hope they don't fucking see through this fucking charade." I'm not a director. So when they put themselves in your hand you feel awesome. There's trust there and I'm like, awesome. And they believe I'm leading them in the right direction 'cause you never know. You hope you're doing it right and you hope you're leading them in the right direction. That's why you look at terrible movies and you're like, "How does that happen?" It's because those dudes really thought they were making a good movie. So every time I'm like, what if I'm that guy this time? There's always that flying around in the front of your mind when you're shooting. So thankfully the actors don't sniff it out, you know. I imagine if Affleck smelled fear, he'd be like, "Fuck it, I'll lead the show," 'cause you know, he's the dude who ran from the asteroid. So, if you give him a little room he might take over.

JA: Where'd you find Raquel [Castro, who plays Gertie Trinke]?
KS: She's the gooey little center of our movie. We got her through Avi Kaufmann who's a casting director in New York who's really great at finding kid actors. She found the kid from Searching for Bobby Fischer [Max Poneranc] and she found the kid from Sixth Sense [Haley Joel Osment]. And the typical story is like, "We saw a thousand kids and this one rose to the top." We didn't. We saw about 80 girls from the East and the West Coasts. Raquel walked into the room, and we're like, oh shit-she looks like [Jennifer] Lopez! And at that point, it hadn't occurred to me to cast somebody who looked like one of their onscreen parents because I'm really not a visual person. I don't think visually even when I'm writing or when I'm directing. So it never occurred to me. So I'm sitting here and I'm like, "[Producer Scott] Mosier, we should hire her because she looks like Jennifer." And Mosier is like, "What are you talking about?" and I was like "Wouldn't it be cool if we hired somebody that looked like one of the onscreen parents?" And he's like "Well, dude, that's a foregone conclusion." and I'm like "Really? I guess you're right."

JA: Well, I mean you got a seven-year-old who has to be in these scenes and deliver these lines.
KS: Like in the beginning, she's a seven-year-old girl, and you're like, "At the end of this scene you've got to hug Ben and give him a little kiss on the cheek." And she's like "Eww he's a boy. I don't wanna kiss him!" You never have to deal with that with adult actresses. Maybe with Affleck sometimes, but generally they get it. But with her you got to get past the cootie stage and tell her, "Look, you're pretending. Nobody thinks you're in love with him." So, about half way through the shoot I was with her, and we developed this shorthand where it was easier to do shit like that. But in the beginning it was like, "How do you talk to a seven-year-old?" Not to mention you can't smoke on set as much because there's a kid there, and that's a big part of my process. And you can't curse as much, because there's a kid there. Like I curse in front of my kid, but that's my kid and that's my choice, and I get to do it. I can't curse in front of someone else's kid. So you rein it in a little bit. Not much, but a little bit and those things add up. But thankfully in the middle of the shoot we developed a short hand where it worked, where we got to a place I could direct to her and not drop to her level but I could relate to a seven-year-old. I mean I'm 33 and I could relate to a seven-year-old. It took a little bit.

JA: I know your next project will be great.
KS: God bless the Internet, dude. I love it, and I fucking despise it. They announced Green Hornet and I was just like they'll dig it, the fan base will dig it cause they know. They know that like this is the movie I've kind of been working toward more or less. Sure enough 98 percent of people dug it.

JA: Is it going to be an action movie with a lot more script, a lot more heart than we're used to?
KS: It's gonna be an action movie with no action. Where dudes just sit around and talk about action. No, if I made it 10 years ago, that's what it would've been; two dudes sitting on a counter talking about shit that was happening off-camera. There will definitely be more dialogue in this than some of the other comic book movies, though I thought X2 did a good job at juggling the action and the character stuff. Character is what I'm most interested in. Green Hornet will have action, great fights, we'll get a great stunt coordinator a great fight chorographer, but to me my job is kind of like I wanna make people care about Bret Reid more than the Green Hornet and far more than the villain. That's what happens when you watch a comic book movie. You'd rather watch a movie called The Joker than Batman cause the Joker is a far more interesting character in that first movie. So it's like, make the guy who puts on the mask interesting and then everything will fall in place because then they'll care about him when he puts on the mask and goes and beats the shit outta bad guys.