Pretty much anyone who aspires to become a successful filmmaker or performer dreams of making one really great project that will launch them into the stratosphere of success in the entertainment industry, but that is a Cinderella story that rarely happens in real life. However when it comes to writer and director Kevin Smith, he managed to make that dream into his own reality with his debut feature film, Clerks.
Clerks has become one of the most popular cult films of all time, and that single film obviously took Kevin Smith from an anonymous dude who was literally working in a convenience store to a big time Hollywood director. The movie was financed and produced by Smith himself, and it became his first entry into a long resume of popular comedy and drama films. But this little movie that hit it big still has some secrets behind it that the average viewer would never know, so here's 10 things about Clerks that you probably never even noticed.
The Original Randal
Jeff Anderson may be the man that we all know and love as Randal Graves, but he originally wasn't meant to play the character. Randal was originally supposed to be played by the director Kevin Smith himself, but after taking into consideration how much work the movie was going to be, he realized that he didn't really want to saddle himself with the responsibility of playing one of the movie's lead characters as well.
However, it's not that surprising that Smith may have wanted to play Randal either, because the director intentionally gave the character a lot of his funniest lines because he initially intended to be the one performing them.
Staying Close To Home
There are movies that are made on a low budget, and then there are movies like Clerks. Although Clerks went on to see significant success, Kevin Smith initially funded the entire production himself, and therefore he cut corners wherever he could. Clerks was literally inspired by Smith's life in a lot of ways, such as the fact that Smith was actually working at the convenience store and video shop where Clerks was filmed.
Kevin's bosses only allowed him to film the movie outside of business hours, so the film was typically shot between 11:00 PM and 4:00 AM, and Smith continued to work there during the day as well.
Divine Inspiration
When writer and director Kevin Smith was coming up with the story for Clerks, he drew some loose but significant inspiration from the classic Italian narrative poem The Divine Comedy by Italian author Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy, colloquially known as Dante's Inferno, follows Dante's journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven.
In case the reference wasn't already obvious, that is actually where the lead character Dante Hicks got his name from. The movie obviously follows Dante's hellish workday, but there are actually nine separate story breaks within Clerks itself, with each one loosely representing the nine circles of hell.
Surgeon General's Warning
One of the particularly memorable side characters in Clerks is a Chewlie's Gum representative who gives many impassioned speeches and presentations to customers about the dangers of smoking. At one point he busts out the big guns, whipping an incredibly repulsive looking smoker's lung out onto the counter of the convenience store to demonstrate exactly the kind of damage that smoking can do to one lucky customer.
But unsurprisingly, Kevin Smith did not actually acquire a damaged human lung for this particular scene. The "smoker's lung" that we see on screen is actually a cow's liver that has been covered in dirt and burned with cigarettes.
Camera Shy
Jay and Silent Bob were unequivocally the most enduring and successful parts of Clerks, even though their appearance was relatively brief. Kevin Smith incorporated the characters into nearly every movie that he made, and he and Jason Mewes are most recognizable as these two inseparable characters.
However, like pretty much everyone else in the film, Jason Mewes had zero acting experience prior to making this movie, and although Jay was somewhat modeled after Jason's childhood personality he actually had trouble performing in front of others. It was such a problem that the rest of the crew would leave for his scenes, Smith would turn on the camera himself, and Jason would perform the scene with only Kevin beside him.
A Lot Of Fresh Talent
For such a tiny movie, Clerks wound up having a pretty gigantic cast. Although the movie takes place almost entirely within a convenience store and video store over the course of the same day, there are 50 credited actors in the movie. However, this indie startup film obviously didn't hire a whole lot of actors with experience either.
In fact, 48 out of the 50 actors who are credited for roles had never had any film credits prior to appearing in Clerks. The two actors who had experience before the film were Gary Stern and Mitch Cohen, who played Tabloid Reading Customer and Leaning Against Wall/Angry Crowd At Door.
Filthy Mouths
Although the actual meat of Clerks is relatively tame, the language used was pretty extreme for 1994. The MPAA actually gave the movie an NC-17 rating at first, but Miramax (the company that had purchased the rights to distribute the film nationally) hired a lawyer to petition the MPAA to reduce the rating to an R instead of an NC-17.
The MPAA relented without any edits needing to be made, but clearly the movie does go a little overboard on the dirty language. For instance, the "F" word is said 91 times in this 92 minute long movie.
A Recognizable Title
One of the most recognizable elements of the Clerks promotional material is the logo for the film, that has the style of a hodgepodge of individual letters taken from different sources all stuck together to spell out Clerks, almost like what you'd imagine a ransom note should look like in a feature film.
But each letter that forms the Clerks title is from a pretty well known and recognizable source. The C comes from Cosmopolitan magazine, the L comes from Life magazine, the E is from Rolling Stone, the R is taken from the logo for Ruffles chips, the K is taken from the Clark bar logo, and the S is from Goobers candy.
A Jack Of All Trades
A lot of the actors who performed in Clerks weren't actors before they got their roles, and a lot of them were actually just friends of Kevin Smith. Jason Mewes is obviously the most wel- known and recognizable talent Kevin drew from his social circle but another friend, Walter Flanagan, made some significant appearances in Clerks too.
Flanagan actually played four separate minor roles in the movie, namely: Woolen Cap Smoker, Egg Man, Offended Customer, and Cat-admiring Bitter Customer. And he's not the only actor who played multiple bit roles in the movie either.
The View Askewneverse
As anyone who is familiar with Kevin Smith's works would know, despite the fact that this writer and director tends to focus his films more on mundane and relatable comedies or dramas he is a certified lifelong comic fanboy. So it's not a huge surprise that he has created his own fictional universe within his movies, what he and his fans typically refer to as the "View Askewneverse."
And one of the Easter eggs that Smith threw into Clerks that later connected with Mallrats is about a girl named Julie Dwyer, who is referred to as dying yesterday in both Clerks and Mallrats.