All The Clerks III Cameos Ranked

Filmmaker Kevin Smith started his career by making a movie with his friends, and honestly, nothing's really changed. The prolific writer and director recently released his goodbye to the View Askewniverse, "Clerks III," and pulled out all of the stops bringing his famous (and not-so-famous) friends together for one last hurrah. 

There are so many cameos in "Clerks III" that it's almost difficult to determine what's a cameo and what's simply someone reprising a role from one of the other Askewniverse films, but that's honestly part of the fun. After all, this is a universe where there are at least five different men walking around looking and sounding like Ben Affleck, including a brand new one introduced in "Clerks III."

Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson) are back, of course, along with a few other View Askewniverse favorites that actually have too much screen-time to be "cameos," but there are still loads of great one-shots from some of Smith's closest pals.

So who brought the goods when it came to a comedic cameo? Let's take a look, because Smith invited every friend, family member, and former co-worker to hop in for some screen time, but not all cameos are created equal. Some couldn't even quite make the list, like "Doctor Mayor" (played by New Jersey Mayor Anthony Perry), because there are no available pictures! Without further ado, here are the best "Clerks III" cameos, ranked for your convenience. 

"Clerks III" is currently playing in theaters. 

Elias (Trevor Fuhrman) is back, working at the Quick Stop with the guys instead of the Mooby's, and that means his parents are back, too! (Well, sort of.) In "Clerks II," Elias's parents were played by Gail Stanley and Bruce Macintosh, and in "Clerks III," they're played by Gail Stanley and her husband, Byron Stanley. While I have no idea why Macintosh didn't reprise his role, the important one here is Gail. She has been Smith's assistant for at least two decades, with her first credited special thanks from the director in 2002's "An Evening with Kevin Smith." 

Smith has been great about not just giving his actor friends cameos, but giving the behind-the-scenes folks a chance to sparkle in the spotlight, too.

Eagle-eyed Smith fans were worried to notice that long-time collaborator Scott Mosier wasn't included in any of the production notes for "Clerks III," despite having produced most of Smith's films going all the way back to the original "Clerks." Thankfully, there wasn't any kind of falling out; Mosier was simply busy, and he does provide a nice little cameo in the movie. Mosier reprises his character of Willam Black, who is a sweet, simple-minded idiot. When he auditions to be a part of Randal's movie, he just shares his catch-phrase: "That's beautiful, man."

It's entirely possible that Mosier is playing another character, auditioning as Willam, but that's a kind of meta that can give your brain a tummyache. Either way, it's great to see Mosier and Smith collaborating, even if it's only for a cameo. 

In addition to being a writer and director of comedy, Smith is a huge comic book nerd. He's written some comics and even directed some of The CW's "Supergirl." While working on "Supergirl" he became friends with that series' star, Melissa Benoist, along with Chris Wood, who played Mon-El. Benoist and Wood fell in love filming the show and got married, and Smith brought them on for quick cameos during the audition sequence in "Clerks III." Both appear as young theater actors auditioning for Dante's role (yes, Benoist too), and both of them think that the movie should be a musical. Both of them sing some classic lines from "Clerks," and it's pretty freaking funny.

In "Clerks," Randal tells Dante, "this job would be great if it wasn't for the f****** customers." There are quite a few weird customers that come into the Quick Stop, but none quite as odd as the egg guy, played by Smith's longtime friend Walt Flanagan. The egg guy has to test the eggs in order to find the perfect dozen, and some of those tests get weird. The egg guy returns in "Clerks III," which feels about as important as the Log Lady coming back for "Twin Peaks: The Return." Flanagan actually appears in dual cameos, as he's part of the group of hockey players on the roof as well, but his reprisal of the egg guy deserves a shout-out.

Smith has a lot of famous friends and is a busy man, so it's not too much of a surprise that he crossed paths with Michael Chiklis at some point and managed to get him to show up for a "Clerks III" cameo. Chiklis played The Thing in the mid-2000s "Fantastic Four" movies, so it's likely that the two met during some kind of comic book event. (I'm sure someone out there knows exactly how these two met, but scanning Smith's social media accounts could be a full-time job within itself.) 

While most of the people auditioning read for the role of Dante, Chiklis reads for Jay. Instead of having Jay and Silent Bob play themselves (which feels like multi-tiered meta-comedy), Randal tries to cast others in the roles. Chiklis delivers Jay's "I'll f*** anything that moves" with panache, though he's also kind of terrifying. 

Anthony Michael Hall is something of a 1980s movie legend, starring in John Hughes classics like "The Breakfast Club," "Sixteen Candles," and "Weird Science" before going on to have a successful adult career in films like "Halloween Kills" and the "Dead Zone" television series. Smith has talked at length about his love of Hughes and how Hughes influenced him; hell, Jay and Silent Bob are on the road in "Dogma" because they were trying to get to the fictional Illinois setting of all of Hughes' films. Smith was able to meet Hall and talk to him on the SModcast, and the two apparently got along well enough for Hall to show up in "Clerks III." 

Hall appears as someone auditioning for Randal's film, and while his audition isn't exactly memorable, seeing the original Rusty Griswold in the View Askewniverse feels oh so right.

There's a long history of nepotism in Kevin Smith movies, so it's really no surprise that his daughter Harley Quinn Smith appears in "Clerks III." She has appeared in several of her dad's films, including in a cameo role in "Clerks II" as a child and as a lead in both "Yoga Hosers" (pictured above, on the left) and "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot." 

In "Clerks III," Harley Quinn plays Milly, a Leonardo, New Jersey local who ends up working at the Quick Stop. She ends up stocking milk near the end of the film, echoing her grandmother Grace Smith, who sorted milk in both of the previous "Clerks" films.

On top of directing some of "Supergirl," Smith also loaned his talents to The CW's "The Flash," which is where he got to know El Machete himself, Danny Trejo. Trejo starred on "The Flash" as Breacher, an inter-dimensional bounty hunter, but fans probably know him best for his work in the movies of Robert Rodriguez, including headlining as the title character in "Machete." Trejo auditions as Dante, which is comical since Dante is sort of a pushover and Trejo is the ultimate badass, and he says Dante's "I'm not even supposed to be here today" line in Spanish. It has never sounded so tough.

If you want to automatically make something funnier, just add Amy Sedaris. The comedian and actor has been playing some of the best weirdos in all of movies and TV since her series "Strangers with Candy" back in 1999, and her unique brand of humor meshes perfectly with Smith's comedic sensibilities. In "Clerks III," Sedaris plays a surgeon who will give Randal the surgery that saves his life, but she was at a costume party when she got the emergency call and shows up looking rather witchy. Thankfully, she takes off the green fingertips before scrubbing up to cut Randal open.

Randal is awake on the operating table (they go through his groin to remove the blockage), and needs to keep Randal talking to her. The two of them chat about "The Mandalorian," which is a hoot since Sedaris plays mechanic Peli Motto on both that series and "The Book of Boba Fett." She gets to make some fun jokes, but unfortunately doesn't get to discuss the dirty details of boning down with Jawas, which is why she's not higher on the list. 

When Smith made the original "Clerks," he cast friends in family in part because he couldn't afford to hire too many actors. His mother, Grace Smith, played "the milk maid," a woman who pulls out every gallon of milk in order to find the one with the longest sell-by date. She appeared as the same character at the end of "Clerks II," after Randal and Dante buy the Quick Stop and the shot turns from color to black and white. It's a fun little nod, and while she's been replaced by her granddaughter Harley Quinn in the final bit of "Clerks III," she does have a great moment during the audition sequence earlier on. 

Smith's mother is among the people auditioning, and she demands to know the author of such foul dialogue, saying, "Holy s***, who wrote this garbage? His mother should be ashamed!" Just like Smith made fun of himself with a line about sequels being for hacks, his mother had a good moment of giggles at her own expense. Like mother, like son, at least when it comes to knowing how to laugh at yourself. 

Justin Long is, arguably, one of Smith's best collaborators. Long and Smith likely met when they both starred in "Live Free or Die Hard" back in 2007, and Long's cameos and roles in Smith's movies started soon after. He first appeared as gay porn producer Brandon St. Randy in "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," dropping improvised lines of dialogue that are seared into my brain alongside things like memories of my wedding day. ("Mountain of Gay" could be the name of my band!) He also starred in Smith's horror-comedy "Tusk," which is apparently getting a sequel.

In "Clerks III," Long plays the nurse who shaves Randal's groin before surgery. He makes a lot of interesting comments about genitals and riffs well with Anderson, who mostly is horrified that he's going to have to let strangers see his penis. For a man who loved showing random strangers photographs of women's anatomy, he sure is dodgy about anyone seeing his own twig and berries. Long is great, and is clearly having a blast.