Recreating The Original Clerks Scenes For Clerks III Was Both Challenging And Trippy [Exclusive]
Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson), the reluctant leaders of the slacker generation are back with "Clerks III," a surprisingly personal film from Kevin Smith to cap off his Quick Stop trilogy. Shot on a shoestring budget in stark black and white, the original "Clerks" was part of the new school of American indie cinema during the '90s, a fully self-aware decade that wasn't afraid to hold up a pop culture mirror to comment on a new breed of kids that had zero motivation and A LOT of attitude. Smith's conversational style made "Clerks" feel like we were hanging out with our deadbeat friends, somehow having the time of our lives having deathly serious conversations about the innocent deaths of independent contractors aboard the Death Star. The sequel, aptly named "Clerks II," showed how the corporatization of America helped to destroy the rebellious spirits of Dante and Randal, who were now found trapped in the throes of fast food culture working at a Mooby's franchise.
"Clerks III" goes full circle after Randal has a heart attack (mirroring Smith's health scare) and decides to make a movie about his own life. That's when the threequel goes full meta, allowing Randal, Dante, Jay, and Silent Bob to essentially relive their youth. In a new interview with /Film's Ethan Anderton in honor of the home video release of "Clerks III" on December 6, O'Halloran and Anderson talked about how surreal it was to recreate some key scenes from the original "Clerks."
Randal's take
When Kevin Smith recruited Jeff Anderson back in the early '90s to play Randal, he had never acted a day in his life. Brian O'Halloran had been in amateur theatre productions since high school, so at least he had a leg up. Going back 30 years to reenact scenes from the first film, Anderson tried to get back into the vibe of the original, dialogue heavy script, telling /Film, "I didn't remember my lines back in '94, so there's no way I remembered them in 2022."
When it came to actually filming those original scenes again, Anderson brushed over them when reading the new script for "Clerks III," thinking it would all come back to him on the day:
"I'd read the script, and you would always learn your lines and stuff from the script, but what's weird is, I just sort of bypassed the scenes where we're recreating stuff from 'Clerks,' thinking, 'Oh, I'll just know how to do that.' But it was amazing to find out that I still didn't remember the dialogue, and I sort of didn't remember the actions of it. So it was a pretty trippy experience."
Making the movie-within-a-movie gave Anderson and the whole crew a chance to wax nostalgic and have fun lambasting the more memorable moments of the View Askewniverse (encompassing all of the films featuring Jay & Silent Bob) that fans have come to know and love. Luckily, for actor Justin Long, Smith hasn't decided to recreate his body horror movie "Tusk" just yet.
Dante's side of things
In the interview with /Film, Brian O'Halloran talked about the technical complications of trying to line up every one of his movements with what he did in the original nearly three decades ago. "It was more of framing the shot. We spent more time framing the shot than having to really relearn the dialogue," he revealed. The spontaneity of the original Quick Stop scenes had to be duplicated exactly. "'Okay, Brian, move a little over this way, now put the Yoohoo bottle here. Okay, now remember when you moved and when you said the such and such line, you tilted your head this way.' It was that kind of thing."
To help make sure they were matching everything correctly, a handy piece of technology was used that didn't even exist back in '93 when "Clerks" was filming. O'Halloran explained:
"We would look at a tablet or a phone that had 'Clerks' on HBO Max, at the time, to literally frame up the shot, and then you'd see it next to the monitor, and it was really, really trippy."
Despite everything staying the same, things have changed a little in the new film. RST Video where Randal worked, for example, is now fittingly a pot dispensary managed by Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob.
When the original announcement dropped that a third "Clerks" movie was actually happening, Smith was eager to get back to his indie roots. "There's a saying from the Tao that goes something like 'To be great is to go on. To go on is to go far. To go far is to return,'" he proclaimed. Returning to the earlier films in his filmography is something Smith's loyal legion of fans love, so don't be surprised if and when news of another sequel hits the trades. In fact, Justin Long better watch out. "Tusk 2" may be happening, after all.