Kevin Patrick Smith (born August 2, 1970) is an American screenwriter, writer, film director, actor and comic book writer. He is also the founder of View Askew Productions along with Scott Mosier. Smith's films are often set in his home state of New Jersey, and while not strictly sequential, do feature crossover plot elements, character references, and a shared canon: the View Askewniverse.

Personal life

Smith was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, the son of Grace, a homemaker, and Donald Smith, a postal worker. He has an older sister, Virginia, and an older brother, Donald Smith, Jr. He was raised in an Irish Catholic (as stated in an interview in Clerks 10th Anniversary DVD) household and attended Henry Hudson Regional High School in Highlands. After High School he met Jason Mewes who would later become a recurring actor in his films. He then attended The New School for Social Research in New York and the Vancouver Film School, where he met Scott Mosier, his producer in every movie that he has made. He majored in film, but dropped out halfway through his studies, electing to take a partial tuition reimbursement in order to help finance his first film. Smith is married to Jennifer Schwalbach Smith. He named his daughter Harley Quinn after character Harleen "Harley Quinn" Quinzel from Batman: The Animated Series. Although Smith was raised Catholic he has said on Back To The Well, the Clerks II documentary, that now he only goes to mass on the day before he starts production of a movie, and the day before it premieres. He never smoked until his debut film, Clerks, where he used the cigarettes as a prop, but never actually inhaled. In fact, he has said that prior to filming Clerks, he was a staunch non-smoker.

Work as director

His first film, Clerks, was shot for the sum total of $27,575 in the same convenience store where Smith worked. It went to the Sundance Film Festival in 1994, where it won the Filmmaker's Trophy and was picked up by Miramax before the festival's end. In May 1994, it went to the Cannes International Film Festival where it won both the Prix de la Jeunesse and the International Critics' Week Prize. Released in November 1994 in two cities, the film went on to play in fifty markets, never playing on more than fifty screens at any given time. Despite the limited release, it was a critical and financial success, earning $3.1 million.

Initially, the film received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA, solely for the graphic language. Miramax hired Alan Dershowitz to defend the film, and at an appeals screening, a "jury" consisting of members of the National Association of Theater Owners reversed the MPAA's decision, and the film was given an R rating instead.

Smith's second film didn't fare as well as his first. Mallrats received a critical drubbing and earned merely $2.2 million at the box office, despite playing on more than 500 screens. The film marked Jason Lee's debut as a leading man. While it later found its audience on home video, earning the title "cult classic"Fact: date=August 2008, Smith has said of the movie "It was a six million dollar casting call for Chasing Amy."