Hayden Christensen, velociraptors and what happens to a daschund after relations with a labrador. Just some of the many topics on the agenda at the second of two four-hour long London Q&A sessions with the one and only Kevin Smith. Don’t worry if you couldn’t get tickets – they sold out within minutes on his View Askew website, but as it’s been nearly three years since Smith last took to the London stage for one of his epic Q&As, Empire was damned sure we weren't going to miss on bringing you the details of a repeat performance.
The two appearances late last week at the Prince Charles Cinema weren’t for any cinematic (or even ink-based) plans or publicity. The low-key, little publicised event wouldn't have happened were it not for Mr & Mrs Smith’s little girl.
"We're here because of Harley," Smith explained to the crowd. "She's friends with Johnny Depp's daughter Lily-Rose. Johnny's in London at the moment working on Sweeney Todd and they've been missing each other, so we decided to bring her and schedule these Q&As. We've essentially travelled six-thousand miles for a play-date."
Amid the Clerks director’s usual highly entertaining part Q&A / part stand-up format, there were some interesting facts gleaned about his upcoming projects. Provoking the most discussion was Smith's upcoming horror film – which we learned after the Q&A will be called Red** **State, and you can read a lot more about here - but whether it's next on the agenda appears to be somewhat up in the air. "I have two scripts in my head," he said, "one's the horror movie and the other's a comedy. I know how they're going to go but I haven't had time to sit down and start writing."
The horror is likely to be the hardest for him to write. "It'll be interesting to see how it works, because I'm used to filling out my scripts with jokes. There'll be humour in it, but you can't really have a lot of dialogue in a horror movie; it kind-of defeats the purpose."
Among the other titbits that circulated; Smith's just finished work in the edit suite on a new TV pilot called Reaper, his first time directing someone else's material, Mallrats is coming to HD-DVD pretty soon and British porn is expensive - he latter perhaps revealing more about Smith's taste in hotel entertainment than his career as a filmmaker.
Possibly our favourite moment though, was Smith picking at an old (and figurative, we should add) scab... "Last time I was here I got an award at the Empire Awards. In my speech I hit back at a 3AM Girls column that described me as a fat, bearded, hobbit-like director. So I figured, she called me a hobbit; I'll call her an orc. Come to find out she's in the room. She comes up to me later and says, 'You know, some people could find that comment offensive.'
"Apparently it's OK to call someone a hobbit but not an orc. Boy was my wrist slapped..."