Kevin Smith sounds pretty contrite in this new interview with Vulture backing down from a lot of comments he made lately about Bruce Willis (a “dick,” undirectable”) at a wrap party for the action comedy, “A Couple of Dicks” and Harvey Weinstein. Or at least with Bruce Willis he basically says any “dick” comments were either fabricated or taken out of context.
Let’s start with Willis.
Well, the Enquirer hinted at a difficulty on set with Bruce Willis. They said that at the wrap party I got up and gave a speech and called him a “fucking dick.” I read this, and I was like, “This is so weird — they had a wrap party and nobody invited me?” It just didn’t happen, there was no wrap party. Bruce wrapped two days before the rest of us, and the moment we wrapped at four in the morning, I got on a prom bus and drove up to Toronto. There was no fucking wrap party!
I think where that comes from is at Carnegie Hall. I was talking about Bruce and I referred to him as “undirectable” and I think somebody took that as negative. It’s not like, “Ahh, I can’t deal with him!” It’s just how do you direct Bruce Willis to play Bruce Willis? I can direct Jason Mewes to play Jay. I can direct Affleck to play a fucking angel — or to kill his career as a grieving father. But I can’t fucking tell Bruce Willis how to be Bruce Willis — cause he’s fucking Bruce Willis! After a take, I’d be like, “Can you be more like … ” And he’d get that slow head turn. And I had Bruce looking at me with that little Moonlighting smirk. Bruce is his own fucking boss. It was ridiculous for me to think that I could even try.
On to Harvey, who he suggest he was going to roast in a podcast due to the bungling of “Zack & Miri Make A Porno” — an ok film that Smith still seems baffled and bitter about it’s poor box-office performance — but then backed down from the idea when his cooler head prevailed.
We did those two podcasts where, the first one was us all, “You’re gonna hear it! Heads are gonna roll, bridges are gonna burn — the truth will be told!” It was a big two-parter. And we finished the first part and we were reconvening to do part two and Scott and I were like, “Who cares. This story is not interesting. [The Weinsteins] gave us everything we have in life. So they dropped the ball with this movie, and maybe the last three — big deal.” The idea of wanting to scorch the earth felt stupid and petty.
He also drops this bon mot about TWC’s economic situation vis-à-vis his “Red State” horror film. “That’s when I knew things were bad at the Weinstein Company — when they passed on a fucking $5 million Kevin Smith movie.”