Jeff Anderson on Clerks II

Jeff Anderson didn't want to make Clerks II. He'd only done Clerks as a favor and it was sometimes hard to get him for cameos in subsequent Kevin Smith movies. When Smith came up with the sequel idea, he had to make sure he could count on Anderson again.

"Clerks didn't seem to me a movie that was craving for a sequel," Anderson said. "At the time I think Kevin came to me, it was on the heels of Jersey Girl, I think Jersey Girl still might have been in theatres. He got fairly beat up for Jersey Girl, the reviews and stuff, and I sort of questioned his motives for coming back to it. I thought he was done with those movies. And I think a large part of the success of Clerks is the back story to it. It's the low budget, it was the black and white look, a camera sitting on a tripod and us talking, and how do you replicate that? I just thought it's ten or twelve years since we had done Clerks, I still get fan mail sent to me, and I just didn't want to screw that up, I didn't want to leave a bad taste in people's mouths."

Even after he read the script and saw that Smith was actually making a statement and maintaining his level of humor, Anderson wasn't comfortable for the beginning of filming. Finally, after four days, Smith had enough completed footage to edit some scenes together.

"Literally the first day driving to the set I was in a full panic, sweaty mode. About the fourth day into it I showed up to the set and I went up to the room and Kevin came out, and his hair was all messed up, and he looked crazed. I was like, 'Oh my God, he finally realized we shouldn't do this,' and he was like, 'No, I've been up all night editing, come see what I've done.' And I went in and I watched the first day of filming, which was Brian and Rosario's stuff, it was a scene that I'm in but I just sort of pop in and pop out, so I really didn't watch them film the scene because they were in another room, and in watching the footage together I just really got into it."

Randall's hat became a famous character trait in Clerks, so for Clerks II they had to carefully choose his headwear. "That's when I knew we were dealing with a different animal. It was like in Clerks I, the original, when we were doing it I knew it was supposed to take place all in one day, and I didn't want to have to worry about my hair change or anything, so I was like, 'Kip, can I wear a hat?' He was like, 'Put it on. Okay, you can wear the hat.' This one I had to come over to his house, and there were like 12 hats laid out on his pool table, and there was like hair and makeup girls there. It never occurred to me that I had to consult people about my looks, I went and got a haircut and came in for a reading, and Kevin was like, 'What did you do?' 'I got a haircut.' So they had to attach hair to the hat. It was the smartest thing I ever did, because I'd get to the set in the morning and it was like hair and makeup, okay let's go. "

Despite their consistent dynamic in Clerks's various incarnations over the year, Jeff Anderson does not usually hang out with Brian O'Halloran. "It's the most surprising thing, other than the fact that I know nothing about Star Wars, the fact that I'm not Brian's best friend is the most surprising thing to people. He lives in New Jersey still, I've moved out here and have lived out here for about 10 years, so we really only see each other on this sort of Clerks type stuff."

Anderson's passion is filmmaking, and he is awaiting the release of his first feature. "I wrote and directed a movie called Now You Know that Trevor Fehrman was actually in, that's where Kevin saw Trevor. The Weinstein Company is going to put it out straight to DVD along side of Clerks II I imagine, and I just finished writing another script and hope to direct that."