GENEVIEVE PARLEY finds out how director KEVIN SMITH bounced back from disappointment to make COP OUT, his new buddy comedy starring Bruce Willis and 30 Rock’s Tracy Morgan.

GENEVIEVE PARLEY:  This is the first time you’ve directed a movie that you didn’t write. What drew you to Cop Out? 

KEVIN SMITH:  Zack & Miri [Make A Porno] was the last film I had come out and it didn’t do what I thought it was going to do. When that didn’t happen, I was completely crestfallen. So, I didn’t want to write about a personal experience right then and there. But I thought, “I should be doing something. I can’t just sit around. I’ve got to get back on the horse.” And into my lap came Cop Out. Warner Bros. sent it over. 

I thought, “I could do this, because it’s just Clerks with cops.” You know, they’re older, but it’s two dudes talking to each other. That’s my bread and butter. And then the reason that I really connected to it, I think, had a lot to do with [the fact that] my father passed away a few years ago. My father took me to see all those movies, always took me out of school at one o’clock in the afternoon on a Wednesday to see whatever opened. So, 48 Hrs, the Lethal Weapons, the Die Hards, Last Boy Scout, Running Scared... And whenever I think about those flicks, I think of my dad.

So, I’m reading this flick going, “Wow, if I made this movie, this would be the movie that my father would be like, “Oh, you do make movies for a living.”  Because with my other stuff, he’d always be like, “Does it count as a movie if all you do is talk about Star Wars and other movies?” And I was like, “In the ‘90s it does, Dad.” So, now, with this script, if he was alive, he would have said, “Oh, this is a movie. It’s got a plot going; Bruce Willis is in it. He’s a movie star.” Because I’ve never worked with a major movie star before … please don’t tell Ben Affleck I said that. [laughs]

“I’ve never worked with a major movie star before … please don’t tell Ben Affleck I said that.”

GP: Tracy [Morgan] said that you are somewhat of a comedian’s comedian.

KS:  Oh, he’s sweet.  He is the best of the best. Also in this movie, Seann William Scott. Those two dudes, Tracy and Seann, are just brilliant, brilliant ad-libbers. They’re dudes who can execute the script really well, very funny, but then they just give you a bunch of special sauce on top of it. And Tracy just had buckets to bring.

GP:  Can you tell what you most enjoyed about making the film? 

KS: Yeah. There was a day we were shooting the opening sequence with all the movie lines and whatnot, and it was about as fun to shoot as it looks.  And as we’re doing it, I sit behind a monitor and I watch Tracy doing lines and I’ll run and be like, “Tracy, do a line from Jaws now.”  He’s like, “All right, I’ll do Jaws.”  And I run out and I watch the monitor, and it’s funny.  So, I run back in and I’m like, “Do that line from Planet of the Apes, man, about the forbidden zone.”  So, I run out, watch it again. That goes on for two, three hours, and I hear one of the crew dudes behind me go, “It’s like watching two kids make a YouTube clip.”  [laughs]  And that’s what it felt like. At its best moments, it doesn’t feel like work. It doesn’t feel like there are millions of dollars at stake. We just try to make each other laugh. It’s fun.

COP OUT opens in cinemas Thursday, rated [MA15+]. See Rave’s Win Stuff section to score in-season tickets. www.copoutmovie.warnerbros.com

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