Harley Quinn Smith, star of Yoga Hosers and one of the ensemble for Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, came straight to the set of Kevin Smith‘s Jay & Silent Bob Reboot after leaving the Tarantino set. According to her father, Harley’s performance worried him a little bit at first — not because it wasn’t good, but because she was playing a serious, dramatic role in one of Kevin Smith’s trademark over-the-top comedies, featuring sex, drugs, and pot jokes. He said during his Comic Con panel that it was a huge benefit to the film the way she and Jason Mewes played off each other, but at first it was hard to see.
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After a few days, though, he said he was sure he had made the fight call; Harley Quinn Smith‘s performance was grounding the movie, keeping it a little less zany and more human than Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, the movie this one is “rebooting,” arguably was.
“Her being with Quentin, and her making that flick, she came to this show,” Smith said. “And Jennifer asked me — It was my day three, Harley’s day one — so it was a Wednesday, the first week. And we’d already shot the mall with Brodie, and I forget what the second day was. And then the third day was we meet the girls by the roadside. So Harley acts all day long. We shoot and what-not. I go home, and Jen goes, ‘How was she? How was her first day?’ And I said, ‘Well, I think she’s a really good actress, but I think she’s in a completely different fucking movie altogether. She seems to be in a drama, whereas we’re all making this dopey comedy and s–t.’ I said, ‘She just seems so f—ing real. She’s acting her heart out and s–t.’ And Jennifer’s like, ‘Is it good?’ I was like, ‘It’s good, I just don’t know if it makes sense in our movie.’ But then two days into her performance, I was like, ‘I think this is the right choice. I think she’s oddly grounding the movie and making it more real.’ If she was as flippant goofy as our characters, then there’s no stakes, but you could actually tell this kid is nursing some sort of f—ing wound about not knowing who her dad is. It should’ve been very two-dimensional, because that’s the way it was written, movie two-dimensional. Harley was able to flesh it out and give it this kind of life.”
In addition to Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, and a dozen or so other View Askew veterans, the film is jam-packed full of Hollywood stars including David Dastmalchian, Jason Lee, Joe Manganiello, Craig Robinson, Justin Long, Shannon Elizabeth, Fred Armisen, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Chris Hemsworth, Method Man, Redman, Jason Biggs, James Van Der Beek, Brian Quinn, and Tommy Chong.
It’s no secret a direct sequel to Jay and Silent Bob has been something Smith’s long been wanting to do, finally getting funding and a distributor for the film within the past year. The film recently wrapped principal photography and afterward, Smith and film star Jason Mewes offered a heartfelt statement on what reuniting for Reboot meant to the two of them.
“We left Jersey a long time ago, not in our hearts, obviously, but like physically left the place and went so f—ing far,” Smith previously said about the long-gestating film. “We probably don’t go any of these places without me meeting Jason Mewes.”
“I’m horrible at talking on the camera when it comes to sharing and baring my heart,” Jason Mewes added while tearing up. “That is a f—ing wrap on Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, and I love this guy and I’m gonna kiss him, and you’re gonna see it.”
Jay & Silent Bob Reboot will start a theatrical roadshow in October, beginning with a two-night Fathom Events premiere in select theaters.
