Comedian and multifaceted talent, Kevin Smith, recently appeared alongside Chris Jericho on The Rich Eisen Show to discuss the new Jay And Silent Bob reboot film that hits theaters next week. Smith and Jericho finally revealed the AEW World Champion’s role in upcoming film: a Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan.
“It’s a road movie, so it’s Jay and Silent Bob across the country. And it’s 2019 so they encounter all sorts of different personalities,” Smith said. “At one point, they encounter the Ku Klux Klan and Chris plays the lead Klansman.”
“Grand Wizard of the selected half of the Ku Klux Klan,” Chris specified.
Smith noted how much of a departure the role actually is for someone like Jericho, however, he still jumped into it with enthusiasm. Jericho attempted to channel the spirit of Henry Gibson from The Blues Brothers when creating his character.
“Now anyone who knows this man knows that this is acting; they should give him an Oscar because he’s so far apart from it. When I asked him, ‘Can you do this?’ He said, ‘There’s nothing else in there?’ I said, ‘No’. He said, ‘Alright, I’ll do it,” Smith said.
“There was no, ‘Oh, nothing else in there’. Are you kidding me? I love that sort of stuff, like the Ku Klux Klan? I’m in! I love it!” Chris said.
“He compared it to – and I was so flattered, and that’s why I was like, ‘Oh man, he is my boy’, he was like, ‘Look, I’m Henry Gibson in the Blues Brothers just make sure you give me an outline.’ And I was like, ‘He gets it, he absolutely gets it.’ So, Chris has my favorite ad-libbed moment in the movie, ad-libbed line which we came up with on the spot because he was like, ‘You’ve got to give me an out. Give me a big line to go out in.’ And we found one, it was great,” Kevin said. “But you can’t ask many people, you know, ‘Put on a white hood and be hated’, and they’ll do it for you. Man, this sweetheart of a guy did it. We couldn’t put him on the poster because he was wearing a hood; we had to change it.”
The obvious controversy surrounding the KKK forced Smith to leave Jericho off of the movie’s trailer and theatrical poster. They went into detail about how they actually filmed the scene with the KKK, noting how surprised they were that there wasn’t more outrage while shooting the scene near downtown New Orleans.
“I was like, ‘Why am I not in the trailer?’ He’s like, ‘Dude, you’re in the KKK. We can’t put that in the trailer.’ I don’t know if we have time for this quickly but when we were filming this in New Orleans and you have fifteen guys, extras with Ku Klux Klan outfits on and there’s a cross that had lights on it that simulated fire,” Chris explained. “So, there’s a Klan rally with a burning cross under an overpass in basically downtown New Orleans. I don’t know how we didn’t get shot or have members join us.”
“On Instagram, we saw one week later of somebody [filming] us from above like as they’re driving by, going, ‘I cannot believe they’re having a Klan rally right in the open like this.’ To be fair, the Klan played as bad in the movie – they’re bad guys. Just in case anyone out there is like, ‘I’m buying a ticket!’ And we’re like, ‘We’re bad guys.’ And they go, ‘Oh, I don’t want a ticket.’ They’re bad guys,” Kevin finished.
We first reported back in March that Jericho was announced as part of the cast for the Jay And Silent Bob reboot film. Although this is the first time Jericho is appearing in a film alongside Jason Mewes (Jay), this is actually the second time that Smith and Jericho have worked on a movie together. Jericho will be a part of the forthcoming horror anthology Killroy Was Here, which was also directed by Kevin Smith and wrapped filming this month.
During this same interview Smith revealed that WWE cancelled a scheduled appearance at last week’s Friday Night SmackDown because of his close ties to AEW and Chris Jericho.
“Me and Jay were lucky enough to be involved, Chris invited us to be involved with the debut match on TNT,” Smith said. “We were supposed to go do WWE, me and Jay, the very next day, which was Friday. Was it Friday? SmackDown. And then the morning after… because we were on the AEW show, it trended, like, there was a lot of coverage and stuff. So, the next morning we were told that WWE was like, you can’t come on anymore, and they canceled us. They kicked me and Jay off the show, but not in a crazy way.”
Source: Wrestling Inc. with credit to The Rich Eisen Show
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