Jason Mewes talks ‘Bling’ and ‘Mallrats 2’

When was the last time you saw a movie about jewellery and robots? The answer to that unusual question is something Google Play are banking on for Bling, the first animated film to be distributed via the platform. Best of all it’s free!

Concerning the calamity that ensues when a hopeful man’s engagement surprise is mistakenly acquired by a supervillain, it features attention-grabbing elements such as positronic primate Kit, voiced by Jay and Silent Bob star Jason Mewes.

Putting on our best suit, and with our best inquiries boxed up and ready to be sprung, we took Mr Mewes to the nearest restaurant in the hope he’d accept our proposal. Along the way we couldn’t help but talk about his most famous role and working with friend and quietest Bob in history Kevin Smith for the past couple of decades…

What was your reaction when you were told about the concept?

I was very excited. Anything with robots is good, but when I was told I was playing a monkey robot, that was a bonus!

How did you approach the role of a monkey robot, if that isn’t a silly question?

I ate a bunch of bananas, that’s how I prepped. (Laughs) No, I just had fun with it man. The animation was already done and I just had to synch up to it. I had some fun and played with it, in order to be the best monkey robot I could be! It was nice because I got to ad lib inbetween and stuff, when my character’s back was turned or when he went offscreen, I got to ad lib some dialogue. You get to see what’s going on, Kit twirling through the air, or landing on top of a car. That made it a little easier and more fun, the process isn’t always like that.

Did you get to meet your fellow cast members, such as James Woods or Carla Gugino?

It was just me in the booth by myself. There are pros and cons doing it both ways, but it was nice. Because I was on my own I felt like if I messed up I could redo it, and get to know the director and all that stuff. It would have been fun doing it with the rest of the cast as well. The only animated movie I’ve ever done like that is Noah’s Ark: The New Beginning and it was nice because I got to work with Michael Keaton and we were able to bounce off each other.

Another upcoming project you may have been asked about once or twice is Mallrats 2! Did you ever think you’d be playing Jay twenty-odd years on from Clerks?

Never! Never… I didn’t expect to play Jay’s character. I was shocked when Clerks was bought and Kevin got a new picture deal and said ‘Hey I’m going to do another movie called Mallrats and I wrote our characters in.’ That was awesome, then with Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back… I didn’t expect to play the character more than once, let alone be playing it twenty years later. I think it’ll be a blast, playing them again before we get too old! (Laughs)

Comic book movies have mushroomed over the past decade. Are there plans to do anything more with Bluntman and Chronic?

Me and my friend wrote a Bluntman and Chronic Super Groovy Cartoon Movie (following Jay and Silent Bob‘s movie of the same name). Kevin needs to read it and approve it for the characters and such. And if he approves we’re going to start working on that, so hopefully that will get done soon and we can do a Groovy Movie 2. And then who knows if Kevin will want to do a live action Bluntman and Chronic… but if we did I’d really like to do it like the Avengers movies, Captain America fighting, The Winter Soldier. That would be cool, fighting in that type of style!

What other projects do you have in the pipeline that you can tell us about?

We have a video game coming out, Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch. Me and Kevin are doing a show called What’s In The Box? for Screen Junkies Plus, where people send us boxes and we don’t know what’s in them. It’s usually toys and all sorts of fun stuff, we started doing that a couple of months ago.

Right now I’m really trying to get this movie off the ground, there’s no title for it yet, but it’s a script by a friend of mine from London. I did a movie called Devil’s Tower with him, and he’s written this script based on an idea we had, and hopefully I’m going to direct it and that will be the first feature I direct. I’m looking forward to that getting off the ground. I’ve done music videos and a short film, and I really want to direct a full feature!

Bling has just hit Google Play ahead of a cinema release. It co-stars Taylor Kitsch, Jennette McCurdy, Tom Green and Jon Heder.