Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson began their acting careers starring in their friend’s movie. That friend was a then undiscovered Kevin Smith, the film, Clerks. It told a story of the day in the life of a group of Quick Stop workers. Clerks became an underground success and launched the career of Kevin Smith. The world he created in Clerks is one that Smith has returned to time and time again, and is known to its fans as the View Askewniverse. Of all the stories within his self-made universe it is the cast of Clerks that have captured his attention the most. In 2006 Smith released his first sequel, Clerks II, and now a further sixteen years later comes Clerks III.
The new film reunites Anderson’s Randal Graves and O’Halloran’s Dante Hicks. Just as they were back in 1994, the pair are still working behind the counter, their life being a marriage of convenience. Following a massive heart attack, Randal enlists his friends and fellow clerks, Dante, Elias (Trevor Fehrman), Jay (Jason Mewes), and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith), to make a movie immortalising his life at the convenience store.
Clerks III is the perfect swan song to a series and group of characters that audiences have been smitten by for the last thirty years. The film would be nothing of course without the return of Anderson and O’Halloran. Dante and Randel are one of the greatest on-screen friendships of the last three decades. Thrown together by their workplace, the two have had a fraught relationship over the Clerks series and Clerks III places their issues front and centre. With the pair back for what is potentially one last ride, THN spoke with the actors to find out what keeps bringing them back, the power of nostalgia, and why even the uninitiated should seek out Clerks III.
Clerks III is released in UK cinemas on 16th September 2022.
