…What is at the heart of my Kevin Smith worship? The man is a great storyteller. For many years, the only way most could know this is thru his films. However, on college campuses across the country, his storytelling skills were on full display in lengthy Q&A sessions where he would share stories about his past, both personal and showbiz related.

This evolved into Q&A sessions at bigger venues, and eventually, some of them were filmed, most recently, “Too Fat for Forty,” on his 40th birthday at the Count Basie Theatre in New Jersey.

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“They can have everything. … I’ll give them hundreds and hundreds of hours of fucking free, [entertainment] I just want to make sure they give one thing to me for the rest of my life. I like dressing like this,” he said, referring to his oversized ‘Puck U’ hockey jersey and corresponding stick that he arms himself with inexplicably during interviews. “So, if I just keep giving them entertainment and shit like that I can live as an eternal teenager till I die.”

Smith was the main brain behind the creation of the first live pod cast theater, named SModcastle for himself and partner Scott Mosier. Created only three years ago, Kevin apparently had the idea years before, but it wasn’t after prodding from friends and fans that it became a reality. “I’ve always been an idea man.” Said Smith, “Mercifully, I’ve been able to hook up with people who take the next step.”

In addition to the SModcastle’s ever-growing content being based solely on the demands of the doting audience, it has proved a crucial artistic outlet for Smith. “It’s great to hear that people dig what you’re doing. It just fuels me.” But, there is one very important aspect of the SModcastle’s broadcasts that is especially liberating for a man who was once at the mercy of his nay-sayers: it’s free. “No one can harass you and say your shit sucks. It doesn’t matter. It’s free, dude, just don’t watch it.”

Q: At a certain point, your Q&As and podcasts and talks seemed to be focused around your movies. Now, it’s almost as if the movies are irrelevant to the rest.

So irrelevant. It’s almost at the point where I’m like, if I can get this up and running in a big bad way, in a way that I can live off, I’ll do less and less on the movie front. This is much more interesting to me now. I mean, it’s not that movies are boring, but I’ve done movies for 15 years, and you can only add a spoke to that wheel.

In film, I make Kevin Smith films. There’s a ceiling to what I can do, and I know that now. But in the podcasting world, I’m a better filmmaker than Steven Spielberg. Nobody can challenge me there, you know what I’m saying?

Q: So where do you take it from here?

A lot of people are like, “Oh, TV!” No. It’s not visually interesting to watch two people have a conversation, I don’t give a s— what the f—ing “Tonight Show” has said for years. At the end of the day, it’s so much better in the ears.

I mean, I’m fat. I don’t want to be seen. Podcasting brings me closer to what I’m sure I’m going after, which is every comedy album I grew up listening to when I was a kid. People don’t do that anymore – why do an album when you can do an HBO special or a movie? I have the luxury of already having a day job, and now I can experiment and play in a way that I can afford to do because it’s not my primary job. So for me, every week I can pretend that we’re making a comedy album.

And also, it’s the wild wild west out there. You can say whatever the f— you want on the Internet. Nobody’s yet regulated it to where they can shut you down. So right there, that’s way more interesting.

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