From doubtful executives to his own personal demons, actor and filmmaker Jason Mewes has
beaten the odds to become a cult favorite Hollywood icon, known to many, beloved by
all.
Here's how it all happened — and what might happen next.
Jason Mewes was born in the small town of Highlands, New Jersey, and grew up having
essentially no ambitions of ever becoming an actor, director, or a stoner icon in the
vein of Cheech and Chong.
In Highlands, Mewes and his longtime collaborator Kevin Smith lived only a couple of blocks
away from each other and attended the same high school, but they weren't necessarily
friends right away.
For one, the younger Mewes was still a student after Smith had already graduated.
For another, Smith and his circle of friends frequently found him to be, in Mewes' words,
"obnoxious and weird."
But over time, Smith bonded with the oddball freshman out of a shared love of comics and
pop culture, and an increasing appreciation on Smith's part for Jay's oddball — and
sometimes profane — sense of humor.
Despite Mewes showing no real interest in theater or performance as a teenager, Smith
would often remark to Mewes that someone should put him in a movie.
It was only fitting that Smith, an aspiring filmmaker himself, would be the one to do
it.
Jason Mewes got his first brush with fame when Smith wrote a role for him in what would
become his debut feature, Clerks.
In his first appearance as the character, Jay is barely a performance.
He's just…
Jay.
Being interviewed for a documentary commemorating the tenth anniversary of Clerks, Smith recalled,
"I gave him the script and he read it and I was like, 'What do you think?'
He's like, 'I don't know if I can do this.'
I'm like, 'Dude, it's you!'"
Though close to the character and naturally charismatic, Mewes still had to confront stage
fright when it came time to shoot the movie.
In the beginning, he was so nervous in front of the camera that he at times asked the crew
to leave during his performances, meaning some scenes of Clerks were shot with literally
nobody behind the camera.
Mewes said in the Clerks making-of doc that his youthful antics had always been about
entertaining himself, not others.
As soon as an audience was involved, he froze up.
"Like as soon as I got an audience, I just felt really silly doing it for other people,
and just being like, 'All right everyone, get ready!
That anxiousness had unexpected benefits, though.
Mewes' inability to sell a crucial line in a climactic scene is what inspired Silent
Bob's one line of dialogue in the film, establishing Bob in series canon as a mostly mute character
who only speaks when he has wisdom to drop.
"You know there's a million fine lookin women in the world.
They don't all bring you lasagna at work.
Most of em just cheat on ya."
… "C'mon, limp d---."
The sale of Clerks to Miramax meant that Jason Mewes' performance as Jay would be seen by
many more people than his circle of friends in New Jersey.
Suddenly, this $27,000 indie film was on its way to becoming a bona fide cult classic — and
Hollywood was noticing.
Smith's second film, Mallrats, was fast-tracked into production with the backing of a major
studio.
Unlike Clerks, filmed with a skeleton crew over nearly a month's worth of night shoots,
Mallrats was a real deal production with real deal money behind it — and the people putting
up the money had opinions.
Specifically, they liked the character of Jay, but they didn't really like the person
playing Jay.
This lead to an unenviable situation in which Mewes had to audition for a chance to essentially
play himself.
In the suits' view, Smith was a wunderkind, but Mewes was an amateur, and they misunderstood,
or underestimated, his appeal.
The studio tried to recast the role with a more established comic actor like Breckin
Meyer or Seth Green.
While Smith won the right to cast Mewes in Mallrats, there were strings attached: if
Mewes' performance wasn't satisfying on day one, he'd be fired and replaced.
It was only when the executives got a look at Mewes in action that they realized he was
simply irreplaceable.
"The whole f----- world's against us, dude, I swear to god."
Despite the troubles he was put through by the studio, Jason Mewes maintains that Mallrats
was his favorite one of Smith's films to work on.
"Clerks was the first movie, but to me, really, Mallrats is my first movie, because it was
like it became real."
While Mewes would go on to spend his adulthood in show business, the real-life act of moviemaking
was still a novelty to him at the time of Mallrats.
“I'm in Minnesota, staying in a hotel, and there's wardrobe, and there's stunt guys,
and I get to hang from a grappling hook, and I get to meet Stan Lee for the first time."
Mewes would later go on to cross paths with the Marvel Comics magnate on multiple occasions
in the years to come, even casting him for a cameo for his own movie, Madness in the
Method, in 2019.
"Boy, I heard he's a knucklehead."
Though Mallrats didn't exactly make bank at the box office, Smith got another chance to
make a movie, this time mining more personal territory for the less slapsticky, more artsy
Chasing Amy.
This story had less room for Jay and Silent Bob, though the characters do appear in a
pivotal scene.
The movie also introduced comic book alter egos for the characters: the marijuana-themed
superheroes Bluntman and Chronic.
It's the in-universe creators of those characters that the story of Chasing Amy revolves around.
But despite his increasing notoriety, Mewes continued working "regular guy" jobs until
well after you'd think he would have hung it up to go Hollywood.
"I did Chasing Amy, and I went back to delivering pizza and doing construction and stuff.
So I worked a regular job for years.
It really wasn't until after Dogma that I stopped working construction and delivering
pizza."
Mewes reached the height of the zeitgeist in 2001, when he starred in Jay and Silent
Bob Strike Back, the first film in Smith's universe to revolve entirely around the duo.
But that professional success didn't necessarily reflect a healthy personal life.
By then, Mewes had spent years going down the path of drug addiction, specifically to
opiates.
Mewes was born to a mother with addiction issues of her own, and spent his early adolescence
practicing a straight-edge lifestyle — an identity which had thoroughly eroded by the
time he and Smith teamed up for Clerks.
But what started out as perfectly innocent, even charming substance abuse had become a
bleak, life-or-death situation by the early 2000s.
An arrest for heroin possession in 1999 was compounded by another arrest warrant, issued
in 2001, over a failure to make a court date in New Jersey.
The circumstances led Smith to decline to cast Mewes in his sixth film, Jersey Girl
— an unfortunate first for the frequent collaborators, whose friendly relationship
was being strained to the breaking point by Mewes' addiction.
The warrant ultimately led Jason Mewes to return to New Jersey and face the music, dealing
with the legal problem, and perhaps his addictions as well.
“I got fed up.
I was like, I have to take care of this warrant, because even if I get sober and I'm doing
good in California, this warrant will hang over my head forever.
So I went there and took care of it."
Mewes was sentenced to four to six months of rehab in New Jersey, with a period of probation
to follow.
His surrender to authorities started a process of recovery that continues to this day.
He credits the success to his support system, staying busy with work and surrounding himself
with friends who aren't shy about keeping him accountable.
"Keeping busy is a big thing.
[...] I realized for me, the people who really care, it's, 'Hey, why do you have that beer
in your hand.
And I'm like, 'Oh, I'm just passing it to so-and-so.'
But a friend who's like, 'Hey, you've been sober two years and you're really addicted
to drugs, not booze.
You can have a beer.
You can have one beer.'
That to me isn't… he might be a friend, but not really.
So that to me was a big deal.
Surrounding myself with people who knew, no, I can't have a beer, because then I'll be
smoking crack in a month, and I'll disappear."
In the years since he committed to sobriety, Jason Mewes has continued to work as an actor,
being cast in many smaller movies that you may not have heard of.
In 2010, Mewes was also a cast member on Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, a Canadian comedy
series that was canceled after two seasons.
Much like Mewes' early movies, the show is something of a cult favorite with a small
but dedicated fanbase.
“I think when people see it they love it, it's just them finding it.
But yes, Todd and the Book of Pure Evil.
Definitely I believe you guys will be able to find it somewhere."
Another lesser-known film Mewes is proud of is Zombie Hamlet, which is more or less exactly
what it sounds like.
"I'm shocked more people didn't see that, because it was a really funny movie."
Out of the dozens of projects Jason Mewes has been involved with over the years, one
he's most proud of is his directorial debut, 2019's Madness in the Method.
The movie was born out of two desires: breaking out of the stoner niche as an actor, and stepping
behind the camera for a substantial feature project.
Prior to Madness, Mewes had only directed a few music videos and shorts, experiences
he enjoyed.
But they left him wanting more.
Soon enough, he was on independent film sets with his mind wandering toward bigger, more
involved aspects of the production.
The film is a kind of meta-narrative that takes place in a slightly heightened version
of the real world, following Mewes as he attempts to learn method acting with the help of a
near-mythical guidebook.
Owing partly to the character's addictive personality, things get out of hand quickly.
"I read the book [...] I'm told to read it slow and really soak it in, and I read it
too fast.
And then from there, an accident happens, and then a killing spree happens.
And it's a comedy drama."
On top of his directorial debut being released, 2019 also proved big for Jason Mewes in another,
more familiar way, with the filmmaker stepping back into the Jay role.
The part has been revived as a part of Smith's 13th movie, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, a sequel
to Strike Back that Smith has called, quote, "literally the same f—ing movie all over
again."
Well, if you liked it the first time…
“Alright guys, welcome to behind the scenes of the set of Mallrats 2.”
In typical ironic fashion, the movie is effectively a reboot that lampoons reboots, following
Jay and Silent Bob as they head back to Hollywood, again, seeking sweet revenge for the industry's
slights against them — again.
This time, they're out to stop a blockbuster reimagining of Bluntman and Chronic, now starring
former Batman Val Kilmer and current Supergirl Melissa Benoist.
And while Jay went sober as his namesake for Clerks II, the sequel seems to have the fictional
character back in the mood of rolling fatties and smoking blunts.
Outside of filmmaking, Mewes has also found a second unexpected niche as a podcaster and
a stage performer, touring with the stand-up show "Jay Mewes and His A-Mewes-ing Stories."
He's also begun streaming content on Twitch under the name JayMewes.
"Yeah man, it's been fun.
It's like between this movie and reboot, and streaming, and the stand up comedy, it's been
good."
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