Kevin Smith on Making ‘Dogma’ and Catholic Faith, 25 Years Later

In 1999, the religious world was rocked by Dogma, the most ambitious film yet from writer and director Kevin Smith following Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy, each of which he also featured in as Silent Bob alongside the verbose and foul-mouthed Jay (played by longtime friend Jason Mewes). With a star-studded cast including Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as angels cast out of heaven, Linda Fiorentino as an abortion clinic worker who turns out to be a scion of Jesus, George Carlin as a cynical cardinal, Chris Rock as an unknown 13th apostle, and Alan Rickman as a seraph transmitting the voice of God, it is a blasphemous, brainy sendup of Catholic theology that Smith, a former altar boy, worked on for the better part of a decade. Condemned by the Catholic League for its heresies, it nonetheless became Smith’s most commerically successful film, and in May of this year, it screened at Cannes as part of the festival’s “classics” programming. On June 5, following a national tour of a 4K remaster, Dogma returns to theaters for a (slightly belated) 25th anniversary celebration. Here, Smith tells Rolling Stone about the genuine faith that inspired the film — and whether he might regain it in the process of writing Dogma 2, a script now in progress.

Since I’ve been on tour, I’ve had a lot of opportunity to re-engage with Dogma. This is a film whose writer and director believed in the cosmology depicted. Dogma was his way of questioning the church while at the same time singing praises to the faith. It calls to mind your Old Testament King David stripping down to his skivvies and dancing the fool in front of the Ark of the Covenant through the streets of the Holy City. Young Kevin Smith, this kid wanted to show you what Sunday service could be like if it had anal jokes in it. 

I started writing the script in ’91, ’92, even before I started writing Clerks — it was very ambitiously titled God, 250 pages. But as a concept, Dogma started taking root way back in Catholic school, and even before that, just going to church every Sunday with my family, growing up to be the altar boy who giggled every time the priest would say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

We were coming off of Chasing Amy, which was getting killer reviews, and Good Will Hunting, which I was a co-executive producer on. There was never going to be a better time for me to try to get my dream movie made. Any juice I had was at the height of its juiciness. 

Ben had wanted to do the movie from the moment he read the script. He had taken a train down from Boston to New Jersey to pick up the first half of the Chasing Amy screenplay. We hung out all day, then I gave him pages, and I was bringing him back to the train station. He’s going, “It’s only 60 pages. It won’t even get me to Connecticut.” So I said, “Well, I got this script I wrote called Dogma.” When he got back that night, he called, and I said, “What did you think of Chasing Amy?” And he goes, “Oh, guy falls in love with a lesbian, real nice. But this Dogma screenplay is incredible, man!” He goes, “I’m gonna play Bartleby.” I said, “Well, that’d be sweet, but honestly, it’s probably gonna be a movie star.” Thanks to Good Will Hunting and, to a lesser degree, Chasing Amy, he became a movie star. When we’re on set, first moment, we’re shooting his first take. I’m right by the monitor, and Ben leans over to be in my eye line to catch my attention. He frames his face with his hands, and he goes, “Movie star.” 

Originally I had him and Jason Lee in mind to play Bartleby and Loki because they’d just done their buddy thing and Chasing Amy. Jason had been offered a movie in France, so he bowed out. Then we wound up moving our start date by months. He came back and goes, “Can I be in the movie still? I said, “Well, we got the part of Azrael, who’s our bad guy, a demon. We’re out to Alec Baldwin, but I don’t think he’s going to say yes.” Jason wound up playing the part. I remember he called me up out of the blue years later, saying, “Thank you for casting me in Dogma. I just got this Disney cartoon, I’m gonna play a guy named Syndrome in a movie called The Incredibles. And I got the part because they liked me in Dogma.”

Dream casting 

I heard from Jon Gordon, our executive at Miramax at the time. He goes, “You’ll never guess who was in here today. Alan Rickman.” I said, “Hans fucking Gruber was in the building, man. Did he blow it up or what?” And he goes, “All he wanted to talk about was whoever made Chasing Amy. He loves the movie, he wants to work with you. I said, “Let’s send him a script for Dogma.” He was the fastest yes I ever got from an actor in my life. We just put up, on my Instagram, Alan Rickman’s deal memo, offering him the role of Metatron for scale plus 10 — essentially movie minimum wage. I never in a million years would have tried to cast Alan Rickman. The idea of putting him in a Kevin Smith movie is just pearls before swine. 

Salma Hayek I got through Robert [Rodriguez]. Robert had worked with her on Desperado and said I should cast her some at one point. I called Robert a month before we started shooting the movie. I said, “Would you direct Dogma for me? The script is really good, but I’m a terrible director, so I’m gonna drop the ball. I know it’d be a fucking badass movie in your hands.” And he was real sweet. He was like, “Kevin, don’t worry about your directing. Just move the characters away from the wall. You always got two people standing next to each other, and right behind him is a flat wall. Put a window behind them, put some depth behind, that’s all you gotta do.”

[George] Carlin, he was like an heirloom in our family. My father gave me Class Clown [Carlin’s 1972 comedy album] when I was nine years old. When I met with him, he goes, “As you know, my wife passed away recently.” I said, “I heard, I’m so sorry. He says, “Me too, she was a cool lady. I’m gonna miss her for the rest of my life. I’m not ready to take off my wedding band just yet. I know I’d be playing a Catholic cardinal, and I wouldn’t be allowed to wear a wedding band. But then I had a thought last night: If you would allow me to wear a Band-Aid around my wedding band, then I could be in your movie and still wear my wedding band. What do you think?” I started crying, It was so beautiful. Scoring him was massive. My father came to visit the set, and I got to introduce him to his hero, which was really dope.

Linda Fiorentino was coming off of Men in Black. But I was there for her because of The Last Seduction. This is a film where she would have gotten an Academy Award nomination had Showtime not aired it once at midnight before the thing went theatrical. Mercifully, she dug the script — I guess she had some Catholic background. Chris Rock was so huge. We were trying to get Sam Jackson, because we were all Pulp Fiction fans, but Chris had heard about the script and asked if he could meet. He liked Chasing Amy quite a bit. When he made his movie Top Five, it’s very Chasing Amy-esque. It was very easy to jump from the idea of Sam Jackson to like, yeah, Chris Rock, let’s do this.

In 1996, my agent said, “Hey, you know that girl who sings about blowing people in movie theaters?” I said, “Her name is Alanis Morissette.” He goes, “She wants to meet you.” And I was like, “Hopefully in a movie theater.” She couldn’t have been lovelier. She’d just gotten off the Jagged Little Pill tour, and she’s like, “We watched Clerks every night after the tour. I wanted to know what you’re doing now.” I said, “Well, we just finished this movie Chasing Amy.” I had the dailies with me on VHS. I showed her a bunch of the movie in raw-footage form. She said, “Oh, this is like Clerks but classy.” I said, “You should see the next one, it’s called Dogma, and it’s got angels in it. You know what? Man, you could totally play the lead.” And she’s like, “No, I don’t think I could carry a movie. I’m the wrong choice for it.” 

I didn’t hear from her for months. Then, as I was driving out to start rehearsals on Dogma — I had this early cell phone, the antenna and silicone buttons or some such shit. The phone rings, and it’s Alanis Morissette. She’s like, “We were talking about doing a movie, and I got scared because I didn’t think I could handle the lead. I just wanted to tell you that I regret turning you down.” And I said, “Well, there’s one small but crucial role that’s left wide open. You play God.” She was like, “Why me?” And I said, “Because I always thought God would be Canadian.” She brought everything to it. Alanis says, “Can I do a handstand.” I was like, “You do whatever you want.” Her version of God was more charming than mine. 

Keeping it professional

Obviously, I’ve devoted most of my fucking life to [Jason Mewes]. He’s either my first kid or my first wife, I’m still not sure which. With Jason, it was more puppeteering through those first films, practically sticking my hand up his ass and saying “Snooch to the nooch” out of the side of my mouth. For Dogma, I was like, “Hey, man, you gotta be serious on this movie. You can’t fuck around. We got real actors. We got Alan Rickman.” And he’s like, “Who the fuck’s that?” I was like, “Alan Rickman was in Die Hard, bro.” And he goes, “Yippee-Ki-Yay?” I say “No, the other guy.” He goes, “So what’s the big deal?” I said, “Well, Alan’s British, and the Brits invented acting. So he ain’t gonna stand for your snoochie-noochie nonsense and shit. He ain’t gonna have tolerance for us clearing the set because you’re too embarrassed to act. Man, they’re lethal, those Brits! They’ll just tear you apart with a look.” 

Months later, I’m rehearsing with Jason in Pittsburgh, separately from the rest of the cast. I’m like, “Where’s your script?” And he goes, “I don’t need it.” And I was like, “Yeah, right, we’ll see.” So I start reading the script. He knows all his lines in the first scene. The second scene, he knew all his lines. So we jump to the end of the movie. I jump to the middle. He knew those lines. I was like, “Well, look at you, man, you memorized all your dialogue.” And he goes, “No, I memorized the whole script.” I said, “Bullshit.” He’s like, “Try me.” I start reading Linda’s dialogue. He’s hitting me back with Chris Rock’s dialogue. Hit him with Ben Affleck’s dialogue, he hits me back with Matt Damon’s dialogue. I was like, “Jesus, you memorized the entire fucking script, who are you, Rain Man?” Innocent as a baby, he goes, “I don’t want to piss off that Rickman dude.” 

After our first rehearsal with Alan, he goes, “That fucking Rickman dude is a pussy. Why’d you say he would beat me up?” I was like, “I never said he would beat you up, I said that he’s a god of acting, and you gotta be good around him.” They became such close friends. I remember I saw Jason and Alan one day on set, and they were engaged in deep conversation. I remember thinking, “What the fuck could these two possibly have to say to one another?” I assumed that Jason was bugging Alan. Later I went up to Alan and was like, “If Jason Mewes is bothering you, you just let me know.” And he goes, “Jason Mewes could never bother me, because Jason Mewes is the best that America can be.” I started laughing. I was like, “You’re out of your mind.” He goes, “Jason Mewes is an American icon, you watch.” For the rest of our lives, any time I correct Jason on something, he’ll say, “Which one of us is an American icon?”

Revisiting old faith

I recognize young Kevin Smith all over Dogma. I cut an entire speech that Jason Lee gave as Azrael about the nature of hell, luckily, because it was wholesale lifted from Neil Gaiman‘s Sandman comics, from Season of Mists, maybe issue four or five. I don’t know if it’s plagiarism if you don’t include it in the movie, ultimately, but I lifted a beautiful, eloquent speech about the nature of hell, because I was like, “It’s amazing, it deserves a bigger audience.” In the editing process, we were trying to bring the movie down to two hours. So I was like, “You know what? We don’t need that. Plus, I didn’t write it.” And my God, I’m so glad now.

At one point, Chris Rock’s character, Rufus, is talking to Bethany about the difference between having a belief and having an idea. Beliefs are rigid and you can’t change them. Having an idea is more malleable. I no longer believe, but I have some good ideas. But even though I am not a practicing Catholic and don’t identify as Christian, I live pretty Christian — at least the Christianity that I know and remembered and loved and put on display in that movie. The Golden Rule, man, putting others first — honestly, to a fault. I wound up in a fucking nuthouse two and a half years ago because I’m a co-dependent people pleaser who can’t validate himself, and that comes from putting others before yourself. I often feel like I wouldn’t have gone crazy if I still had my faith, because life was so much easier when I could be like, “JC, take the wheel!” When you let go of that, you’re on your own. Yeah, you have friends, you have family. But ultimately, in the cold, still, dark of the night, you know you’re by yourself. 

A bunch of people came out to the tour. It’s the human quilt of experience. “This is the movie I used to watch with my grandmother. She loved it. Now she’s passed, so I came here tonight to honor her.” Or, “This is the movie I went on as a first date with the woman with who I’ve now got three kids with, so it’s your fucking fault.” Or, “This is the movie that got me back in touch with my faith when I was a kid. It was a bridge to something, to where I now stand.” Or, “This is the movie that helped me move away from my childhood religion.” I met people from all across the spectrum who’ve received the movie as it was intended. I get all positions on it, and it makes for an interesting conundrum now, because the guy who wrote and directed that movie doesn’t exist anymore. I couldn’t do that again if I wanted to, because I don’t feel that way. 

And yet, here I am writing Dogma 2. Last time, I was steeped in my faith, and now, not really at all, and there’s less time in front of me than behind me. I almost died [from a heart attack] seven and a half years ago. I went crazy two and a half years ago. My heart broke, and then my head broke. What’s next, my ass? So as I’m facing shuffling loose this mortal coil, I need a way into a Dogma followup that I wouldn’t have been able to think about as a youngster. I wasn’t already working on a sequel when we finished Dogma. Back then, I was just like, I got enough original ideas to last a lifetime. Meanwhile, Clerks III is on home video right now. 

Dogma was something I couldn’t play with for a long time. Now I have an opportunity where I can delve back into that world. I’m certainly not feeling apocalyptic, but you know, we are in a time that creates more questions than it delivers answers. My big fear about a Dogma sequel is winding up with my faith back. Like, well, that was a fucking journey. Took two movies: one to lose it, one to get it back. I think when people see it, within the first five minutes, they’ll go, “Oh, of course, that makes sense.” The first one was a kid working out some stuff, and this one is an old man working out some stuff.