Kevin Smith

Kevin Patrick Smith was born on August 2, 1970, in Red Bank, New Jersey, the son of Grace (née Schultz), a homemaker, and Donald E. Smith (1936–2003), a postal worker. He has two siblings: an older sister, Virginia, and an older brother, Donald Jr. He was raised in a Catholic household in the nearby clamming town of Highlands.

Smith moved back to New Jersey and got his old job back at a convenience store in Leonardo. He decided to set his film, Clerks, at the store, borrowing the a-day-in-the-life structure from the Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing. Smith maxed out more than a dozen credit cards, and sold his much-treasured comic book collection, to raise $27,575 to make the film, while saving money by casting friends and acquaintances in most roles. Clerks was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994, where it won the Filmmaker's Trophy. At a restaurant following the screening, Miramax executive Harvey Weinstein invited Smith to join him at his table, where he offered to buy the movie. In May 1994, it went to the Cannes International Film Festival, where it won both the Prix de la Jeunesse and the International Critics' Week Prize. Released in October 1994 in two cities, the film went on to play in 50 markets, never playing on more than 50 screens at any given time. Despite the limited release, it was a critical and financial success, earning $3.1 million. Initially, the film received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA for sexually graphic language. Miramax hired Alan Dershowitz to sue the MPAA. At an appeals screening, a jury of members of the National Association of Theater Owners reversed the MPAA's decision, and the film was given an R rating. The movie had a profound effect on the independent film community. According to producer and author John Pierson, it is considered one of the two most influential film debuts in the 1990s, along with The Brothers McMullen.

From 1995 to 1999, Smith played small roles in the View Askew movies Drawing Flies, Vulgar, and Big Helium Dog.

Smith has a website, The View Askewniverse, which opened in late 1995. He also has an online blog, "My Boring-Ass Life", the contents of which were published in a book by the same name. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back's fictional website MoviePoopShoot.com became real in 2002. It became Quick Stop Entertainment and was the home of SModcast until it was sold and SModcast moved to a dedicated website SModcast.com, which also carries the other SModcast network podcasts in early 2010.

In 1996, Smith worked on a script for a planned Superman film tentatively titled Superman Lives. He wrote several drafts but was dropped from the project when Tim Burton was hired to direct and brought his own team to write the script. (Burton's attempt was later abandoned as well.) Smith publicly discussed his experience working on the script at a Q&A session at Clark University shown on the 2002 DVD An Evening with Kevin Smith. In the Q&A, he said the experience was positive overall, since he loves Superman and was paid well. But he listed a number of unusual demands that producer Jon Peters made, including that Superman not be shown flying or wearing tights, and that he should battle a giant spider at the end of the film. Smith then noted that he went to see the 1999 film Wild Wild West, which Peters produced, and was surprised to see a giant mechanical spider at the end of the film, presumably Peters's handiwork. Smith's description of his experience gained a life of its own, with film critic A.O. Scott of The New York Times calling it "extraordinary". In the 2007 direct-to-DVD animated film Superman: Doomsday, Smith has a cameo as an onlooker in a crowd that alludes to this anecdote: after Superman defeats The Toyman's giant mechanical robot, Smith scoffs, "Yeah, like we really needed him to defeat that giant spider. Heh. Lame!"

In 1997, New Line hired Smith to rewrite Overnight Delivery, which was expected to be a blockbuster teen movie. Smith's then-girlfriend Joey Lauren Adams almost took the role of Ivy in the movie, instead of the female lead in Chasing Amy. Eventually she lost out to Reese Witherspoon, and Overnight Delivery was quietly released directly to video in April 1998. Smith was not credited for his contributions. He has said that the only scene that really used his dialogue was the opening scene, which includes a reference to longtime Smith friend Bryan Johnson.

Smith owns and operates Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash in Red Bank, New Jersey, a comic book store largely dedicated to merchandise related to his films and comics. He purchased the original store in January 1997 for $30,000, using the money he earned from Clerks. The current location is its second. The store was moved to a defunct ice cream parlor on Broad St. after Smith sold the Monmouth St. property. The New Jersey location is managed by Smith's long-time friend Walt Flanagan, who appears frequently in Smith's films. A second Secret Stash in the Westwood section of Los Angeles was opened in September 2004 and was managed by long-time friend and associate Bryan Johnson, who has appeared in Smith's films as Steve-Dave. Smith had announced that he would close after his lease expired and Johnson wanted to resign, but eventually relocated to Laser Blazer, a now-defunct laserdisc and DVD store in Los Angeles. In January 2009, the West Coast Store closed, leaving the east coast store as Smith's only operating store.

After the success of his first films, Smith moved to Los Angeles, though he felt homesick due to being away from Red Bank, New Jersey. He dated actress Joey Lauren Adams, and declared his desire to marry her in Time magazine. Smith and Adams' relationship was tested by their working together on Chasing Amy, which is now infamous for causing a heated argument between the two while on the film's set. They broke up in June 1997.

In 1998, Smith shot two TV commercials for Coca-Cola in New Jersey.

During the mid-1990s Smith directed and starred in a series of commercials for MTV, alongside Jason Mewes, in which they reprised their roles as Jay and Silent Bob. In 1998 he directed Mewes as "Gary Lamb – Ground Activist" in a series of Nike commercials. That same year, he also shot commercials for Diet Coke. Two years later, he directed Star Wars toy commercials for Hasbro. He has also directed and starred in commercials for Panasonic. In 2004 he shot a public service announcement for the Declare Yourself organization, which promotes youth voter registration. These advertisements brought Jay and Silent Bob out of their "semi-retirement."

Smith's fourth film, Dogma (1999), featured an all-star cast and was mired in controversy. A religious-themed comedy that starred a post-Good Will Hunting Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, as well as Chris Rock, Salma Hayek, George Carlin, Alan Rickman, Linda Fiorentino, and Lee and Mewes, it was criticized by the Catholic League. The film debuted at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, out of competition. Released on 800 screens in November 1999, the $10 million film earned $30 million.

Smith then wrote the miniseries Chasing Dogma, which tells the story of Jay and Silent Bob between the films Chasing Amy and Dogma. He has also written the trade paperback Bluntman and Chronic, published by Image, which purports to be a collection of the three issues of the series done by Holden McNeil and Banky Edwards (of Chasing Amy). It includes a color reprinting of the story from Oni Double Feature No. 12, purported to be an early appearance by McNeil and Edwards. These stories have all been collected in Tales From the Clerks (Graphitti Designs, ISBN 0-936211-78-4), which also includes a new Clerks story tying into the Clerks 2 material, and the story from Oni Double Feature #1. They were previously collected by Image Comics in three separate volumes, one each for Clerks, Chasing Dogma and Bluntman and Chronic. In 1999, Smith won a Harvey Award, for Best New Talent in comic books.

In 1999, Smith wrote "Guardian Devil", an eight-issue story arc of Daredevil for Marvel Comics illustrated by Joe Quesada. He then produced a 15-issue tenure on Green Arrow for DC Comics that saw the return of Oliver Queen from the dead and the introduction of Mia Dearden, a teenage girl who would become Speedy after Smith's run had ended.

Smith is married to Jennifer Schwalbach Smith, whom he met while she was interviewing him for USA Today. They got married at Skywalker Ranch on April 25, 1999. He photographed her for a nude pictorial in Playboy that consisted of photographs by various celebrities. Their daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, was born June 26, 1999, and was named after the character from the Batman comics. They live in the Hollywood Hills in a house Smith purchased from longtime friend Ben Affleck in 2003.

Smith was also an uncredited screenwriter on the 2000 comedy-drama film Coyote Ugly.

In 2000, Smith and Mosier teamed up with television writer David Mandel to develop an animated television show based on Clerks called Clerks: The Animated Series. Only the first two episodes aired, on ABC in May 2000, before the series was canceled due to poor ratings. The six produced episodes were released on DVD in 2001.

In 2001, he appeared in friend Jeff Anderson's film Now You Know.

Smith returned to Marvel for two miniseries, Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do and Daredevil/Bullseye: The Target, both of which debuted in 2002. The former was six issues long, but problems arose when the third issue was published two months after the initially scheduled release date. As a result, the final issues were delayed for at least three years, prompting Marvel to release an "in case you missed it" reprinting of the first three issues as one book before the remaining issues were released. The delay in part was due to Smith's work on Jersey Girl and Clerks II, causing him to shelve completion of the miniseries until the films were completed. He was announced as the writer of an ongoing Black Cat series and The Amazing Spider-Man in 2002, but because of the delays on Evil That Men Do and The Target, the plan was changed so that Smith would start a third Spider-Man title, launched in 2004 by Mark Millar instead. Spider-Man/Black Cat was completed in 2005, but Daredevil/Bullseye: The Target remains unfinished, with one issue published.

On February 27, 2002, Smith released a short film for The Tonight Show, The Flying Car.

In 2003, Smith appeared in a cameo role as coroner Jack Kirby in the film Daredevil. In 2006, he voiced the Moose in the CGI cartoon Doogal.

In 2004, Smith wrote a screenplay for a film adaptation of The Green Hornet, and announced that he intended to direct it. The project died after the poor box office of Jersey Girl; the screenplay was later turned into a Green Hornet comic book miniseries. (A live-action film adaptation, The Green Hornet, was released in 2011, with no involvement from Smith.)

Smith has been a regular contributor to Arena magazine. In 2005, Miramax Books released Smith's first book, Silent Bob Speaks, a collection of previously published essays (most from Arena) dissecting pop culture, the movie business, and Smith's personal life. His second book, My Boring-Ass Life: The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith, published by Titan Books, was another collection of previously published essays (this time blogs from Smith's website silentbobspeaks.com) and reached No. 32 on The New York Times Best Sellers List. Titan released Smith's third book, Shootin' the Sh*t with Kevin Smith: The Best of the SModcast, on September 29, 2009.

In early 2005, Smith appeared in three episodes of the Canadian-made teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation. He wrote his own dialogue for the episodes. An avid fan of the original Degrassi series Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High, Smith references them in some of his early films. In the episodes, portraying a fictionalized version of himself, he visited the school to work on the fictional film Jay and Silent Bob Go Canadian, Eh! All three episodes were collected on the DVD Jay and Silent Bob Do Degrassi. Smith and Mewes reappeared in two episodes the following season, in which they returned to Degrassi for the Toronto premiere of the movie. Smith also appeared in the 2009 made-for-TV movie Degrassi Goes Hollywood.

Smith has had a history of yo-yo dieting, being an avid supporter of "Optifast". He lost 50 pounds (23 kg) upon meeting his wife. During production of Clerks II in 2005, Smith used OptiFast to go from 319 pounds (145 kg) to 269 pounds (122 kg). In 2008, he weighed in excess of 400 pounds (180 kg). After watching Fed Up, Smith eliminated sugar from his diet and took up juice fasts in 2014, lowering his weight from 330 pounds (150 kg) to 240 pounds (110 kg).

In the 2006 sequel Clerks II, Smith revisited the Dante and Randal characters from his first film in his final visit to the View Askewniverse. Roundly criticized before its release, the film won favorable reviews as well as two awards (the Audience Award at the Edinburgh Film Festival and the Orbit Dirtiest Mouth Award at the MTV Movie Awards). It marked Smith's third trip to the Cannes International Film Festival, where it received an eight-minute standing ovation. The $5 million film, starring Jeff Anderson, Brian O'Halloran, Rosario Dawson, Mewes, Jennifer Schwalbach and Smith reprising his role as Silent Bob, earned $25 million.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno was originally announced in March 2006 as Smith's second non-Askewniverse film. The film began shooting on January 18, 2008, in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, and wrapped on March 15, 2008. It stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as the title characters who decide to make a low-budget pornographic film to solve their money problems. It was released on October 31, 2008, and ran into many conflicts getting an "R" rating. Rogen said:

Smith played the role of Paul, a cynical divorced man, in a Showtime television series pilot, "Manchild", filmed in December 2006. It was not picked up by the network.

In 2006 Smith appeared in a number of films, co-starring as Sam in Catch and Release, starring Jennifer Garner, and appearing as The Warlock, a hacker, in the fourth installment of the Die Hard franchise, Live Free or Die Hard. At year's end, he appeared briefly in friend and fellow writer-director Richard Kelly's Southland Tales, in which he played the legless conspiracy theorist General Simon Theory. The same year, Smith did voicework for the CGI film TMNT as a diner chef and was seen as Rusty (a friend of lead Jason Mewes) in Bottoms Up with co-star Paris Hilton.

Smith appeared in the 2006 mtvU show Sucks Less with Kevin Smith. The show gives college students ideas for things to do on the weekends.

In 2006, Smith guest reviewed on Ebert & Roeper, in place of Roger Ebert, who was recovering from thyroid cancer treatment. These spots were notable for the arguments between Smith and Richard Roeper over certain films, with Smith often citing Roeper's negative review of Jersey Girl to discredit his review of the film at hand. On one appearance, Smith compared Craig Brewer's Black Snake Moan to the works of William Faulkner.

At the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con, it was announced that Smith would write and direct an episode of the Heroes spin-off Heroes: Origins, but the project was canceled because of the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike.

On February 5, 2007, Smith and Scott Mosier began SModcast, a regular comedy podcast. SModcast has since spawned into a podcast network called the SModcast podcast network which began in 2010, its own digital radio station called SModcast Internet Radio (S.I.R) in 2011 and an internet television channel SModCo Internet Television (S.I.T.) in 2012.

With the exception of Mallrats, all of Smith's films until 2008 were financed and/or distributed by Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob, via their companies Miramax, Dimension Films, and The Weinstein Company. In 2008 Smith's relationship with Harvey Weinstein soured due to the financial failure of Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which Smith blamed on a lack of marketing. Nonetheless, they continued to discuss potential funding for other Smith projects, and The Weinstein Company co-produced Smith's 2016 talk show Geeking Out. Smith also named the independent production company he created for the 2011 film Red State "The Harvey Boys" in Weinstein's honor. Smith is considered one of the writer-directors whose career Weinstein nurtured, a group that also includes Quentin Tarantino and David O. Russell.

Smith never smoked until his debut film, Clerks, in which he used the cigarettes as a prop, but did not inhale. He quit smoking cigarettes in 2008 after taking up smoking cannabis after working with Seth Rogen on Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

It was announced in 2009 that Smith had signed on to direct A Couple of Dicks, a buddy-cop comedy written by the Cullen Brothers and starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan. Due to controversy surrounding the original title, it was changed to A Couple of Cops, then reverted its original title due to negative reaction, before finally settling on the title Cop Out. The film, shot from June to August 2009, involves a pair of veteran cops tracking down a stolen vintage baseball card, and was released on February 26, 2010, to poor reviews; it was the first film Smith directed but did not write. Cop Out opened at number 2 at the box office and was mired in controversy, mostly over reported conflicts on the set between Smith and Willis. It was the last time Smith worked with a major studio, leading him to return to his independent film roots.

Smith made sold-out appearances at Carnegie Hall in 2009 and the Sydney Opera House in 2010.

In September 2010, Smith started work on Red State, an independently financed horror film loosely inspired by the Westboro Baptist Church and its pastor, Fred Phelps. Weinstein and his brother Bob, who had been involved in the distribution of Smith's films except Mallrats and Cop Out, declined to support Red State. The film stars Michael Parks, John Goodman and Melissa Leo. Smith had said he would auction off rights to the $4 million film at a controversial event following its debut screening at Sundance but instead kept the rights to the film himself and self-distributed it under the SModcast Pictures banner. The January 2011 premiere drew protests from a half-dozen members of the church, along with many more who counter-protested Westboro members. Smith explained his decision as a way to return to an era when marketing a film did not cost four times as much as the film itself, a situation he called "decadent and deadening". Red State was a box office bomb, earning just $1,104,682, and opened to poor reviews; the critical consensus (according to Rotten Tomatoes) was "Red State is an audacious and brash affair that ultimately fails to provide competent scares or thrills." In April 2011, Smith said that Red State had made its budget back by making $1 million on the first leg of the tour, $1.5 million from a handful of foreign sales and $3 million from a domestic distribution deal for VOD.

In 2010 Smith wrote a six-issue Batman miniseries, The Widening Gyre, for DC, drawn by Walt Flanagan. The series was initially planned as 12 issues, with a long break planned between issues six and seven. After issue six was published, Smith and Flanagan's work on their reality show, Comic Book Men, extended this planned break longer than expected. It was decided in the interim to release the remaining issues as a separate series, Batman: Bellicosity, scheduled for 2016, but it remains unreleased.

Also in 2010, Smith published a Green Hornet story for Dynamite Entertainment based on an unused script he wrote for a Green Hornet film that never came to fruition.

In August 2011, Dynamite Entertainment debuted Smith's The Bionic Man, which was based on a 1998 script he wrote that Universal rejected for being "more like a comic book than a movie."

Smith planned to direct a hockey drama-comedy based on Warren Zevon's song "Hit Somebody (The Hockey Song)". The song, about a hockey player famous for fighting in the rink, was co-written by Mitch Albom, who worked with Smith on the project. Smith announced at the 2011 Sundance premiere of Red State that Hit Somebody would be the last movie he directed, but that he would continue to tell stories in other media. In August 2011 Hit Somebody was announced as a two-part film titled Hit Somebody: Home and Hit Somebody: Away, with part 1 rated PG-13 and part 2 rated R, but later it became one movie again. In December 2012 Smith announced that, due to difficulties finding funding, Hit Somebody would be a six-part miniseries on an as-yet unknown network. Smith announced in March 2015 that Hit Somebody would film from September to Christmas 2015, but this did not happen.

On June 4, 2012, Smith premiered his Hulu-exclusive weekly series Spoilers, described as an "anti-movie review" series, where Smith takes a group of people to a new movie and has them comment on what they've seen. Other segments on the show include interviews with celebrities, and the "Criterion Lounge", where Smith discusses a Criterion Collection movie available on DVD and the Hulu Plus service.

Smith had said before Red State that he would soon retire from directing, and announced that his last movie would be Clerks III. But in December 2013 he said he would continue to make movies, but only ones that were uniquely his, as opposed to generic ones "anybody could make".

In 2013 Smith directed Tusk, a horror movie inspired by a story Smith and Mosier read about a Gumtree ad for a man who rents out a room in his house for free on the condition that the respondent dresses as a walrus for two hours per day. The project began pre-production in September 2013, and was shot in November of that year. Released September 19, 2014, it received mixed reviews.

Before Tusk's release, Smith wrote the script for a spin-off of the film, which he titled Yoga Hosers. The movie began filming in August 2014, and was released in 2016. It stars Smith's daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, and Lily-Rose Depp, reprising their two minor characters from Tusk, with Johnny Depp also playing his inspector character from the earlier film.

In 2014, Smith and Ralph Garman released a six-issue Batman '66 crossover featuring Batman and Green Hornet, Batman '66 Meets the Green Hornet.

Though raised Catholic, Smith began to become disillusioned about his beliefs in his early 20s, and came to see Catholic Mass as "dry and lip-servicey". Seeking out advice, Smith spoke to a priest, who analogized faith to liquid filling a shot glass, and explained that the glass grows in size as a person grows older, and thus the same knowledge that satisfies a person as a child can be insufficient as an adult. Smith researched Christianity thoroughly, explored other religions, read the Biblical apocrypha, and tried joining a Pentecostal congregation. The thoughts and ideas he explored during this time formed the inspiration for his film Dogma, the beginning of which features characters using the shot glass metaphor used by the priest. Though Smith still regularly attended Mass as late as 1998, he stated on "Back to the Well", a feature on the Clerks II documentary, that now he only goes to Mass on the day before he starts production of a film, and the day before it premieres. In September 2014, Smith told the BBC that he believes in God. He said, "Proof of God is that I have a career", but confirmed he left Catholicism in a 2015 interview, stating that the death of his dog was what caused him to do so.

On March 12, 2015, Smith said he would film Clerks III in May 2015, followed in early 2016 by Moose Jaws and Anti-Claus (a story inspired by the Krampus tradition), which he confirmed the next day.

On April 8, 2015, Smith said that Mallrats 2 would instead be his next film: "we were talking about initially shooting 'Clerks III' this summer and then we were going to get to 'Mallrats' in the beginning of 2016. And then it jumped into 2015, where we were going to shoot 'Clerks' and then hopefully 'Mallrats' before the end of the year. But now, based on a fucking mall that we all dig that will be going away, the priority has become 'Mallrats.' So the next fucking movie I'm making is 'Mallrats 2.'" Most of the original film's cast (16 of the 18) signed on to appear in the sequel. In June 2016, Smith revealed that because Universal owns the rights to the Mallrats title a sequel would not be made; instead, it would be turned into a 10-episode TV series produced by Universal Television. He also confirmed that the film's entire cast would reprise their roles in the series. Toward the end of the month, Smith announced that he had closed a deal with Universal Television to pitch the series to networks and streaming services in August.

On December 14, 2015, Smith began posting his "Fatman on Batman" series on YouTube.

In late 2015, Smith and Jason Mewes began the web series "What's in the Box?" on the Screen Junkies website, through the site's streaming service.

In January 2016, Smith wrapped production on a pilot episode for a planned half-hour comedy series, Hollyweed. He wrote and directed the pilot, which starred Smith and Donnell Rawlings, along with Kristin Bauer van Straten, Frankie Shaw, Jason Mewes, Ralph Garman, Adam Brody, Hina Abdullah, Pete Pietrangeliand and Harley Quinn Smith. The pilot was not picked up. In July 2018, it was released as the inaugural pilot on the new TV crowdsourcing site Rivit TV, in hopes of getting funded as a web series.

In May 2016, Smith announced that he was adapting the 1984 film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension for television through MGM and said he and the company were shopping it around to networks. In July 2016, it was revealed that Amazon Studios was close to closing a deal to produce the series, but in November 2016, during a Facebook Live Stream, Smith said he would walk away from the series after MGM filed a lawsuit against the original creators but would be willing to come back on board if they wanted him.

Smith teamed with AMC and The Weinstein Company to co-host a late night talk show with Greg Grunberg, Geeking Out, which premiered in July 2016, covering San Diego Comic-Con with 8 subsequent episodes running weekly.

In June 2017, Smith started shooting Killroy Was Here, a horror film based on the graffiti phenomenon. Directed by Smith, the script was co-written with Andrew McElfresh, marking the first time he shared writing credit. It represents a retooling of their Anti-Claus movie, which was initially canceled after the release of Krampus due to the two stories' similarity. The film crew was mostly made up of students of the Ringling College of Art and Design, with shooting continuing over every semester break.

In 2017, due to obstacles getting Clerks 3 or Mallrats 2 produced, Smith decided to write and direct a Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back sequel instead, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. It was scheduled to be filmed in September 2017, but shooting was postponed to February and March 2019. The first trailer for the film was released on July 18, 2019. Smith announced a tour to accompany the film.

Soon after allegations of rape and sexual assault by Weinstein publicly surfaced in October 2017, Smith said on Twitter that he was "ashamed" of his relationship with Weinstein. On his Hollywood Babble-On podcast, he said, "My entire career is tied up with the man", adding, "No fucking movie is worth all this." He lamented that in addition to working with Weinstein, "I sat out there talking about this man like he was a hero, like he was my friend, like he was my father." He pledged to donate all his future residuals from his Weinstein-produced films to the nonprofit organization Women in Film, which advocates for the inclusion of more women in film production. Smith later announced that, due to the declining appeal of his earlier films, the residuals from Weinstein-funded movies may be lower than expected; he decided that he would instead donate $2,000 a month to Women in Film.

In February 2017, Smith was announced to write, direct, and executive produce a TV series based on the Image Comics title Sam and Twitch for BBC America.

On February 10, 2017, Smith announced the cancellation of Clerks III, as lead actor Jeff Anderson dropped out of the project three months before shooting.

In 2017, he appeared as himself in the animated movie Teen Titans: The Judas Contract from the DC Universe Animated Original Movies series.

A stand-up special, entitled Kevin Smith: Silent But Deadly, filmed a mere hour before Smith's heart attack, premiered in 2018 on the cable channel Showtime and was later released to DVD.

On February 25, 2018, after performing a stand-up comedy show at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California, Smith suffered a severe heart attack caused by a total blockage of the left anterior descending artery. An ambulance rushed him to the nearby Glendale Adventist Medical Center for emergency surgery, from which he recovered. Following the episode, his doctor told him he needed to lose another 50 pounds (23 kg). Smith adopted a diet devised by scientist Ray Cronise based on work by Joel Fuhrman, which involves eating a single plant-based food (in Smith's case, potatoes) with no added salt or fat for two weeks, then gradually adding additional foods but remaining on an all-vegan diet. Smith heard about the diet from Adam Rifkin, who told him about magician Penn Jillette's weight loss on that diet in 2015 after Jillette's own health scare. Nine days into the diet, Smith had already lost 17 pounds (7.7 kg). Eight months later, Smith had lost 58 pounds (26 kg), going from 256 pounds (116 kg) to 198 pounds (90 kg). He also joined Weight Watchers and became a paid spokesperson for the brand. As of 2019, Smith maintains a vegan diet.

In 2018, Vancouver Film School announced three 'Kevin Smith Scholarships' in Acting, Writing and Film Production covering full-tuition. Thirteen partial-scholarships were also awarded, funded by Smith. Smith personally selected the recipients from over nine hundred applications.

On October 1, 2019, Smith announced on Instagram that Clerks III was officially happening and that Jeff Anderson, who had retired, had agreed to reprise his role as Randal. "It'll be a movie that concludes a saga. It'll be a movie about how you're never too old to completely change your life. It'll be a movie about how a decades-spanning friendship finally confronts the future. It'll be a movie that brings us back to the beginning—a return to the cradle of civilization in the great state of #newjersey. It'll be a movie that stars Jeff and @briancohalloran, with me and Jay in supporting roles. And it'll be a movie called CLERKS III!"

In February 2019, Smith was announced to cowrite, with Dave Willis, an animated web series based on Marvel Comics' Howard the Duck for Hulu.

In February 2019, he made his second appearance on The Big Bang Theory in season 12 episode 16, "The D&D Vortex", alongside other guests stars, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, William Shatner, and Joe Manganiello in a storyline where they get together at the home of recurring star Wil Wheaton, to play Dungeons and Dragons. His first appearance was in season 8 episode 20, "The Fortification Implementation", when he joins Wil Wheaton on a podcast, voice only.

On November 16, 2019, Amazon Prime published "Bonus: Kevin Smith Explains The Expanse" as a forerunner to series 4 of The Expanse, in which Kevin helps explain the action that unfolded during the first 3 seasons. 2 days later it was published to YouTube.

Smith is co-founder of 'The Wayne Foundation', a charity which supports women affected by human trafficking and exploitation. In February 2019, Smith donated some of his previously worn jerseys to be auctioned off for the charity.

In 2019, Clerks was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".