Jason Mewes is part of a character franchise few other fictional protagonists can equal.
It isn't often that the character an actor plays in a movie takes on a life of its own, and walks off the screen to meet fans in person, like Mewes will two weeks from now in Prince George. Other examples include the Slapshot movie goons the Hanson Brothers, Canadian urban dirtbags The Trailer Park Boys, and to an extent you could include The Blues Brothers.
Up at the top of that list would have to be Jay and Silent Bob. Mewes has played Jay in that equation since his schooldays friend and film director Kevin Smith (Silent Bob) invented the two characters. They first appeared in Smith's famously indie smash debut Clerks, released in 1994. After that, the two reprised those quirky roles in Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, and a fan movement was soon so strong it morphed into their very own stuff: Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, Jay & Silent Bob's Super Groovy Cartoon Movie, a video game project called Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch, and they have appeared in various music videos and comic books as well.
Mewes said the two met back when he was 13 and Smith was 18 at a community centre in their New Jersey hometown. Smith worked there, Mewes dropped in there frequently as an alternative to the gritty homelife he was born into. Smith loved comic books, and Mewes was gifted many of them by Smith, and eventually it grew into a shared experience for the two of them as they grew up and developed their friendship into a Hollywood power-pact.
It's a relationship that has suffered heavily over the years. Mewes and Smith freely discuss the severe addiction to drugs the Mewes flailed in for several years, causing his estrangement from a lot of his closest supporters. Although Smith bore the brunt of much of Mewes's dysfunction, and had to impose a professional distance between the two, Mewes's recovery process (so far about six years clean and sober) got Smith's considerable backing.
Part of that is a Jay and Silent Bob podcast they frequently produce, where they sit together in front of a live audience and banter about just about anything, and interacting with the fans, all of it broadcast to a large worldwide audience on the internet.
Another sign of the Smith-Mewes strong bond will be broadcast to the world only a few days before Northern FanCon opens. Smith was tapped to direct an episode of The Flash and in turn he tapped Mewes to appear on the show as an actor. It ties their most present activities right back to their comic book beginnings.
So would Mewes ever like to play one of those heroes he devoured from the pages of those New Jersey used comic books?
"I wouldn't turn one down, but I like watching so much, and I wouldn't want to watch myself. I don't like watching myself act. It's weird," he told The Citizen. "But something I'd love to eventually play is like a Hannibal Lecter, something dark and serial killer-ish. I feel like it'd be fun and a challenge, and it'd be cool to do something that different. But a superhero character? I wouldn't say no to it, but I'd almost rather sit in the audience and just watch."
He feels like he was born at a perfect time in popular culture. First, he was a kid when comic books were torrential with cool characters and wily plot-lines, then, as an adult, he was there for the modern technological breakthroughs in filmmaking together with technological breakthroughs in the ways audiences can watch those shows. One of the reasons superhero shows are so plentiful right now is because an entire culture of comic book fans suddenly had the tools to bring those surrealist effects to life.
As a fan, he has been left with his mouth hanging open at the things he is seeing done with the heroes and villains of his youth.
And he wants to see more. So many characters are ripe for live-action.
So which ones would he most like to see?
"I was going to say Dead Shot, that's one of my favourites, but they are coming out with the Suicide Squad movie," said Mewes.
"That's a character I'm really excited about, because they are finally having him in the full costume and everything.
"Martian Manhunter is one of my favourites, and he's in the new Supergirl TV show, so they are doing most of them. I'm stoked. They did him in Smallville but he never turned into his alien form, he was just the human John Jones, so it was cool in Supergirl - he turned into what he is in the comics.
"That's what I think is so awesome about now. It's cool that in movies and TV shows they can do all that, and they're coming out with all these characters. They've got the Daredevil TV show, they're doing Punisher, and they're going to be doing Power Man and Iron Fist. Deadpool, now. It's just great. All the characters I'd like to see, really honestly, they're doing it.
I would like to see them do Darkseid, but I feel like they'd have to do it as part of the Batman/Superman project. They had the parademons and they had the omega symbol so it looks like they're hinting around to Darkseid, but he'd be tough."
He felt the pangs of disappointment at the design of another beloved character, Apocalypse, as envisioned by the X-Men movie franchise, so he is concerned about Darkseid being done weakly.
He also has strong fan feelings for the character Archangel and hopes that persona gets a strong treatment in some future movie project, along with the associated Horsemen of Apocalypse characters.
If you let Mewes muse, he could go on for hours about topics like these. He has evolved from Jay leaning against many a convenience store wall in the 1990s into a producer, a screenwriter, an actor with many credits apart from Kevin Smith projects, and he has an eye on directing as well.
The craft of filmmaking, storytelling, and sluicing life through artistic filters - even ones with foul mouths and lewd behaviour - is what he does anytime he's awake.
He's the perfect kind of star - the kind who is also a fan - to be a VIP celebrity guest at Northern FanCon. Mewes will be at CN Centre in person for the pop-culture extravaganza, including a live interview on stage for the audience, and autograph/photo sessions available.
FanCon passes are on sale now. It runs May 13-15 in all four rinks at the CN/Kin Centre complex.
For information and to buy tickets, log onto www.fancon.ca.
