Jason Mewes

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Jason Mewes

Birth name	Jason Edward Mewes
Born	June 12, 1974 (age 32) Highlands, New Jersey, USA
Official site	http://www.myspace.com/mewes

Jason Edward Mewes (born June 12, 1974) is an American television and film actor. He is known for playing foul-mouthed drug dealer Jay, the vocal half of Jay and Silent Bob, the recurring duo from the “View Askewniverse” films of Mewes' longtime friend, Kevin Smith (who plays Silent Bob).

1 Biography
2 Filmography
3 See also
4 Footnotes
5 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

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Mewes was born to a heroin-addicted mother and an unknown father in Highlands, New Jersey, and was raised by his aunt through most of his childhood while his mother was in jail. When his mother was out of jail, she would usually steal credit cards from neighbors' mail boxes in order to fuel her habit. Mewes remembers that she used stolen money to buy him a bicycle for Christmas, one of the few Christmas gifts he remembers receiving. During a brief period when she worked as a drug dealer, she would send a young Mewes out on his bike to unwittingly deliver drugs to people she didn't trust enough to deliver them herself. When his mother wanted to go out for the evening, she would leave him and his sister at the homes of people she barely knew. These people would lock them in the closet; he would later develop claustrophobia.

Mewes met Smith as a teenager while both of them were students at Henry Hudson Regional High School in the late 1980s. He developed a notorious reputation in his hometown of Highlands, with rumors that he broke a window at a local pharmacy, or that he had won the lottery.

[edit] Career

Mewes is Smith's first and only choice for the lead role of Oliver Queen in a proposed Green Arrow adaptation for The Weinstein Company. He auditioned for both Bart Allen (Flash) and Arthur Curry (Aquaman) on the series Smallville. Mewes also starred in the pilot episode of a Smith-directed sitcom called Hating Hal (which never advanced beyond the pilot stage.)

While he is mostly known for acting in films, Mewes also has worked in television. He voiced the role of Jay in the short-lived Clerks: The Animated Series. He, along with Smith, has made appearances in the film Scream 3, and on Degrassi: The Next Generation. He appeared in two episodes of a three-part story arc in which he and Smith film a new addition to Smith's New Jersey films entitled Jay and Silent Bob Go Canadian, Eh? at Degrassi Community School. They appear again on Degrassi (in a two part episode), at the premiere of Jay and Silent Bob go Canadian, Eh? in Canada. Mewes, Smith, and Degrassi star Stacie Mistysyn made the cover of Canadian TV Guide. In 1998 he starred as "Gary Lamb - Ground Activist" in a series of Nike commercials directed by Smith.

In Tony Hawk's Underground, Mewes and Smith appear on the subway to the New York level. In Scarface: The World is Yours Mewes provides a voiceover for a thief who stole illegal mixtapes. The character's dialogue is completely identical to his Jay character by constantly swearing.

[edit] Drug abuse

During the production of Kevin Smith's underground indie premiere film Clerks., Jason was simply a stoner and drinker. At several points during production, Mewes was either drunk or very high ^[1]. The same behavior followed during the production of Mallrats, especially during the Clerks laserdisc commentary,(which was recorded around the same time) in which Mewes is either asleep of given very inebriated comments.

When Kevin Smith shot his film Chasing Amy, starring Ben Affleck and Joey Lauren Adams (and based on his relationship with the latter), Smith didn't need Mewes as much as in the two previous films, Clerks. and Mallrats, mainly because the Jay and Silent Bob characters were restricted to one 10-minute scene (in which Smith's Silent Bob character shares much of the dialog), which was shot over the course of a night. Mewes had memorized all his dialog, while Smith struggled with the large monologue he had written for himself. It was at this point that Mewes began using cocaine and heroin.^[2] Mewes had also struggled with a lifelong opiate addiction.

Chasing Amy was released to stellar reviews and even some awards, and the $12 million gross of the $250,000 film paved the way for Smith to make Dogma, a script which utilized the Jay and Silent Bob characters more than any previous film. Between the making of the two films, Smith and Mewes attended an AIDS benefit hosted by Harvey Weinstein, the chairman of Miramax. Upon learning that Mewes' mother was HIV positive, he promised to get her to the best doctors in New York, a promise he kept. Soon after, Smith opened up his own comic book store, called Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash, in Red Bank, New Jersey. Mewes asked if he could work at the store full time, and Smith gave him the run of the place. A few months after the opening of the store, Smith came in several times to find a customer waiting for Mewes to return. At times Mewes seemed ill and frequently fell asleep. During the recording of the Chasing Amy laserdisc commentary, Smith confronted Mewes and asked him about his drug use. After much denial, Mewes finally admitted that he was using heroin. There has also been speculation that Mewes was doing a large amount of OxyContin during the filming of Dogma. Most heroin users also use OxyContin, which is a popular and strong painkiller that is prescribed legally. Oxycodone gives the user a much more energetic high and won't make the user "nod" out as fast. But Mewes was probably consuming around 300-400mgs of OC a day to stay from not being sick..^[2]

Smith moved Mewes out of his mother's house and into his own Red Bank apartment. The night before Mewes started a methadone program, he was so ill from withdrawals that he tearfully begged Smith for money to buy heroin, which Smith gave him. Smith says Mewes still refers to that day as “the day you shook hands with the devil”. Mewes then began the methadone program and started to successfully kick his heroin habit and spent more and more time with Smith, frequently going on trips to find Star Wars action figures at Toys-R-Us to take his mind off things. Mewes started to show even more signs that he was becoming healthy again. After finding out that respected English actor Alan Rickman was going to star in Dogma, Mewes proceeded to memorize not only his lines, but the entire screenplay as well so he "wouldn't piss off that Rickman dude".^[2]

While making Dogma, Smith and producer Scott Mosier instructed Mewes' new girlfriend, Stephanie, to watch his friend for any signs that he had started to use drugs again. To their knowledge, Mewes was clean throughout the filming of Dogma, but they later found out that Stephanie had actually become Mewes' connection for heroin while they were filming in Pittsburgh. As Stephanie was getting paid, and Mewes was getting his biggest paycheck yet, they were able to quietly keep themselves equipped with drugs and not suffer from withdrawal symptoms, while keeping it hidden from the cast and crew. Ironically, Mewes' Dogma performance is considered by many to be one of his best, despite being a heroin addict throughout the shoot. He would even frequently fall asleep while they were filming scenes but Smith, still somewhat naïve on the subject of drug abuse, didn't realize this was a sign that Mewes had begun using again.^[3]

By this point, Smith had married USA Today reporter Jennifer Schwalbach. She was pregnant with their daughter and they soon moved into a new house. Mewes and Stephanie opted to stay with Mewes' mother until Smith later found out that he had once again slipped into heroin use. He moved Mewes and Stephanie into his own house and decided to get them off heroin, cold turkey.

Shortly after, Mewes again started using heroin and Smith evicted him from his home. Mewes lived with his mother and found himself hooked on a new drug: Oxycontin. After travelling to both France and England for Dogma-related events, Smith moved Mewes back into his house in order to quit using drugs. After a month, Mewes traveled with Smith to Los Angeles for an awards show. One night, Mewes took Smith's ATM card, after telling him he was going to use it to withdraw money and his taxi fare, and withdrew $1,100 from it by early morning. He spent most of the night trying to get drugs to no avail and eventually returned to his hotel room and trashed it. That day, Smith and Mosier put Jason in an L.A.-based rehab center, from which he escaped. Eventually he was found and put back in once again, and not allowed to take phone calls for a week. When Smith finally spoke to him again, Mewes said the place felt more like a psychiatric ward, so he was moved to another rehab in L.A. where he proceeded to get clean.^[4]

During this time, Smith and his wife returned to Jersey so that she could give birth to their daughter, Harley. A month later, they returned to L.A., where Mewes was now substantially sober and stable. He recorded tracks for the first few episodes of Clerks: The Animated Series, and then later returned to New Jersey.

In order to convince Mewes to quit drugs permanently, Smith told him that he was writing a screenplay for a Jay and Silent Bob feature in which Mewes would be the lead star and get a large paycheck. The condition was that he get off heroin and Oxycontin. He agreed and checked into another rehab clinic.^[5]

Seeing him again a month later, Smith found Mewes much healthier and happier after spending time in a rehab (along with friend and frequent collaborator Ben Affleck). However, at Smith's house on Thanksgiving of that year, it became clear that Mewes had begun using drugs again after someone offered him cocaine at a Q&A in Colorado. Mewes stayed downstairs at Smith's house and kept agreeing to play with Smith's daughter when she asked, only to disappear again. Angered, Schwalbach Smith told her husband that she wanted Mewes out of the house.^[6]

[edit] Recovery

While Smith wrote a role for Mewes in his new film Jersey Girl, it became clear that Mewes would not be able to participate in the film. He had dropped out of two rehab programs that Affleck had paid for, and a bench warrant for his arrest had been issued for him in New Jersey. On the advice of one of Mewes' previous rehab counselors, Smith began to use a “tough love” technique on his friend, not allowing him into his home or letting him see Harley anymore. By this point, Mewes had taken to occasionally living on the streets and had dropped out of the Betty Ford Clinic after only two days. He would occasionally come and see Smith, who was editing Jersey Girl at the time, and borrow money from him, which he said was for cigarettes but was actually to fuel his continuing drug habit. After a scare fueled by a rumor that he had died, Mewes finally checked into another rehab.^[7] In late October 2003, Smith and company held a big party for fans to celebrate Mewes cleaning up. On the special features of the Clerks 2 DVD, both Mewes and Smith mention how Mewes is now "C.L.S." This stands for "Clean living, sir."

^[8]

[edit] Etymology of Mewes' vocabulary

The character Jay's familiar “snootchie bootchies” and “snoogans” sayings are based on things Mewes used to say himself as a teenager. In An Evening with Kevin Smith the origin and development of Mewes' original colloquialisms are revealed as thus:

He started with “neh,” as in “I'm gonna fuck your mom, neh.”
This evolved to “nootch.”
Then, adding a letter to make it “snootch.”
He lengthened the saying to “snootchie bootchies.”
The phrase then evolved into “sniggidy-niggidy-nooch.”
Finally, it was shortened into “snoogans,” thus encompassing all previous forms of the word.

According to Smith, the phrases were meant to convey something along the lines of “just kidding, don't kick my ass”.

[edit] Personal life

Mewes lives with Smith and his family in their Hollywood Hills home. According to An Evening with Kevin Smith, Mewes used to be straight edge when he was younger.