Kevin Smith stopped making movies because he was too happy.
The 46-year-old writer-and-director previously vowed he planned to retire from the film industry in 2010 but returned with ‘Tusk’ in 2013 and he made the decision because he was "struggling" to find inspiration as everything was going so well in his life.
He said: "Happy people don’t make great art, it’s that simple. Great art comes from a place of pain and I don’t really have any more pain.
"My life worked out unbelievably, so for a while, I struggled. I stepped away for three years and thought, ‘I guess I shouldn’t make movies anymore.’
"After ‘Red State’, I was like, ‘I’ll go podcast.’ Then oddly, the podcast brought me back to movies, everything that’s in ‘Tusk’ and ‘Yoga Hosers’ came out of episodes of that."
And Kevin admits if the concept of making podcasts had been around when he started his career, he probably wouldn’t have become a director.
He said: "I love it. Honestly, if podcasting had existed when I saw ‘Slacker’, all I would have done is a podcast about how much I love ‘Slacker’. But that didn’t exist so I said, ‘How do I show my affection? I’ll become a filmmaker.’ It worked out great – but I’m more suited to verbal storytelling."
And the ‘Clerks’ director thinks his career is playing out backwards.
He explained to Total Film magazine: "Most people do it in reverse. They start in exploitation films, then do a little TV directing, then move onto features.
"You work youself up a ladder. I made ‘Clerks’ and suddenly I was a filmmaker. Everyone said, ‘You’re a director.’ Now I’m going backwards.
"I didn’t get to do weird, experimental fun s**t – I just made movies I could make, like ‘Clerks’, ‘Mallrats’, ‘Chasing Amy’, ‘Dogma’ … I was writing about a world I’d come from."
Kevin Smith was too happy to make movies
