Kevin Smith Recalls How George Carlin Roasted Him During ‘Dogma’
While making his cult hit religious comedy Kevin Smith completely forgot to whom he was talking when it came to Catholicism.
When Dogma first premiered in 1999, the release of a film about fallen angels trying to usurp God while a conflicted, pro-choice Catholic races to New Jersey to save the world through euthanasia predictably sparked protests from conservative Catholics, with Smith famously and hilariously ing the picket line while incognito. Interestingly enough, despite the indulgently sacrilegious elements of Dogma, Smith still considered himself a lapsed Catholic when he made the un-divine comedy, which is more than the movie’s stand-out ing star would have ever said for his own religious beliefs.
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Yesterday, Smith took part in a George Carlin, who played the marketing-minded Cardinal Glick in the film. In his answer, Smith recounted the time he asked one of the more ridiculous questions Carlin ever fielded: “Aren’t you Catholic, too?”
In Dogma, as the above clip demonstrates, Carlin’s character begins a campaign to modernize the Catholic church’s image, introducing “Buddy Christ” and peddling plenary indulgences to get hip, young people in New Jersey through the church doors. The two fallen angels, played by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, set out to exploit this loophole and return to heaven, which would destroy all of existence in the process. Smith, whose struggle with his faith ended with a resignation to atheism at some point after he made the most recovering-Catholic comedy of all time, told the Reddit fan that Carlin ruthlessly roasted him while the director was trying to explain Dogma’s convoluted plot to the comic.
“We’re shooting the third act, when all Hell is about to break loose at the church. And George asks, ‘What’s going on in this scene?’” Smith began, “I say, ‘The angels are gonna kill everyone, cut their wings off to become human and then enter the church and have their sins forgiven. Then when they come out, presumably the cops will gun them down and send them straight to Heaven. This proves God wrong so everyone blinks out of existence unless our heroes stop them.’”
“And George asks, ‘And why are their sins forgiven?’ to which I reply, ‘A Plenary Indulgence,’” Smith continued. “George says, ‘What the Hell’s that?’ And I start explaining Catechism to the world’s most famous lapsed Catholic, during which George is watching me ramble with the look of patience an adult wears when a child over-explains Star Wars.”
After letting Smith embarrass himself for several seconds, the famously irreverent comedy legend challenged the Dogma director. “Finally, he interrupts me to ask, 'You really believe in all of this shit, don’t you?’” Smith recalled, “I responded, ‘Yeah. You were raised Catholic. You don’t?' And he says, ‘No, I’m smarter than that.’”
It would take Smith some time to view the Catholic Church the same way Carlin did, but he ultimately came around to Carlin’s thinking eventually. Perhaps, behind the scenes, Carlin introduced him to his good pal, “Buddy Christopher Hitchens.”
