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Kevin Smith is a filthy man.



Since the release of "Clerks" in 1994, countless prudes have unwittingly ventured into the filmmaker's dialogue-driven comedies-like "Mallrats," "Chasing Amy," "Dogma" and "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back"-and, after several dozen F-bombs and graphic scatological references, promptly walked out.



Luckily for Smith, 38, more than enough viewers have been too enthralled with the filmmaker's latest variation of, well, pretty much any dirty word or phrase, to get up and leave.



With eight movies in the bag, the portly writer/director/producer/actor has etched a strong, immediately identifiable, sometimes controversial voice in modern movies-akin to a Quentin Tarantino or Woody Allen-that resonates in his increasingly iconic films. Smith's dialogue-laced with acerbic wit and more "Star Wars" references than George Lucas himself could muster in one sitting-has been the primary driving force behind a still ballooning, generational cult following that dates back to "Clerks," the posterchild of 1990s shoestring-budgeted independent film comedy.



On Friday, Oct. 31, Smith may finally be introduced to a much more mainstream audience with the release of "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," starring current comedic juggernaut Seth Rogen ("Pineapple Express") and the excellent Elizabeth Banks ("W."). Hollywood studios expect Smith's latest to easily top his current box office best of $31 million for 1999's "Dogma."



Smith's raunchy comedy tells the story of two lifelong platonic friends who decide to solve their debt problems by filming an adult movie together. As the cameras begin to roll, however, the duo realize that their relationship may never be the same.



"If you scrape away the pornography and the overtrappings of the story in terms of a bunch of people getting together to make a porn, it really is kind of a story about how we made 'Clerks' to some degree," Smith said in a recent Flyer News-associated college conference call. "A bunch of knuckleheads who don't know anything get together and make a feature. Theirs' just happens to have a lot of [genitalia] in it."



"Zack and Miri" is a departure of sorts for Smith. The majority of his films are set within his self-professed "ViewAskewaverse," a kind of overarching world located primarily in Smith's hometown of Red Bank, New Jersey. Businesses, motifs and recurring characters like drug dealers Jay and Silent Bob (the latter actually played by Smith) are present in multiple Smith films.



"Once we got to 'Clerks II' and kind of bookended the 'View Askewaverse' movies, I felt like it was time to step out of Jersey for awhile," he said.



Aside from the casting of several Smith regulars, "Zack and Miri" is a completely stand-alone entry in the Smith canon, with the Pittsburgh suburb of Monroeville providing the film's backdrop.



"I'm more drawn to suburbia than I am to the big cities," he said. "Pittsburgh is the only city I've ever been in the United States where you could be on the main drag at 8:00 at night and be absolutely by yourself. I wanted to set the story in what I felt like would be one of the last places you'd imagine anyone would shoot porn."



With "Superbad" and "Pineapple Express" in the can, Smith was grateful that "Zack and Miri" was the first flick Rogen chose after being "canonized as comedic man of moment."



"What Seth is kind of genius at, he's innately talented at ad libbing material that sounds like it's organic to the film, scene, or more specifically, to the character," he said. "You welcome a guy like that, because he's not just executing, he's elevating."



Generally, Smith's films center around the platonic love of two male friends, but Banks brings a whole new realistic dynamic to a story about a blossoming guy-girl relationship.



"I was afraid on the page it might have read like more of the same, like two dudes just talking to each other," he said. "That's where Elizabeth was so wonderful, because she completely feminized 'Miri' without changing a word of the script."



Much of the film's comedic and emotional success can be attributed to the "sickening" chemistry between Rogen and Banks, which was apparent from the first table reading.



"You would have thought they'd known each other for years," he said. "Sometimes you work with actors who just have that wonderful, sick, fantastic chemistry that you don't even have to do anything as a director except stay out of the way."



Smith said that the duo didn't know whether or not they would have to get naked in front of the cameras until the final week of filming. But when Smith told them they could keep their clothes on, Rogen and Banks were initially miffed. Banks had worked out for two months to prepare, while Rogen had spent time shaving his back.



Perhaps surprisingly, "Zack and Miri" is only Smith's second film to have initially been slapped with an NC-17 rating by the MPAA. Smith talked it down to an R through the appeals process without having to cut any material he didn't already intend to.



Smith is baffled, however, at the public controversy surrounding the film's marketing, primarily due to the inclusion of the word "porno." Billboards in Philadelphia and radio spots in Los Angeles have elicited multitudes of complaints from people thinking the film was actually pornography.



"I was flabbergasted, because I felt like we used the cutest word possible to describe that industry," he said. "We didn't go with 'Zack and Miri Make a Stag Film, Skin Flick, or even Porn.' It's got that 'o' at the end. That to me makes it cuddly and cute. And when was the last time you've ever seen a porno with the word 'porno' in the title?"



The filmmaker has come a long way since managing the $27,575 production cost of "Clerks." "Zack and Miri" ran The Weinstein Company a reported $24 million, $11 million short of Smith's most expensive film, the $35 million "Jersey Girl."

"My job doesn't really change from movie to movie," he said. "I write the script, rehearse the actors and make sure they give an on-camera performance that's as close to the one I heard in my head when I was writing it, if not better. Whether I've got $10 or $10 million, that job doesn't change all that much."



Smith's currently looking to secure funding for his next film, "Red State," a bleak, grisly and non-commercial political horror movie about religious fundamentalism in America.



"There are no laughs in the movie whatsoever," he said. "It's like 180 degrees away from every other flick I've ever made. I feel like if I can pull this one off, I might feel more like a filmmaker."



Smith has some inspirational tips for those who want to break into the movie industry.



"I guess my best advice would be to make 'Clerks' because that totally worked for me," he joked. "Short of that, everybody should just tell the exact story they want to tell. If you start selling-out to reach a larger audience, it stops being yours. Stick with your voice, because nobody else has your voice, and nobody else can do what it is you want to do."