Chasing a Rising Star

Nicholas Valenzuela Arizona Daily Wildcat Joey Lauren Adams and Jon Roig

Agents of Barclay Communications hustled around, organizing journalists and setting up brief interviews: "Have you looked at the press kit? Can I get you anything?"

They made me feel pretty cool, too... but that's their job. They set this sort of thing up - they get stories placed in newspapers and are the hidden machinery behind the rise of stars. Barclay employees do most of the dirty work, convincing slacker journalists to write about their clients. Joey was doing some kind of promotional tour for the movie, drumming up publicity by traveling from town to town.

The Wildcat photographer's flash went off and I was temporarily stunned. I turned to Joey. "This is pretty surreal ..."

"It is, isn't it?" she replied. Higher Grounds is a weird place - even for movie stars... or stars-to-be. "Chasing Amy," the third film in Kevin Smith's "New Jersey Trilogy," follows the overwhelming critical success of "Clerks" and the underwhelming response to "Mallrats." In stark contrast to the majority of films released these days, "Chasing Amy" is a strangely personal film - and Smith really goes out on a limb with it. It could've been terrible. It could've been a Gen-X "after-school special." But it isn't. "Chasing Amy" manages to remain light-hearted while dealing with real subjects and sincere emotional content.

"It's no secret that the origins of 'Chasing Amy' reside in my relationship with Joey," notes Kevin Smith on his website (http://www.viewaskew.com). The two have been dating a while now. "Granted, she's not gay, and I've never fallen in love with a lesbian, but the movie did grow out of my temporary inability to deal with Joey's past (not that it was anything like Alyssa's [Joey's character]; I don't want ya'll running around thinking Joey's nickname was 'Finger Cuffs' or anything)."

So what are we supposed to think? "A lot of it isn't personal," says Joey, "because obviously I'm not gay and we took some creative license. It wouldn't be that interesting for a guy to make a movie about his girlfriend who went to Australia and Bali. It's just that we come from such different backgrounds. Like, he stayed in New Jersey his whole life and he has no desire to travel whatsoever ... and I've traveled the world and he always felt threatened by that - like he was boring and something was wrong with him because he doesn't want to travel. He's a little more sexually conservative than I have been - we've dealt with that in our relationship..."

It's funny how quickly both Joey and Kevin Smith distance themselves from the lesbian side of the story, and they do expect to catch some flack from the lesbian community. After all, the lead character is gay, but still falls in love with a man in the film.

"My mom saw it, yeah," Joey says. "I don't think she knew what to think. I'm sure it was tough for her seeing her daughter sleeping with another girl ... The girl I'm kissing is [co-star] Jason Leigh's wife, so it was a little weird for them, too."

The close-knit atmosphere helped the story get done right. According to legend, Smith - who usually writes, directs and acts in his pictures - is known for being a bit of a control freak. "You just do what he tells you to do, and he's always right..." she laughs. "He's really anal. You can tell when you see his films that it's not about the shot, or the framing - it's all about dialogue. So his dialogue is very precious. Which is great, because you go to work with one of his scripts, you don't have to worry. There's not that thing where you really dread going to talk to the director about it because you think it's really bad. The characters are so well developed that you can just walk on the set and know it's all there. All you've got to do is memorize the lines and deliver it. Kevin gives line readings, which is when he basically coaches you on how to say the lines. It's all about facial expression ... the movement ... it's very involved."

After Joey left and the crowd at Higher Grounds had dissipated, I looked around. All evidence of what had taken place there was gone. Turning to the bartender, I asked what she made of it all.

"Wow. She really does talk like that," was all she had to say.