Kevin Smith says while having a heart attack he was 'fine with dying' - until he remembered his last movie was 'Yoga Hosers'
- While in the midst of suffering a widowmaker heart attack in 2018, Kevin Smith said he was fine with dying.
- "But then I realized if my life might end tonight the last movie I will have made was 'Yoga Hosers,'" Smith told Business Insider.
- Surviving the heart attack fueled him to make his latest movie, "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot."
- He also has the Netflix anime series "Masters of the Universe: Revelation" in the works, and announced a "Clerks 3" is coming.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
For the last 25 years, writer-director Kevin Smith has built a career making light of everything - including his own death.
On February 25, 2018, after performing on stage at a show in Glendale, California, Smith suffered a massive heart attack that he would learn when he got to the hospital was a "widowmaker," in which there's 100% blockage of the heart. He was told by his doctor that in 80% of cases like this the patient dies.
At that moment, before the surgery to try to save him, Smith said he took stock of his life.
"I was fine with dying," Smith told Business Insider. "I was totally comfortable. 47 is young to die but you had a great life. But then I realized if my life might end tonight the last movie I will have made was 'Yoga Hosers.' That's not the way to go out."
Smith is known best for his indie comedies from the 1990s like "Clerks," "Mallrats," "Chasing Amy," and "Dogma." But recently Smith has been making outlandish movies like "Tusk," starring Justin Long as a podcaster who becomes the captive of a recluse who turns him into a walrus, and a spin-off of that movie two years later, 2016's "Yoga Hosers."
Starring Lily-Rose Depp (Johnny Depp's daughter) and Smith's own daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, the creepy comedy goes even deeper into the strange and bizarre than "Tusk" did. It resulted in one of Smith's biggest flops, as it was bashed by critics and audiences alike.
When he had the heart attack, Smith was in preproduction on "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot," a sequel to 2001's "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back." After surviving the heart attack, he doubled his efforts to make the movie.
"One year from the day of the heart attack was the first day of shooting the movie," he said. "We scheduled it that way. It was a big f--k you to the heart attack."
Since the heart attack, Smith has lost a considerable amount of weight after going vegan and he said he has a newfound drive to his work because he knows the next project may be his last. Along with promoting "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot" (which opens in select theaters October 15), he's the showrunner on the upcoming Netflix anime series "Masters of the Universe: Revelation," and recently announced he will be making "Clerks 3," which will focus on the franchise's main character, Randal, recovering from a heart attack.
"I've learned to let go of myself as who I thought I was as an artist," Smith said of life after the heart attack. "My self-esteem is fine. I don't need the ego blow of, 'Now everyone knows my movie is coming out.' I made 'Tusk,' I got no ego."