Catch up with the stars of "Clerks" before you see the long-awaited sequel

Since its release in 1994, Kevin Smith's "Clerks" has been a siren call for independent filmmakers looking to score big on a modest investment. Filmed in black-and-white for the paltry sum of $27,000, it was a hit at Sundance and eventually reaped a tidy box-office profit.

It started careers (mainly Smith's), spawned an animated spinoff series in 2000 and deluded thousands of wanna-be Smiths into thinking their own films held similar promise.

But "Clerks" was unique.

Writer-director Smith captured slacker lightning in a two-liter Coke bottle, tweaking the mid-'90s zeitgeist with his low-budget combination of crude humor, an appealing nonprofessional cast and fanboy debates over esoteric details in the original "Star Wars" trilogy.

Understandably, Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson were skeptical when Smith finally proposed a long-rumored sequel. As the counter jockeys in "Clerks" (O'Halloran played anxious mini-mart clerk Dante Hicks, Anderson his best pal and next-door video-store clerk Randal Graves), they'd created two of the most beloved movie characters of the '90s. A bad sequel would throw egg on their faces.

"It's not a movie that demands a sequel," said Anderson during a recent visit to Seattle with O'Halloran. "When Kevin first approached me, I didn't want to do it. But I also knew it wouldn't get made without me, and I didn't want to be the lone holdout. I figured if Kevin was confident and enthusiastic, that was enough for me."

As it happens, "Clerks II," opening in theaters Friday, turned out surprisingly well, to everyone's great relief. O'Halloran had also been skeptical, but not quite as hesitant as Anderson.

"I trusted Kevin about where our characters were going after we'd done the animated series," O'Halloran said, "but after talking with Jeff, I considered the potential downside. We'd been getting positive fan mail for 12 years, and if we screwed up the sequel, we'd be looking at 12 years of hate mail. But I think we did it justice, and if we'd done it earlier, I don't think people would've cared. The timing seemed right."

Smith didn't seriously consider a "Clerks" sequel until he and his cast reunited for the 10th-anniversary "Clerks" DVD release. Hearing O'Halloran and Anderson engage in their characters' now-classic banter, Smith conceived "Clerks II" as a comedic crisis of reluctant adulthood, with 33-year-olds Dante and Randal, now working in a burger joint, facing grown-up responsibilities of life, love and the future of their friendship.

With a $5 million budget financed by The Weinstein Co. (producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein had distributed "Clerks" with their former company, Miramax), the finished film (in color this time) earned an eight-minute standing ovation when shown at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

O'Halloran enjoyed a highlight during filming: Dante gets romantically involved with a new character played by Rosario Dawson, a delightful actress on Hollywood's A-List.

Casting a name star was Harvey Weinstein's idea, says O'Halloran, as a commercial safeguard against "those two nobody guys" playing Dante and Randal. Rachel Weisz, Bryce Dallas Howard and comedian/actress Sarah Silverman were also considered before Dawson, a "Clerks" fan, enthusiastically accepted the role.

"She's a real guy's girl, so to speak," said O'Halloran in praise of his co-star. "At the script read-through, we were all strutting around like peacocks, trying to impress her, and she was just terrific. Kevin said, 'Oh, I see ... bring in a hot chick and suddenly you guys are ready to shoot.' "

At 36 and 35, respectively, O'Halloran and Anderson can relate to their characters' clash with adulthood. "Clerks" changed their lives for the better, but was hardly a windfall, financially or otherwise.

O'Halloran is still a working actor in the New York/New Jersey area, but is moving to Los Angeles with hopes that "Clerks II" momentum will work in his favor.

Anderson (a nonactor who was studying architecture and design when former high-school classmate Smith cast him in "Clerks") also took a chance in L.A., where he wrote, directed and starred in "Now You Know," a low-budget comedy lost in limbo since its release in 2002.

Anderson says it's now scheduled for a limited release to coincide with "Clerks II," distributed by The Weinstein Co. and "presented by Kevin Smith." He's written another comedy and hopes to find independent financing, but looks forward to leaving L.A., where "the whole acting thing just didn't work out."

What about a third "Clerks" movie?

"I think Kevin would say no to 'Clerks III' right now," said O'Halloran, "unless maybe it was an unrated DVD revival of the animated series. We'd have a blast doing that."

Jeff Shannon: j.sh@verizon.net