By STEVE LEVINE
Courier-Post Staff
PAULSBORO
He doesn't have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame but the Jersey Girl director may not need one. He's got Kevin Smith Way.
Smith, who's been in this waterfront borough on and off for nearly two months filming his next Garden State-themed motion picture, was honored Tuesday with a street bearing his name.
Jersey Girl - starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Liv Tyler and George Carlin - is set in the Central Jersey shore town of Highlands. Paulsboro was cast, primarily for financial reasons, to play its part.
"Had I known they would have named a street after me it probably would have been set here," mused Smith, casually dressed in calf-length denim jeans and an oversize blue hockey shirt.
The renamed thoroughfare, about 1 1/2 blocks near Paulsboro High School, intersects North Delaware Street and Greenwich Avenue.
It had been named Tyler Street - after the country's 10th president, not one of the upcoming film's stars.
During filming here, which began Aug. 23, the main actors have largely been out of public view. On Tuesday, however, Tyler and Raquel Castro, who plays the film's title character, were on hand for the unveiling of the new Kevin Smith Way street sign.
Smith, who's fast becoming one of Hollywood's A-list directors, arrived for the brief midafternoon ceremony in a very un-Hollywood way - driving himself, his wife and 3- year-old daughter, Harley, in a late-model, but not new, Jeep Grand Cherokee.
A bona fide Jersey boy from Red Bank, Monmouth County, Smith thanked Paulsboro Mayor John Burzichelli. The mayor also presented him with a key to the borough and a proclamation naming Oct. 22, 2002, as Kevin Smith Day in Paulsboro.
"Thanks for the key to the city," Smith said. "But lock the door because I will use the key. Hopefully nothing nefarious will happen on Kevin Smith Way but, if it does, call my lawyers."
Smith said filming is expected to wrap up here later this month. Jersey Girl is tentatively scheduled for release in October 2003, with a premiere in Paulsboro, he announced.
Questioned about how it feels to have a street named after him while still alive, Smith said it's a little weird.
"I expect to drop any second," he quipped.
Burzichelli, a co-owner of Hill Studio on Broad Street who worked with Smith on Chasing Amy, an earlier film, said he wanted to honor the moviemaker because he helped elevate Paulsboro's profile by shooting here.
After the ceremony the mayor interviewed Smith for Eye on Paulsboro, a local access cable program he hosts.
During the interview, Smith said Miramax, which is financing the film, wanted Jersey Girl shot in Toronto because Canada is a much cheaper location than the United States.
He said Paulsboro, which resembles Highlands in age and architecture, enabled the film to be shot here at a cost Miramax could live with.
"Paulsboro allowed us to shoot a movie called Jersey Girl in New Jersey," he said.
Afterward, Burzichelli said interviewing a Hollywood hotshot isn't really all that different from interviewing his regular guests about town.
"It's just another day in Paulsboro," he said. "Another day in Paulsboro."