JASON MEWES DOING IT CLEAN AND SOBER.

Byline: - Bob Strauss

It's hardly a Kevin Smith movie without Jay and Silent Bob, the respectively motor-mouthed and near-mute drug dealers who've provided comic relief and surprising insight in ``Clerks,'' ``Mallrats,'' ``Chasing Amy,'' ``Dogma'' and the cockeyed epic ``Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.''

But the loquacious half of the duo, Jason Mewes (Smith himself plays Bob), was high as a kite -- or jonesing to be -- during most of those productions.

Sober for three years this past April, Mewes, 32, explains how shooting ``Clerks II'' was an entirely different experience for him.

``In the past, I was always ready to just bolt out and get high,'' Mewes recalls. ``If we'd do two takes, I'd go, `Dude, that's fine.' Really, I didn't know if it was fine, but in my head I just wanted to go back to my trailer to do more drugs.

``The big difference this time was I was waking up early and looking forward to working. And I'd hang out after.''

Mewes' old New Jersey buddy Smith certainly noticed the difference.

``It was a different beast altogether this time,'' the director says of the actor, who has lived off and on in Smith's home for years at a time.

Mewes says that what made him decide to return from L.A. to Jersey -- where there was an outstanding warrant that would likely lead to a long stint in rehab -- was rejection by the one surrogate family he had been able to count on his whole adult life.

``Of course, it was a combination of things,'' reflects Mewes, whose single, drug-addict mother died from AIDS complications. ``But the biggest thing was, I went to Kevin's house on Thanksgiving. I knocked on the door, and no one in the family would come to say hi to me except for Kevin. And even he was like, `Look, I came down to say happy Thanksgiving, but it really hurts for me to see you like this.' Then he teared up, gave me a hug and went back inside. That was a big eye-opener.''

Mewes enrolled in a four-day detox program that week. When he came out, a friend offered the withdrawing addict a choice between grams of dope or a ride back to Jersey. Mewes got in the car and turned himself in.

Now he's even co-starring with Paris Hilton in the upcoming romantic comedy ``Bottom's Up.''

But he'll always be the lovably loud-mouthed Jay.

``Jay just says things that people think but are afraid to say themselves,'' Mewes says of the character's popularity. ``It's that, and the pothead factor.''

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Photo:

(color) - Jason Mewes