Jason Edward Mewes (born June 12, 1974) is an American television and film actor, and internet radio show host best known for playing Jay, the vocal half of the duo Jay and Silent Bob, in longtime friend Kevin Smith's films. Jason Mewes grew up in a working-class neighborhood in New Jersey. He never knew his father, and his mother was an ex-con and a drug addict. Relates Mewes: "She used to check into hotels and take TVs and sell them...I guess it really ain't funny, but it's weird because it was so fucked up...She used to steal mail. I used to drive around with her and she'd pull up and make me reach into mailboxes. It really wasn't pleasant." Although this exposure to drugs at first served to make him averse to them, he eventually began using them after graduating from high school. His best friend was future filmmaker Kevin Smith, who describes his friend thus: "He's the kind of dude you know for five minutes and he whips his cock out. I was like, Somebody should put this dude in a movie. I just wanted to see if anybody outside our group of friends finds him as funny as I do." While working toward a career in roofing, Mewes made his film debut in Smith's 1994 film Clerks as Jay.