All the ways Jason Lee charmed guests at his Phoenix Fan Fusion panel

Kevin Smith’s ’90s buddy-com “Mallrats” turned 30 this year. Jason Lee, one of its stars, made his leading-man debut as Brodie Bruce, a comic book-collecting slacker with a wicked wit. Before acting, Lee was a professional skateboarder (he still skates), and in the subsequent decades has added pro photographer and a dad to his resume.

As part of this year’s Fan Fusion event, Lee and another of the movie’s stars, Jason Mewes, hosted an off-site screening and Q&A on Saturday, which allowed fans to get all their burning “Mallrats” questions answered. Mewes is pretty chatty, so he did most of the talking, but on Sunday, a large audience got Lee all to themselves at his afternoon panel.

Here are some highlights from that hour-long conversation, which was about 90% Q&A with the audience.

‘The Warming Sun’

A fan sporting a Grandaddy tee was excited to talk to Lee about their mutual love of the indie rock band. He asked the actor what his favorite song by the group was, and Lee started singing “The Warming Sun” from the band’s 2003 release, "Sumday." He then pulled the song up on his phone, played a bit of it on the mic and talked about how beautiful it is to him. He was interviewed for an upcoming Grandaddy documentary and said he got to know them years back by emailing them a note that said, “Hi, I’m Jason. I’m a skateboarder and I love your music. Can we hang out?” He did the same thing with the Scottish band Cocteau Twins, and both times it worked out.

How he felt the first time he saw himself in a movie … and no, it wasn’t ‘Mallrats’

Lee wasn’t foreign to having his image captured by a camera. As a pro skateboarder, making videos of all the action is common. He made a splash in Kevin Smith’s “Mallrats” in his first leading role, but that wasn’t his first time on that side of a movie camera. A panel guest took Lee and the audience on a trip to 1993 when he had a non-speaking role in Allison Anders’ indie movie “Mi Vida Loca.” Lee was genuinely excited about the reference. He, Spike Jonze and some other skaters were friends with the director’s daughter, Tiffany, whose mom asked her to gather some peeps to be in the movie.

“It was like a montage sequence without dialogue. I think in that sequence, Spike, Tiffany and I were trying to buy weed, right? Like offering CDs in exchange for weed, you know, and the guy smacks the CDs out of Spike’s hands, like a 'Get the hell out of here' kind of thing. And so part of me is in the scene and part of me is ... watching the camera move on the dolly track and I’m like ‘Holy shit, I’m in a movie right now!’ I was so excited to be in a movie. I had no dialogue or anything, but like, remember in 'Pee-wee’s Big Adventure' when Pee-wee has a cameo in the movie at the end and he’s trying not to look in the camera? That was me, basically,” he laughed.

He owns a camera shop in Los Angeles

This dude of many talents has been a professional photographer since the early 2000s. He’s published books, had several exhibitions and opened his own store to sell camera equipment and related goods. “I’m a longtime photographer, and there aren’t a lot of small mom-and-pop, brick-and-mortar shops that sell film and analog cameras and stuff. Growing up in skate shops, I wanted to open something that felt like a friendly place people could come to, hang out and nerd out. It’s a small spot, but it’s very welcoming. It’s about a year and a half we’ve been open now.”

He went full David Seville

Lee starred as Seville, Alvin and the Chipmunks’ caregiver and manager in four of the franchise’s live-action movies based on the cartoon from the 1950s. A panel attendee, about 5 years old, waited in the line, and when she got up to the mic, she asked Lee what his favorite thing about being in the "Alvin and the Chipmunks" movies was. Before he could answer, the crowd erupted in a collective “Awwwww.” Can’t lie; it was pretty adorable. He responded by yelling “Alvinnnnnn” in Seville’s voice, a standard line of dialogue for the character.

Is his name still Earl?

People had a lot of questions about the network comedy that ran for four seasons and continues to build a following. Since the show ended with some questions unanswered, folks wondered if he had any thoughts about how those scenarios might have played out, and what his favorite things were about making the show. Mainly, though, what everyone truly wanted to know was if there was any chance we’d get answers by the show making a return. And the answer is yes — hopefully yes, that is. He teased it a bit, but ultimately let us know where things stand. “In all seriousness, we are trying to do something with Earl,” he said, inspiring a lot of “Hell yeah!” hollers from the crowd.