Kevin Smith's marriage has lasted so long because he and his wife have "no rules"

Kevin told People magazine: "My first instinct is, well, there've been no rules, and that's probably why it's worked so well for 25 years.

"I can't speak for her, but I just like seeing her. I just like being around her. She's my human."

The 54-year-old director - who met Jennifer when she was a journalist interviewing him about his 'Clerks' comic book - praised his 53-year-old wife for her support over the years.

He said: "I spend a lot of time on the road and doing gigs elsewhere and whatnot, and over the 25 years she's travelled with me a bunch and then lately she stays home to watch the dogs and stuff like that.

"She's been there shotgun through 25 years of this, and she's always been gracious about taking a back seat to it.

"When you're married to an artist - an artist who lives with his or her head up their ass thinking about, 'Oh my God, the whole world has to know what I think and feel' - I would imagine that must be irritating to live with. But she's lived with it for a quarter century."

Meanwhile, the couple's daughter Harley, 25, has appeared in a number of his movies, including 'Tusk', 'Yoga Hosers' and 'Clerks II and III', and Kevin admitted it is a lot of "fun" working with her.

He said: "It's always fun to be able to sit there and make pretend with your kid.

"It's on a movie and it's a larger scale and she's 25 and I'm 54, but at its root, it's some variation of us playing hide-and-seek or video games together when she was a little kid."

He also praised his daughter's "maturity as an actor and as a person," which "always capture [his] imagination."

He added: "But I've spent the better part of 25 years now just trying to make this kid laugh, and it's one of my favourite things in the world to do."