Zach Braff put Jean Smart through "bong school" on the set of 'Garden State'

Actress Jean, 72, played Carol, the pot-smoking recovering alcoholic mother of Zach's character's friend Mark (Peter Sarsgaard) - and she has now told how she had never smoked pot from a bong before she had to film scenes doing so for the movie.

She told The Hollywood Reporter as part of an oral history record about making the movie: "I affectionately refer to my role as 'Skank Mom'. I just thought the script was so amazing. I knew (Zach) was incredibly smart and clever, and I thought, 'This will be really fun'.

"It was just one of those sets where it was fun to just wait for the next setup.

"Zach was teasing me so bad because I had never used a bong. I can't believe that I'm admitting that since I went to college in the '70s, but I had never smoked a bong.

"So he would make these big announcements: 'Okay, after lunch break, I'm going to take Jean to bong school'.

"I had to learn a little lesson - a bong lesson. It was embarrassing."

Zach recalled in the oral history collection of memories from making the film his then-girlfriend Bonnie Somerville, now 50, insisted Jean play Carol after working with the Hollywood character actress veteran on the NBC sitcom 'In-Laws'.

He said: "I didn't know Jean's work that much at the time, but then I did a little research and I was like, 'Wow, she's perfect. Do you think she'd do it?'

"And Jean said yes. She was pitch perfect."