Adam Sandler
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Adam Sandler
Adam Richard Sandler (born September 9, 1966) is an American comedian, actor, musician, screenwriter and film producer. After becoming a Saturday Night Live cast member, he went on to star in several Hollywood feature films that grossed over US$100 million at the box office. Though he is best known for his comedic roles, such as in the films Billy Madison (1995), Happy Gilmore (1996), Big Daddy (1999) and Mr. Deeds (2002), he has also had success in romantic and dramatic roles, such as in the films, The Wedding Singer (1998), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), Spanglish (2004) ,and Reign Over Me (2007).
In the mid to late 1980s, Adam Sandler played Theo Huxtable’s friend, Smitty, on The Cosby Show (1987–1988). Adam Sandler was a performer for the MTV game show Remote Control, on which he made appearances as the characters "Trivia Delinquent" or "Stud Boy". Adam Sandler started performing in clubs early on, taking the stage at his brother’s urging when he was only 17. Adam Sandler was then discovered by comedian Dennis Miller, who caught Adam Sandler’s act in Los Angeles. Miller immediately recommended him to Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels. Adam Sandler was hired as a writer for SNL in 1990 and became a featured player the following year, quickly making a name for himself by performing amusing original songs on the show, including "The Chanukah Song". Adam Sandler left the show in 1995 to focus on his acting career.
Adam Sandler’s first starring role was in 1989 when he starred in the movie Going Overboard. In 1995, he starred in Billy Madison, in which he plays a grown, though uneducated, man repeating grades 1–12 to earn his father’s respect back, along with the right to inherit his father’s multi-million-dollar hotel empire. Adam Sandler followed this movie up with other financially successful comedies such as Bulletproof (1996), Happy Gilmore (1996) and The Wedding Singer (1998). Adam Sandler was initially cast in the bachelor-party-themed comedy/thriller Very Bad Things (1998), but had to back out due to his involvement in The Waterboy (1998), one of his first hits.
Although most of his earlier films were almost universally despised by movie critics, many of his recent films, starting with Punch-Drunk Love (2002), have received almost uniformly positive reviews, leading many movie critics to believe that Adam Sandler possessed considerably more acting ability that they believed had been previously wasted on poorly written scripts and characters with no development. Audiences have remained faithful to Adam Sandler’s slapstick humor to the tune of US$100-million-plus grossing movies. Adam Sandler has moved outside the genre of goofball humor to take on more serious parts such as the aforementioned Punch-Drunk Love (for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe), Spanglish (2004) and Reign Over Me (2007). Adam Sandler also plays a loving father figure in Big Daddy (1999). During filming, he met Jacqueline Samantha Titone — his future wife and mother of his daughter. Jackie was cast as the charming waitress from The Blarney Stone Bar.
At one point, Adam Sandler was considered for the part that went to Jamie Foxx in Collateral (2004). Adam Sandler also was one of the finalists along with Jim Carrey and Johnny Depp for the role of Willy Wonka in Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), but in the end Depp got the role. Adam Sandler returned to more dramatic fare with Mike Binder’s Reign Over Me (2007), a drama about a man who lost his entire family in 9/11 and rekindles a friendship with his old college roommate (played by Don Cheadle). Adam Sandler starred in the movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007), where he stars alongside Kevin James as a New York City fireman pretending to be gay keep up an insurance scam, so his best friend’s children can have benefits. Adam Sandler’s most recent film is You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (2008), a comedy about a Mossad agent who fakes his own death and moves to the United States to become a hair stylist. The film was written by Sandler, The 40-Year-Old Virgin writer-director Judd Apatow (who was an old roommate of Adam Sandler’s when both were starting out), and Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog creator Robert Smigel and was directed by Happy Gilmore director Dennis Dugan.
"Like Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler has layers of tenderness under layers of irony under layers of tenderness — plus a floating anger like Jupiter’s great red spot," wrote David Edelstein of New York magazine in a review of You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. "Some performers become stars because we can read them instantly, others — like Adam Sandler — because we never tire of trying to get a fix on them."
He recently finished production on Bedtime Stories (2008), a fantasy film directed by Bringing Down the House director Adam Shankman about a stressed real estate developer whose bedtime stories he reads to his niece and nephew begin to come true, which will mark Adam Sandler’s first family film and first film under the Walt Disney banner. Keri Russell and English comedian Russell Brand co-star and the film is set to be released on Christmas of 2008.
His next film will be Judd Apatow’s third directorial feature Funny People. The film will star him and Seth Rogen as a pair of stand up comedians, and filming is set to begin in mid-September 2008 with a tentative release date of July 31, 2009, depending on the expected Screen Actors Strike of 2008. Other co-stars include Eric Bana and Apatow’s wife Leslie Mann. Adam Sandler will play a more successful mentor of sorts to Rogen’s character. The movie will contain more dramatic elements than Apatow’s previous efforts.
At one point, Adam Sandler was in talks to star in Quentin Tarantino’s World War II saga Inglorious Bastards, which he confirmed, but he said he will not be in it due to a scheduling conflict with Funny People. In June 2007, it was announced that his production company, Happy Madison, had made a preemptive acquisition for Mitch Albom’s screenwriting debut.
