DUB Q&A: Adam Sandler

Adam Sandler is one of the most successful graduates from Saturday Night Live. He has a movie out every year and most of them are blockbusters. This summer, he stars in Grown-Ups, with fellow comedians Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider. They play old grade school friends who reunite at their summer cabin. We got to grill Sandler on his adult life at a press conference for the film.

Q: What drives you to succeed?
Adam Sandler: I don’t know what drives me to succeed.  I know I want to always do the best I can.  I never was like that as a kid.  I guess I was maybe in little league baseball as far as I wanted to be good at that.  But school, I certainly wasn’t the best at that.  But this comedy thing and making movies and stuff, I love it so much that I do get driven to push myself as hard as I can.

Q: What kind of car do you actually drive?
AS: I go Cadillac.  I have a hybrid too, and it does work better by the way.  It uses less gas.

Q: Do you feel like a grown up?
AS: When you’re around the kids you feel like you act the most grown up just because you’re supposed to lead.

Q: Is that when it dawned on you that you were a grown-up?
AS: Yes, yes, exactly.  I say things like every other parent that reminds you of your own parents.  One thing I do know about being a parent, you understand why your father was in a bad mood a lot.

Q: As kids we play with toys and as adults we have gear or whatever hobbies that you love. What is your favorite thing to collect or play with?
AS: Last night I couldn’t sleep.  It was like 2:00 in the morning.  I was thinking, “What can I do?”  I’m watching TV.  I’m like, “Let me do something else.”  I’m not going to fall asleep for a few hours.  What are my hobbies?  There was the masturbation option.  I skipped that because just knowing my kids are down the hall I felt psychotic.  So, I went with watching more TV.  I couldn’t come up with anything. I was going, “God, read a book.”  Then I was like this, “Where do I keep the books?”  I’ve got nothing to do but watch TV.

Q: Do you ever have reunions with your old best friends like in the movie?
AS: I would like to do this sort of reunion if I was having one, hang out at a house, do the fun stuff on a lake.  That’s a good place for it.  I mean in real life it ain’t much of a reunion.  We see each other, so it’s not like this gang hasn’t seen each other in 30 years.  We see each other a lot.  In fact, I see my friends from growing up a lot.  There’s no reunions in my life.  I see everybody too much.

Q: How often do you all get together?
AS: Every time I go back to see my family in New Hampshire, my buddies hear I’m in town and they show up to the house.  [Chris] Rock, when he’s in LA I see him.  I see Kevin all the time.  I see [David] Spade whenever I can.  [Rob] Schneider I see a lot too.

Q: Do any of you guys agree on who the funniest one is?
AS: Everybody’s got their own thing.  I’ll tell you, Spade is incredibly funny.  He drops the most destruction bombs on you. He’s quick as hell.

Q: What about when we don’t see you, when you’re just entertaining each other?
AS: Just hanging out? Everybody’s got their moments.  KJ is incredibly funny.  He has different ways of being funny in conversation.  How’s this? When KJ texts me I laugh like a buffoon for like five minutes alone.  I don’t write that LOL because I’m a comedian and I think other comedians would go, “Are you f*cking kidding me? LOL?”  So I just write, “Good one.” I haven’t said it yet, I don’t think.  Rock is one of the funniest guys I’ve ever seen in my life with just summing up something and just having a different slant on it.  You’re just like, “That is amazingly accurate and I can’t believe I’ve never said that out loud.  I never even thought that.”  He like makes you think straight.  His comedy’s just genius. For the record Schneider is one of the funniest guys. He is ridiculously fast and funny.

Q: Do you ever worry that your kids are turning into elitist, Beverly Hills brats?
AS: The idea of my kids being spoiled, I go to sleep thinking about it. I wake up thinking about.  I’m trying to do the right thing.  With the amount of money I have, it’s difficult to raise children the way I was raised.  But I took away the west and north wing of the house for those guys.  So, they’re not allowed in there.

Q: When you make a movie with kids, do you have to hold yourself back from swearing?
AS: There wasn’t too much cursing in this movie. Cursing around kids, yes, you feel guilty immediately after. On my last movie, these two kids each said 20 bucks a curse.  I think we owe them $1,400 bucks.

Q: How do you deal with fans coming up to you on the street?
AS: When someone on the street says, “Can I have your picture?” and they do this sh*t and they’re holding it a long time and they’re pressing the button… A lot of us people who happen to get stopped a lot, we start getting irritated and in our brains we’re like, “Take the f*cking picture already.”  We get angrier and angrier.  A lot of times, the person goes, “Oh, I have it on video.”  So, they captured the moment of the pure anger, “Would you f***in’ snap it already.”