Coraci and Sandler have been buddies since college and had been on the look-out for another project to do together since collaborating on The Wedding Singer and The Waterboy way back in 1998. Click, a comedy with a message, fit the bill as it appealed to their shared sense of humor.
Clicking with Click and Fast-Forwarding Through Life: “We all read this thing and connected to it because, when you’re shooting a movie you are away from home most of the time,” said Sandler. “It’s something you love to do. It’s amazing that we get to do what we get to do, but you definitely are away from the family more than you’d like to be and time keeps passing. I go movie to movie a lot and I’m 39 years old. Looking back on the past 10 years of my life, I’ve been at work more than I’ve been at home so I connected with this movie - the message of the movie. When I watched the playback the other day, I went home. I was excited to get home and do the right thing – be with the family. And I’ve heard a few people comment on that.”
Adam Sandler Gets a Little Serious: The first half of Click is reminiscent of a lot of Sandler’s earlier comedies, however the second half of the film is a bit more serious. How tough was it for the actor to tackle the more dramatic portions of Click? Sandler responded, “I felt like with the remote control itself we had a lot of jokes and a lot of humor in the movie, and the thing that was attractive to all of us was that second half of the movie. I thought people who had seen some of my movies in the past, they can handle it. We give enough jokes to relax you but it gets heavier than we’ve ever had before in one of our movies.”
Director Coraci interjected with his take on the tone. “I kind of feel like more than heavy, I think that part of the story brought the heart. I think Adam and Kate’s performances [have] really brought the heart out in the movie. I think of it as the heart of the movie. That’s really what we strive to do when we make movies together is make movies that make you feel things and think about life.”
“That’s right,” agreed Sandler. “Wedding Singer was kind of sweet, too, and even Bobby Boucher had his moments of sweetness. But as an actor doing some of those scenes where it was heavy, you know the stuff was about… What had to be the heaviest was about my father. I lost my father a couple of years ago so it was very fresh. I had a different relationship with my real father than I did in the movie. My father in real life I, I wanted him to be at my house all the time. When he would go away I would be like, ‘Oh, goddamnit, I want to hang out with my father today.’ I never thought my dad was a pain in the a** like my character does. But, you know, the actual finding out your father is sick [spoiler deleted] that was easy as an actor to play that because it was very fresh.”
Drama versus Comedy: It’s no contest for Sandler; comedy is much more fun. “[I’m] much more comfortable showing up that day knowing we’ve got a funny scene coming. Like that day where I had to be upset over my father in the movie I was… I don’t like sitting in my trailer being depressed all day and looking at pictures. I don’t like that. I do it. I’m glad when it’s over. It feels like a relief and if I think I did the best I could do I feel a huge sense of accomplishment. But I’d rather go to work and fart in [David] Hasselhoff’s face.”
The Process of Aging the Stars of Click: Director Frank Coraci explained, “There was sort of a conscious choice when doing aging where sometimes you see a movie and you suddenly see somebody in old age makeup and it sort of pulls you out of the movie. So there was a conscious effort to not go quite as far. I thought, ‘Well, people aren’t going to actually keep track of how many years it is and stuff so…’ The other thing we did was actually look at pictures of their parents and sort of know how they would naturally age. Rick Baker, who is probably the greatest make-up artist ever, that was a process he wanted to take. Together we found a way to make them look the way they would look, and not take it to the point where it would take you out of the movie.”
Page 2: Revisiting the Past, Fatherhood, and Sandler's Role in Mike Binder's 9/11-Themed Film
