David Spade on His Character’s Interesting Hairdo: “I just did Saturday Night Live right before we shot this and I was trying to get ideas, because there’s only so much I can do with my hair. It’s either shorter or longer. They can’t do much. I was going to dye it and I saw a bowl cut wig on Saturday Night Live. I go, ‘Ooh, and juicy, I like that one.’ It looked so dumb so we tried to recreate that. Then I walked out of the trailer, I saw Rob, I saw Adam Sandler, and I think Dynamite was there too. I was like, ‘Hey look.’ And they were [laughing] so I’m like, ‘Okay, well, it’s funny.’”
The Decision to Cast Jon Heder in The Benchwarmers: “Well, we needed him. It was really like Sandler and Nick Swardson and those guys that wrote it. I think [for the character of] Ritchie they thought of for me, and then they didn’t know the other guys, who they would be so we were thinking of people. Then Clark, once Rob [Schneider] got on, Clark was the last one we didn’t have. And we were all going, ‘Who?’ Then I saw Napoleon Dynamite. I only saw half of it and I called Adam. I go, ‘Dude, we’ve got to get this guy. He’s funny.’
Kids like him and I think that’s a good mix of Rob and I because we used to work together, and then maybe him because he’s new and people like him. It’s just you want a good mix and I thought that was a funny mix if you do it - and he was into it. He was excited. Adam called him and he was cool about it.”
Working with Kids: Spade said he enjoyed working with the kids in The Benchwarmers. “The kids are funny because kids are just always happy. They’re in a good mood and they know everything we did. They mostly like Napoleon Dynamite so wherever we go, they’d be all excited that he was around. And he’s already kind of sick of it, which is the funniest part. ‘I’ve done other stuff, you know.’ I’m like, ‘No, you haven’t.’ ‘Still, I’m gonna.’”
The Collaborative Process and The Benchwarmers Script: “With those guys it’s great because it’s always going to be kind of close because they know me - and they know me in real life - so they kind of know my little mumbly jokes. Dennis Dugan does so many takes it’s ridiculous. We just say, ‘If you’re doing so many, just make up stuff.’ Like at the end, you’re just so bored you just make it up. But a lot of times he’ll be like, ‘Pretty good, going again,’ and then you’re like, ‘What are we doing now?’ ‘You just say stuff. Whatever. We’ve got all day.’
The fun stuff is like we have so many angles too. We have the catcher looking at me, when I’m batting. So I’m just like, ‘Dude, kabang.’ And that stuff makes me laugh because then he just goes, ‘Keep going.’ So I’m like, ‘Strike, you know, pulled something. I used to run track.’ You can see me laughing at myself because I don’t know what to say because there are no lines. He’d say, ‘Keep going. Pretty good, I’m loving it.’
You’ve got an angle from the pitcher looking at you, and then you’ve got to do the umpire’s view so you just keep doing it. That’s what I didn’t know about baseball movies. You have to do it from everyone’s angle, every fielder… Then when I’m catcher, once I’ve got that mask on, I go like this, ‘Can’t really see me, can you? My double, get in there.’ I got a bad neck. I go, ‘I thought I was a softball guy.’ I thought the whole movie was about softball, swear to god, for the whole time.
A week before I went to [shoot] they go, ‘You want to go to baseball camp?’ I go, ‘To be bad? I’m already bad. I don’t care.’ So I go there and I [ask], ‘Do I just stand there?’ He throws one, it bounces and you catch it and you throw it back. You get to stand and it’s easy. Then I get there and they bring out all this equipment. I go, ‘This is baseball. Are you kidding? I don’t want to be catcher then.’ This 40 pound pure steel helmet…and then all the equipment on my legs and they had to jack me up. ‘Dude, every scene and we’re doing it in the middle of the valley in the summer?’ These are the real problems I have.”
