Terry Crews on His Reaction to Playing a Cheeseburger Pusher: “You know what’s so funny? This is what happened. It was kind of crazy because I was trying to get into this movie for a while and what was nuts is that Adam saw ‘White Chicks’ - the movie I did before. The role [in ‘The Longest Yard’] was originally for a big, fat kind of slobby guy who’s pushing cheeseburgers. Well he saw ‘White Chicks’ and put me in the movie. He called me on my cell phone and he said, ‘You know Terry, I want you to do this movie with me. I want you to play Cheeseburger Eddy.’ I was like, ‘What? Isn’t he supposed to be fat?’ ‘Dude, we’ll work it out. Don’t worry about it.’ And I was like, ‘Anything for you Adam.’ And it just worked out. I mean, I love the role. I love the character. It’s unforgettable, which is so good.”
The Freedom to Improv: "That’s the way Adam operates. When you’re working with comedians, especially like Chris and Adam, you find the joke as it goes. And their key is spontaneity so we came up with so many things just right off the cuff."
Keeping Up With Chris Rock and Adam Sandler: “Let me tell you, they’re very generous actors. And that’s the thing I love about Adam is that he understands he’s there to carry it, but he carries it by basically supporting everybody else. That’s the whole term ‘carrying.’ It doesn’t mean stepping up and showing everybody up. He literally put us on his shoulders and made us shine. That’s what I love about Adam. I can’t wait to do another project with him. He’s one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with. And Chris… We really got a great relationship as we worked on this movie. In fact, I’m doing a TV show with him right now. It was like both of these guys I viewed them as mentors. They were very patient with me. They gave me more than most people would ever give an actor in my position and I’m always forever thankful.”
Fun Times on the Set of “The Longest Yard:” “I’m telling you, literally when it was over there was a small depression. The team, the guys… I played in the NFL for 7 years and after every season you kind of wonder if you’re going to come back. There’s always a little melancholy feeling. I had the exact same feeling. I was sitting here like, ‘We made history. This was a team. Adam was our quarterback. Chris Rock took care of us.’ Every person became their character to some extent. There was a little depression when we were done.”
The Movie Training Camp vs. a Real NFL Training Camp: “It was definitely easier. NFL training camp is second to none in pain. But at the same time, they didn’t take it easy on us. I mean, you can’t really fake football. There’s really no way. A hit is a hit. When you see a guy getting kicked in the face, he’s getting kicked in the face. That’s all there is to it. So you can’t fake football.
It was funny because they used to come up to me and say, ‘Terry, you need to do your own hits because your two stunt men died this morning…’ I was like, ‘Nooooo.’ We were dropping like flies after a while. I pulled a hamstring and I was sitting here like, ‘Oh my God, this is nuts.’ But these kinds of prices had to be paid, especially if you wanted to get the realism of what we were doing. I mean, ‘The Longest Yard’ - the first one - is a classic. If you’re going to come in here and cry about playing football then, ‘Hey, it’s a football movie.’”
On His Concerns About Remaking “The Longest Yard:” “So many people came up to me and said, ‘Hey man, are you doing Longest Yard? Don’t mess it up.’ All it was was, ‘Don’t mess up The Longest Yard.’ And the thing is, what people need to understand is that we are not in competition with the first one. There’s no way we’re going to beat the first movie. This is an homage to the first movie. This an homage to Burt. This is why it wouldn’t have been right if Burt wasn’t in it.
We pay respects to the first because that’s the movie that inspired all of us to play football, to actually be athletic. I remember as a kid you watched ‘The Longest Yard’ and you go out into the street and you played football and got hit by a car or something like that (laughing). That was the thing that inspired everybody. You can’t replace that. There’s just no way. So now what we want to do is bring that sensibility into the new millennium and introduce a whole new generation of people and kids who didn’t see the first one, to what we shared when we were young. So if you look at it like that, you can understand it.”
PAGE 2: Terry Crews Rates Sandler and Nelly's Football Skills
