You Don’t Mess with the Zohan Press Conference
You’re a respectful guy in real life. When you had to get all wild and crazy with these senior citizens, what was that like for you personally?
Adam Sandler: “You know, the one who got me the most nervous and the most nauseous was the whip cream being licked off my nipples. That nice lady, she was like, ‘I have to what?’ She didn’t read the signs apparently and also it wasn’t one take it was four takes, and it actually tickled. I think I blew the first take. I was thinking, ‘Just get through this so this nice woman can go home.’ Then she's licking away and then in my head I was like, ‘My wife’s done this before and it feels similar. I hope I don’t have a reaction to this.’ So I started giggling nervously and the woman is like, ‘What? What happened?’ Then we had to go a few more, but that was the roughest one.”
Is there a danger some older lady will hit you over the head with her handbag after seeing this?
Adam Sandler: “Ruth Buzzi did that recently. No, I don't feel any danger. I do feel like I got it out of my system. My mother’s friends and I never got to that place where we wanted to get. I feel like the fact that I did it with these women in the movie, now I can just hang out with my mother's friends and not have that weird tension.”
We see a lot of your butt in the movie. What did you do to get your butt in shape?
Adam Sandler: “That’s a tough one. The ass muscle is a different kind of muscle and it has its own mind. It was a lot of just keeping it tight. My wife has huge fingers so she would place it in a cracked area of the body and say, ‘Hold onto this thing for a while and walk around the room.’ So I would do that an hour and 40 minutes a day.”
How has Adam changed since the Saturday Night Live days?
Rob Schneider: “As opposed to our Saturday Night Live days, Adam could buy and sell me 10 times as opposed to one and a half times. How has he changed? I will tell you how he hasn’t changed. I don’t see a lot of change except he could buy and sell me. He’s still laughing at stuff. He's still thrilled and having fun with it. Adam is one of the instinctual guys I know in show business. It comes from a place of joy. When he’s excited about something or finds something funny it’s not, ‘Oh I think that’s funny.’ He literally bounces out of his body. Smigel has the same thing. On Saturday Night Live one of my favorite memories is these two guys coming into the room and trying to read their sketch to me at 3 o’clock in the morning not being able to get the words out because they are laughing so hard and drooling on themselves. ‘Then this happens! And then oh my god then this happens!’”
Robert Smigel: “He puts it in a great way. Adam, he’s such a genuine guy and his enthusiasm is always such a blast to work with him back then. He was very unguarded for a person at Saturday Night Live, compared to most people there. Everybody is really funny and brilliant and they secretly believe that, but they would never come out and say it. The second day Adam was there he goes, ‘Smigel I’m going to be huge.’ [Laughter] And you couldn’t resent him for saying it at all because he was just being sweet and honest and he was hilarious.”
Judd Apatow brought male frontal nudity into the mainstream and you had a big chance here. Will there ever be a time when you would consider that?
Adam Sandler: “If I can guarantee I work up enough of a… Like, there are certain times of the day you don’t want to see it. If I can monitor my body and know the exact time to shoot when it is looking the plumpest...”
