ADAM Sandler talks about appearing in Disney family movie Bedtime Stories, keeping things clean for younger viewers and why he likes to mix things up career-wise where possible…

Q. You’ve had an incredible success rate. Does that add to the pressure on each film?
Adam Sandler: I don’t even know what my movies have done. I’m not cool. I make my movies… I walk away, and then people come up to me and say: “Wow, what a big hit!” But I go: “I don’t want to hear it!” I don’t want to know if they did good or bad… I just want to make movies. So, there’s no pressure. I’ve always been that guy and always will be that guy.

Q. Did you ever imagine as a child you’d become the famous person you are now?
Adam Sandler: Oh wow. No I didn’t think about that when I was a little kid. I knew I was destined for greatness, I just didn’t know how it was going to happen [laughs]. For a while I thought I was going to be this incredible… I was always very good at chess [laughs].

Q. Were bedtime stories a part of your life growing up?
Adam Sandler: Bedtime stories were definitely a big part of my life because I was just so excited my father was talking to me! I was like [puts on weird voice]: “Longer father, stay in the room with me. Can I get a hug also? No? OK!”

Q. Which stories were you told?
Adam Sandler: Do you know The Little Engine That Could? I think I can… I think I can… That was a big one in my house. I’ve been reading it to my kid. I don’t love it as much as an adult. But my kid is two and a half years old and she likes it. I don’t necessarily love reading it to her every day, but I do [laughs]. What else did I like as a kid? I liked Willy Wonka… but just the movie, no one ever read that to me. I’d ask my father to read it to me, and he’d say: “The movie’s coming out in three months…”

Q. What other stories are you telling your daughter?
Adam Sandler: I tell my two and a half year old the little engine story. We also do the free-styling where I improvise a story. I say: “Tell me what you want to hear.” And right now, she is obsessed with food, so she’ll say: “Waffles.” And I’ll say: “Right, there’s a giant waffle…”; “Pancakes!”; “Yeah, the waffle had the fight with the big pancake”; “Syrup!”; “Yes, there was a river made of syrup!”; “Butter!”; “And of course the mountain of butter was there…”; “Cookie… no I want to eat a cookie; no more stories.”

Q. Presumably you both had to reign in your more adult leanings. So how difficult was that?
Adam Sandler: It did feel good to bypass your first instinct and come up with something cleaner. I have hung out with kids in my life and I always try to make them feel comfortable. So, I thought of them. I felt good coming home at night for the first time in a while. Usually, when I come home from a movie set I’m like: “Oh God, I’m gonna get yelled at for that. And my mother’s going to be humiliated!” But this time it was like [in same weird voice]: “There you go mother. Now will you hug me father?”

And for the record, in America we do these test screenings where they also ask who your favourite character is. I got some high score and was high-fiving my friends, singing over and over: “The children think I’m wonderful.” And then I saw Russell’s score and I was like: “How dare he pass Adam Sandler!” He got like a 95 or 96, and I got a 91. After I got past being hurt, I was really happy for Russell. So, the children of America have embraced the long, lean, handsome Russell Brand.

Q. Did you ever get into trouble with Disney for any of the material?
Adam Sandler: No, they were incredibly cool. In fact, they said when we were putting it together that they liked the Happy Madison style of humour. We had a PG movie, so we tried to keep it where everybody would be comfortable with what we were saying. All of us came up with jokes that we felt would be funny – not un-offensive at all. It’s a little different to your average Disney movie, but we feel it’s respectful enough to be in that category.

Q. You’ve tackled a lot of different genres during your career, including drama with Punch-Drunk Love and Reign Over Me. But do you still prefer making comedies?
Adam Sandler: I really do enjoy making movies and I try to test myself on occasion with some different stuff. I did always dream of making a family movie, so that if my daughter has a sleepover in a couple of years they could watch one of mine. But I enjoy doing all different types of movies even though I am the most comfortable with comedy. I actually had a great time on this movie trying to make friendlier jokes.

Q. When did you know you were funny? And what does your daughter think of what her father does for a living?
Adam Sandler: I always tried to be funny. We always told jokes hanging out at the dinner table and stuff. It was my way of getting attention in class and stuff, I’m sure. If it was quiet, I’d like to make a joke and if it worked I was so excited all day long. I’d be talking about it at lunch. But the only reason I got into stand-up was because my brother told me to. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life… I was like 17 and my brother went to a comedy club and said to me: “Hey, you can do that.” So, I said: “OK, that’s what I’ll do.” So, that’s the only reason I got into it. But I didn’t feel confident about it until I was about 22, 23. It took me about five years to be OK about my friends showing up to watch me.

My kid is so funny. She always pretends that she has to go to work. I have an office at Sony and every time my kid starts packing up and putting stuff on her jacket, I say: “Where are you going?” She’ll reply: “Work!” And I’ll say: “Where are you working today?” And she’ll reply: “Sony.” So I’ll ask her if she’s writing and she’ll say: “Making a movie…” So, she knows I make movies. In fact, the other day she visited me on a movie set and I asked her if she wanted to go out to dinner, but she started screaming: “Trailer food!” Like every other rich asshole, I have a cook and he’s in my trailer making food all the time. So, she keeps going: “Trailer food… not pancakes! Better food at trailer.”

Q. You get to sample playing a cowboy and a spaceman in this movie. Did they whet your appetite for playing them in a whole movie?
Adam Sandler: Well, I don’t like being on a horse. That’s the only negative of doing a Western. I like the whole get up, and I look great in a hat. But I get tense around horses. So, if they could make a fake horse, then I’d do a Western.

Read our review of Bedtime Stories

Russell Brand interview

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