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...the shampoo is my favorite part of the shower

Interview with Adam Sandler and Allen Covert

By Dadi Rafnsson

"I think there are a lot of funny movies out there. My buddies and I work hard on our stuff, thinking about the fans of course, who is going to see it and make sure they have a good time. I think about when I was growing up and going to the movies, how I would like to be laughing and having a good time," says Adam Sandler the star of Little Nicky, out on November 9^th. The Buccaneer caught up with Sandler and co-producer and actor Allen Covert in Atlanta promoting their new movie.

Are you planning to host Saturday Night Live to promote Little Nicky and if you are what are your feelings about going back?

AS: I would love to be a host on SNL but I am not going to be hosting it now. When you host it takes about six days or so and I am going to be running around promoting this movie. But someday I would love to do it and I might pop up on there or something but when I go I want it to be as funny as possible.

Which one do you think is funnier, Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore?

AS: Well, I do not want to piss off anyone, I have had people talk to me about both movies, but the one that means the most to me is Billy Madison. That was the first one where I got to be with my buddies, hanging out on the set and the studio left us pretty much alone. It is my father's favorite one as well. I do not sit around and watch my movies anymore though, but I saw the Waterboy yesterday. I was at a gym, working out which I do once every six months. I was on the 'electrical thing' and the Waterboy was playing on the TV so I thought I would watch it for a minute. Apparently I laughed and the guy next to me goes 'Do you like your shit that much?'

You come up with some really weird stuff in your movies, like the clown in Billy Madison. Where does that come from?

AS: Well, actually Allen wrote that! I remember him coming up with that funny clown and me staring at him for a while. It is kind of a mixture, Covert writes a lot of stuff for us, so we sit in a room and wonder about what is funny and what will work.

Which one is better, shampoo or conditioner?

AS: (Laughs) I have got this new stuff, it is brand new...they say it is not shampoo or conditioner. But I have used both but my favorite part of the shower is usually the shampoo. I know it plenty of more time to hang out in there you know. With the conditioner it is like, ah the shower is almost done so the shampoo is my favorite part of the shower.

In your movies influence from '70s and '80s music, hard rock and glam rock is evident. What is the best hard rock ever and how has it affected your life?

AS: The first one that comes to mind is Back in Black. That was probably the first album I used my own money to buy, or actually I raked the lawn and my father gave me a couple of bucks, but it means a lot to me, I think it was four bucks back then. You could pick any tune on that one and be excited about it. I liked Zeppelin back in the days...what else? AC: I would say Kiss, Destroyer AS: Yeah, definitely Kiss... AC: Of course my mom would not let me go see them in concert so I stayed in my room listening to them... AS: And Aerosmith of course, from New England, a good Boston band so we listened to a lot of them. AC: And Ozzie of course... AS: Actually my brother was a big Black Sabbath freak. We would have sleep-over parties with eight of us sleeping on a waterbed downstairs and make a lot of noise and my brother did not like it so he would crank Black Sabbath at 6 o'clock in the morning to wake us up.

The style of Little Nicky is consistent with the style of your other movies. Do you have any plans for a change of direction in the future?

AS: Well, I like doing the stuff we write and hanging out with my friends, working as hard as we can on comedy. I am sure that eventually down the line I will end up doing something...Paul Thomas Anderson wrote a movie that I am talking to him about, he is a nice guy and a good director. It is...I don not know...I have got to figure out what the hell I want to do with my life. I am happy making these movies, I like talking to people on the street about them and it is what I have thought about doing since I was younger, make comedies. When I was in college I did not say that one day I want to be a great actor but that one day I wanted to make comedies. That was then and now I have got to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. AC: I am just happy to have a job...

What was it like for you back in your college days?

AS: Oh, you went to three schools... AC: Yeah, I went to the University of South Florida for a semester and a half...and I decided I wanted to go somewhere else. AS: A girl or something...he got his heart broken... AC: Something like that, then I went to Palm Beach Junior College for a semester... AS: How did you do there? AC: I did okay there I took Children's Theater and got an A...and then I went to NYU where we met...and that was fun, we took comedy classes, plays, he was always doing stand-up. AS: Yeah, I would run around at night and do stand up in the clubs there...trying to figure that out. I studied acting at school...and was not very good at it. The teacher did not like me very much...I actually got a letter in the mail from one of my teachers saying I should think of another profession...that guy I have not seen in a while...(laughs). But we did try, a couple of our friends are geniuses, did not study that much and always had good grades. They were always drunk...but I had to work real hard because I am not...smart, but I was basically doing stand up for the whole four years and then I would come back and hang out with the guys. Colvert is a genius though, he did not have to study that much.

How did you come up with the concept of that recognizable voice and facial expressions?

AS: There was this kid in my high school who talked like that...he was a nice kid. He was the rock n' roll dude who would always have fun facts about rock n' roll, like (does voice) 'Hey, did you know Elton John was the first guy to put bitch on vax? No one really had the courage to say bitch on record until good old Elton John', so I used to him when in school.

You usually play the underdog, is that based on personal experience?

AS: I like playing the guy who gets screwed with a lot and is not sure how to handle it. In real life I guess I have been the underdog before, and also the jerk. I got picked on and I also did a lot of stupid things so I would say I am right down the middle.

This movie has a lot of religious undertones, did you think of potential reactions while making it?

AS: I knew it would raise a whole lot of questions about religious things but we just wanted to make a funny movie, which happened to be based on heaven and hell. AC: But we tried to keep it rather generic and not really specific to any religion but just heaven is for good people and hell is for bad people. AS: We tried to make it so that the devil would not be a wicked guy but rather like a warden in prison, making sure that people get punished. I did not want to make a movie where anyone would run out screaming 'How dare you make light of this?' We just wanted to make people laugh.

Who would win in a physical fistfight, you or Jim Carrey?

AS: I used to say to him back in the days when we were younger that I could beat the hell out of him, guaranteed, but now I am getting older...and he is taller, got those long arms and he is in shape. But I have got to mention that I was at his house the other day, and now I am not a tennis player but we played tennis and I beat the shit out of him.

When you two get together, do you do characters to each other or are you just two guys hanging out?

AS: He is a funny guy, I just sit, listen and laugh. He is a really smart guy and I like hanging out with him but we just get together and when something funny comes out it...it is just like we are two guys who started out together, we used to hang out at my apartment with my roommate a lot. But we have been through similar things in life, trying to be stand up guys, then getting on stage, then getting into the movies so we have a lot in common and like hanging out.

Carrey has done some serious roles in recent years. Do you feel like you want to follow suit and do you feel labeled in any way as a comedian?

I like the stuff Jim has done. Like I said, I am already talking about doing different stuff with Paul Thomas Anderson. I am very happy with what I have done in my life, I have worked hard at my stuff and met a lot of people. The coolest thing in the world to me is like when this 15-year-old kid comes up to me and says 'My dad and I stayed up last night and watched Happy Gilmore'. So I am happy the way things are right now but we will see what happens down the road.

Many of the funniest roles in your movies are done by walk-ons like Bob Barker in Happy Gilmore. Has anybody turned you down for a walk on role?

AS: Not really, not yet. We were nervous about whether Bob Barker was going to say no back in the days because we wrote a whole damn scene for him, five pages worth of stuff. So we sent it to him and thought that if he did not agree to do it we would have to write it all over again. Luckily he agreed. AC: Yeah, he just agreed because he won the fight. He said that if he had lost the fight in the movie he would not have done it but since he won it he was happy as ever. AS: He did know how to fight, he did his own stunts.

Harvey Keitel, Quentin Tarantino, tough guys, independent film guys. How and why did they end up with you?

AC: Quentin was supposed to play my part... AS: Yeah, we were thinking about him playing Allen's part but then we came up with this deacon guy. So we called him up and he came over one morning and hung out with us, he knows a lot about movies and stuff and he ended up in the movie. I met Harvey Keitel when he was hosting SNL and I thought he was a really nice guy, but usually we look up people we want to hang out with. When you are shooting a movie it takes a few months so you might as well like the people you are hanging out with.

Sports play a big role in your movies.

AS: Yeah, definitely. I did a lot of sports growing up. My dad was my coach all the time. I was like really good until age 12. I thought I was the best and then everybody got bigger, stronger...faster. But I used to throw touchdown passes to myself, diving on the bed. And now I get to do it in the movies and pretend to be cooler than I actually am.

You have been more involved in the production of your own movies and now with Deuce Bigalow as well? Is that the same kind of thrill for you?

AS: Well, the biggest thrill I get is when I meet people who have watched my movies and they are talking about them. But I want to continue to work hard. With Billy Madison it was the first movie where I started to take more responsibility to make sure the movie looks the way I want it to look. As with Deuce Bigalow, I sit in the editing room with them and write a little bit of the script and help out. But I have gotten to the position where people are listening to me out there and I am able to work with some of the funniest guys I know so I let just let them do their thing.

How do you get the ideas for your movies?

AS: Usually I just stumble upon the ideas, this one actually came when we were watching Angelheart, so that was lucky. There are times when I just drive around with my friends or just drive around alone and the idea comes. But not in the shower though, there I am working on my hairdo. I try to notice when something funny happens and write it down thinking it could work in a movie, I have got notebooks full of stuff like that. And just talking with Covert and the guys I get notebooks worth of jokes. I know guys who go away and write but I cannot do that, when I go away I just want to block everything out. Usually it takes time to develop one big idea but now I have got five big ideas which I want to work on.

What comedians did you watch growing up and who do you watch now?

AS: When I was growing up my dad used to call me in the room when the Marx brothers were on. I watched a lot of Abbot and Costello on Saturday and Sunday mornings...Jerry Lewis. I met him a couple of months ago and he was really nice...first time I have met him. When I was in High School I used to memorize Rodney (Dangerfield) and come home and do his stuff for my dad and my brothers. I got to see him when I was in ninth grade, with my grandmother and family down in Florida. I tell him that every time I see him and he says 'Hey, say hi to your family'. Pretty tense stuff, huh? (smiles)

You seem really tight with your family?

AS: Yeah, I hang out with them a lot and we are tight family wise. I am very tight with my father and the same with my friends, they are very close to their dads. All of the guys I hang around with come from families that like to joke around, people you want to hang around with. My family is the most important thing to me, my brother and two sisters. My parents live in New Hampshire and whenever I get to see them it is a big thing for me. The best thing a kid can do is make his parents proud. My sister is really smart, my brother is a genius and my other sister is really nice...I just try to be funny.