CLICK : An Interview with Adam Sandler and Kate Beckinsale

Which genre do you prefer to do, comedy or drama?

AS: Showing up that day and knowing that we have a funny scene coming. The day I had to be upset over my father in the movie, I don’t like sitting in my trailer being depressed all day and looking at pictures. I don’t like that. I do it. I’m glad it’s over. Feels like a relief if I did the best I could do. It’s a huge sense of accomplishment, but I rather go to work and fart in Hasselhoff’s face.

Do you have any funny Christopher Walken’s story?

AS: Everyday was pretty enjoyable watching the Walken. My favorite thing is introducing anybody to Walken. The fear is everybody’s eye when they are shaking Walken’s hand, they don’t know what’s going to happen, and Walken’s always very cordial. People tend to be nervous around the man.

KB: (Looking at Adam) Funny how you said cordial. I wouldn’t have immediately picked that word. I remember my daughter running into him in his costume by the craft service table and coming back with like the whites of her eyes saying, “I’ve seen a man that I don’t like”.(Laughs) She actually really warmed up to him.

Adam, do you see this movie as your version of “It’s a Wonderful Life”?

AS: You know I don’t know if it’s our version of it. It does teach you a lesson about living your life, but I wouldn’t compare our movie to that. It’s structure is about a man who doesn’t appreciate all that he has and finds out at the end that life has been great and he has to enjoy that. There are similarities, no doubt about it.

Have you know that for a long time, that life was great?

AS: No, I always tend to forget. In some days, I have times when I’m feeling great. I feel like I love my life and then 2:30 rolls around and I’m the angriest man alive. You don’t see the ups and downs of Sandler? The wife sees it.

How was it working with the kids and dogs in the film?

AS: Those kids are the nicest kids; they’re both sweet. They would hug us every morning and say “I love you” at the end of the day. It felt great. I knew I was having a daughter so I kept going, “I hope my daughter is as nice as this kid” and doesn’t end up like me. The dogs were great. Great humping. It was fun to watch that. Anytime I said hump away, they were nailing it.

Adam, is there a real O’Doyle family because they keep coming up in your movies?

Adam Sandler: You know what, Billy Madison, a classic by the way, and this guy Ric Wilkes, he did a rewrite on Billy Madison back in the day and he added the O’Doyle thing. I think it was his buddy and a lot of kids always talk about the O’Doyle, so that’s whay we named this kid O’Doyle; but Rick Wilkes gets the credit on that name. I don’t know any O’Doyle, but I know people like the O’Doyles.

Kate, can you talk about working with Adam?

KB: I really don’t like to do that while he’s here. I had such an amazing time on the movie. I really did think that I might just be this roaming pair of breast that wouldn’t quite fit and that I would be tolerated and then I might bend over and it might be an event. My daughter was around and these kids were brilliant in the movie. If I had a child actor I would want them to be in an Adam Sandler movie because he just comes in and makes them so comfortable and he is so brilliant with them and they go ahead and think that they have this special relationship with him and my daughter has decided that she’s a relative while doing the movie. He’s just generous and brilliant to work with. I was so bummed out when it was over I felt like summer camp had ended and nobody invited me to Hanukah. It was great. I loved it.

How do you decide which film you want to be in and which film you want to produce?

AS: I don’t know. It’s just something I feel I can do alright. I like being in those and those that I think Schneider and Spade would be funnier at than me, I tell them to do it. I don’t have any clue we decide. I don’t even know where I was when ‘Click” came up. One of my friends called me up. My partner told me about this idea that Steve Koren had. Steve and Mark O’Keefe wrote the screenplay. By the way, I’ve known Steve Koren since I was 22. He was a page at SNL. He would answer the phone and give us phone messages and then he’d give you a message and say, ‘Oh yeah, I wrote a joke”. I’d say that Steve Koren is pretty funny and then all of a sudden, he’s written ‘Bruce Almighty” and this thing, and he’s a giant writer and a great guy. Anyway, so they told me about this premise about the movie and asked if I was interested in that and I didn’t even the script, I just said “that’s a huge idea. It sounds great”. That’s how I decided to this film, off three sentences. I new it could be awesome.

Which Hasselhoff is sexier? Baywatch Hasselhoff or Knight Rider Hasselhoff?

AS: I like them both. I loved Knight Rider growing up. Baywatch I enjoyed many nights. Baywatch is good to have a pause bottom on. Hasselhoff on SNL is where I got to know the man. I thought he was a fun man to hang out with, and I knew he would be funny as hell in his part.

What has been your defining moment of your career?

AS: I have no idea. Does anyone have those?

Does your wife have any influence on the films you take?

AS: Sure, she tells me if she thinks I can do it. I just did a movie that Mike Binder wrote and it’s a very heavy movie and I was scared to do it and my wife read it and encouraged me and she thinks I can do it. I just try to do stuff that I think will be a good movie. I’m just looking to make good movies and looking to be as good as I can be and other than that, that’s about it. I feel much more comfortable doing the comedy, but the fact I got to do dramas, I tested myself a little bit.

Is this the 9/11 movie, Empty City? Can you talk about that?

AS: I don't know how to describe the movie, how to sum it up... I can't wait for Mike Binder, the man who wrote it, and hear him discuss it, because I don't know how to phrase this. But it's just about a man who's been through a terrible thing -- he lost his family in 9/11 -- and he has a hard time just living life and just being in the moment. He doesn't want to know about life. He tries to pretend he never had a family. He can only deal with life by thinking about stuff from his past and growing up and he bumps into... (Don) Cheadle plays, we went to dental school together, and my character hasn't spoken to anybody in five years and Cheadle makes him feel comfortable. So it's about friendship, I guess. I'm sorry. I just don't know how to say. It's a really interesting script and Mike Binder did a great job with the script and I saw some of it recently and it's a heavy-duty movie. It’s not based on a real character, but he (Binder) did a lot of research and met a lot of people it affected.

Can you talk about choosing the music for the film? You seem to have a love for 80s music.

AS: We all got our songs we love in this movie. I don’t know. The Cranberries tune was Tim Herlihy’s, that was one of his favorite tunes. We’re psyched when it’s a song from when we were growing up. I am 39 and when a fellow 39 year old comes up to me and says that he liked that one tune in the movie, I’m happy with that.

Is the next year worrying you?

AS: Nope. I got my kid. I feel a little more relief that I don’t have just think about myself too much. Man, I spent 39 years talking about how great I am. At age 40, it’s time to talk about the kid.

Kate, did you ever get your driver’s license, how’s life in LA, and what’s coming up for you next?

KB: I got as far as using a golf cart on the lot. I went to Nova Scotia and I’ve been really busy. I did an independent film called Snow Angels with David Gordon Green and Selma Blair in Halifax. It was too cold to drive.

When are you getting your license?

KB: I’m think about… Just leave me alone. (Laughs) I actually got that very intimidating book of road signs and I never feel more foreign than talking about driving or dealing with children's schools. That's when I just feel like I just stepped out of Fawlty Towers..

Have you done any sort of remedial driving?

KB: Remedial in the sense of stupid people. Remedial is a class I had to take for math, for the slow learners. We have driver’s lesson in England.

AS: I thought Astin taught you.

KB: Sean Astin taught me for a second, for a night but I don't want to unleash myself on Los Angeles after a one night lesson. I don't think that would be wise for anybody. I don't know how it works here. In England they've got that system where the other people have got a pedal so they can stop you, which they don't have here. Here in LA they have driver's ed. that just seems to happen. I'm so elderly compared to everybody else.

Is your Russian (language) better than your driving?

KB: And I generally use that as an excuse for not driving. If you're going to say, you can't drive. 'Well, I can speak Russian' then that sort of shuts them up.

What’s easier, teaching Adam Russian or learning gross out jokes from him?

KB: I have 4 bothers. I don’t know if he has much to teach me.

Do you use your Russian at all?

KB: I actually used it last week in a taxi to great effect. I’m quite phobic to taxis and I haven’t had that much experience (being in taxis) here, but if they’re Russian, I tend to speak clearly and speak as much Russian as possible and impress them so that they don’t kill me.

Are you fluent?

KB: Not anymore. I was pretty good at the time, but it’s been awhile.

Do you have any parenting advice to Adam?

KB: I think parenting is something where you blast that trail yourself. I would bank sleeping wherever possible and if you're wife's crying a lot, buy some jewelry.

Does being a father makes you think about what kind of movies you want to make?

AS: I don’t want my kid to hear any of the albums I’ve made.

KB: Oh my God, my kid heard one of them. I’m horrified. She kept saying, “They’re all gonna laugh at you?” That was Nova Scotia for me.

AS: I like what I’m doing. I believe in what I’ve done in the past. I hope my kid enjoys the movies I've made and enjoys some of the movies in the future. I don’t think she’s gonna dig them until she’s 14 or 15, or 10, but I know I'll show 'em to her, her whole life. “Watch daddy now.” This will affect you the way it affected all of America.

Kate, any news on Underworld 3?

KB: I don't think I'm invited to that one as I think it was always planned as a prequel so I wasn't a vampire yet.

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