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March 2007
REIGN OVER ME - Cast Interviews

Reign Over Me: Press Conference with Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Jada Pinkett Smith, Liv Tyler and Director Mike Binder
By Niambi Sims

Don, you got directly involved in the Darfur campaign and how is that going? And, are you doing the Petey Green (Talk to Me) story?

Don Cheadle: The situation with Darfur is a fluid scenario and it’s always changing and there’s always new wrinkles. The President of Iran was just in Darfur so we don’t know how forces are aligning themselves. They think there may be oil now in northern Darfur and that may be a reason all this conflict has happen and, if that’s true, it’s going to be a whole other situation there between who’s going to try and get that oil. So that’s a situation that needs constant mindfulness and we have to stay on it and I do think the fact that you are asking this question at a press conference means more people are aware of it and if people write about it more people will become aware of it and that’s what it’s gonna take I think is a consistent awareness about that and applying ourselves to see an effective change. The Petey Green (Talk To Me) story will be out in July. It’s something I’m really looking forward to. I don’t know what impact that will have but I hope people enjoy it. I think it’s a really entertaining film.


Mike, you ride a thin line between drama and comedy with this and “The Upside of Anger”. Can you talk about how you craft that?

Mike Binder: You try to. I tried to. I never wanted to do just comedy or just drama. When I was a kid I loved Neil Simon’s stuff and I loved Woody Allen’s stuff. I really like the stuff James Brooks was doing. I never wanted to do just comedy or just drama. Sometimes, going back and forth you can get yourself in trouble which happened to me on other things so you’re always trying for a delicate balance. I also think that they compliment each other so well. There are issues in this movie that are really tough to watch; moments that are hard to deal with. Not to compare it with what Don was saying about Darfur but I think it is important for us, as people, to be really sympathetic to people that are going through all these different versions of loss in life. You want to do a movie that shows that and, if it’s too dry, nobody wants to see it. It’s too hard to watch. So, if you can throw comedy in there, you make it more of an uplifting experience and you hope that, by doing that, you’re allowing people to become just a little bit more aware of what other people in the world are going through.


Did you write it with Adam in mind?

Mike Binder: No. I didn’t write it with Adam in mind. But, when he wanted to do it, I thought he would be perfect. Then he didn’t want to do it and I thought, ‘he’s an asshole’. I hate Adam Sandler. (laughs).

Don Cheadle: We’ve all been through similar things.

Mike Binder: And then when he wanted to do it again I thought, ‘you know, he’s not such an asshole’.

Don Cheadle: Then, in the negotiations, he thought again….

Mike Binder: But, as soon as Adam’s agent brought up the idea, I thought ‘That’s a great idea’ because I loved “Punch Drunk Love”. And I also like how vulnerable Adam is even when he’s at his craziest. There’s something about Adam. We’ve gotten really close working on this movie and I know why Adam is such a big star. There’s no mystery about it. When you get to know Adam you don’t think, ‘boy, this guy got lucky’ or ‘this guy’s been smart’. There’s a humanity to this guy that people are smelling and seeing coming off the film and I was getting that and thought Adam would be the perfect guy to play Charlie Feinman. Whatever that is coming off the film….


Adam after this, are you looking for more things that scare you?

Adam Sandler: Uh, no. I was hanging out with Cheadle the other day and Don said ‘Any other serious stuff coming?’ and I was like ‘you know, after that one, I’m cool with just staying away from that for a while’. I had a headache almost every day on the set. I was in my trailer.. normally on movies, I go to my trailer and have ten guys hanging out with me and we’re laughing and they’re like ‘Adam, come to set’ and I’m like ‘Aaa, I gotta go do this’. On this one, I was there all alone.

Liv Tyler: With your I-Pod.

Adam Sandler: With my I-Pod. I was learning how to play the drums every day. It was a lot of work, man and, emotionally, I don’t cry in real life. I’m just pretty light and I don’t get too heavy. I snap a lot but I get over it pretty quickly. With this guy, he had to hold his pain and I tried to do so throughout the shoot as much as I could so I’m in no hurry to do it again. But, I’ll tell ya, I did not know how funny the movie was going to be. When Binder would talk to me about scenes and say, ‘it’s gonna be funny when blah, blah, blah’, I was always thinking Binder was crazy. I don’t see this being funny, man. I don’t get it at all. I don’t know if Don thought that. I knew there were some light moments and I probably saw about five percent of the comedy. Mike would talk about the movie and go ‘do you think that’s gonna kill?’ and I was like ‘I don’t know what he’s talking about, man’ and then I saw it play in Seattle for the first time and it was getting all these laughs and I as baffled by it. I couldn’t believe it. I was so concentrated on my character and his pain and what he was going through and how much Don’s character meant to him and being with him and just blocking everybody else out that I didn’t know it was going to be…

Don Cheadle: Didn’t you stand up and say ‘this isn’t funny!’


Adam Sandler: I yelled at the crowd, yeah. How dare you.

Adam, you keep your hair short in real life and, in this film, you have this sort of Bob Dylan hair. How was that for you? Was it a wig.


Adam Sandler: Yeah. I would slip it on and ….

Liv Tyler: He doesn’t let them glue it. You’re supposed to. He likes to take it on and off like a cap.

Adam Sandler: I’m not good with that. I can’t sit still when people are touching me so I put in on in the morning and put my headphones on and I liked having it on. The long hair helped me hide and stay away from people and that felt good. If I grew my hair out that long, I think it would be covering Cheadle’s head right now if it grows out a little more.


There is controversy about actors getting involved with causes. Should actors just shut up and act?

Don Cheadle: Before I was an actor I was a very opinionated person and I’ve never shut up, much to my parents’ chagrin a lot of times and people at school. So, it wasn’t for me, anything different except for now there are fifteen dictaphones in front of me and people seem to want to know what I say. That’s a whole package for me. It’s not just about what movies I’m doing or what I’m trying to promote for myself. It’s about these things I’m concerned with and actually effect my life. I’m not playing at this. I’m not doing it to try and get publicity. In fact, if I were, it’s probably the wrong kind of publicity that could help me in my acting. It tends to make people think I’m much more serious than I am and I get pigeonholed as the guy who’s got such a…… I’m a fool and that’s another part of me too that it makes that hard for people to see. So, it’s just a reality that I was effected by doing a film and was pulled into a scenario by people who were likewise concerned about what is happening in the world and my eyes were opened and once I went over there and saw it with my own eyes and smelled it and touched it and picked up a kid, you know I’m a dad and once I picked up a kid, I was like, ‘I can’t just leave and not do something with this’.

Adam Sandler: It’s up to the individual. I don’t tend to talk too much. I think, with this movie, I just want the movie to speak for itself and I’m more comfortable doing that most of the time.


Where do you go from here? Do you want to do just comedy then?

Adam Sandler: I don’t know. Eventually, I might get caught up in something that I didn’t know was coming but, I’ve done some comedies since this movie, just doin’ what I do.


Liv, are you going back to work again?

Liv Tyler: I’ve just done two movies. I did “The Strangers”, which is a scary movie and then I did a movie called “Smother” with Diane Keaton.

REIGN OVER ME OPENS ON MARCH 23, 2007


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