Although Adam Sandler has forever been known as a comedic force in movies, most recently in the long-awaited Netflix sequel to Happy Gilmore, his performances in such films as Hustle, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love, Noah Baumbach‘s The Meyerowitz Stories and the Safdie Brothers’ Uncut Gems have proven this is a star with serious dramatic acting chops. Now he is getting major Oscar buzz (again) for his role as Ron, the ever-loyal but conflicted manager to George Clooney‘s major movie star going through an existential crisis of identity in Jay Kelly. It has brought Sandler critical raves (and so has the film for Baumbach who directed it) after its Venice and Telluride launches, and now tonight premieres at the New York Film Festival.
While in Telluride I sat down with Sandler and Baumbach to talk about their second teaming together and just what made Sandler perfect for this role.
DEADLINE: So after working with Adam in The Meyerowitz Stories what inspired this reunion on Jay Kelly?
NOAH BAUMBACH: Emily [Mortimer] and I were writing the character, I wanted it to be Adam, because, you know, I’d gotten to know Adam, and we’re very close, and our families are claiming we’re in love.
ADAM SANDLER: Yeah.
BAUMBACH: Adam has such generosity of spirit and such love and such loyalty to the people he works with, you know, the way he takes care of his family, it’s just really remarkable to me. I think we share that, this love of life and movies and having the people you love to be there in the movie, because you love your movie, and you want to love the people in them and I always use my friends, either depending on their abilities or the roles, I use people in my movies who I’ve known my whole life, or you know, I bring my own family into it. But I felt like with Ron, it would be a way for Adam to sort of play something that I feel is actually quite close to him, but in a character that actually isn’t that close to him. Adam obviously, lives Jay Kelly’s life in reality.
SANDLER: At times.
BAUMBACH: I mean in terms of, like, being a worldwide movie star, and so you know, it’s something exciting to me that he would be playing something that was kind of close to him, but in disguise in a way.
DEADLINE: Why did you decide to do this very industry showbiz centric story now?
BAUMBACH: It uses the movie business, the sort of notion of the movie star and all the people around them. All of that’s compelling and fun, and it’s a world I know really well. Making a movie about an actor is making a movie about persona and performance and identity and choices and all the things that are inherent in that. In a way I feel like it’s one of the most universal stories I’ve told, even though it actually takes place in a kind of somewhat rarified world, but it’s rarified only in terms of where Jay Kelly exists in the culture. I mean, as we actually discover Jay Kelly was a kid from Kentucky with no money whose dad worked for the John Deere corporation. And you see Ron is dealing with all the sort of ordinary work-life questions that could be in any profession, right?…The story of success is the same story as the story of failure. It’s like it’s a barrier between you and who you might actually be, and in the case of a movie star, it’s such a specific thing. It’s like his name means something different than what his name meant when he was young. So, it’s like he lost his name, and I think that’s such an interesting way to explore how we all sort of deal with this gap between who we present ourselves as, and who we might actually be, and as we all get older we’re all hopefully getting closer to ourselves.
DEADLINE: Adam it looks like you just slipped into this role, like you knew this guy. So, what do you base it on, besides their script?
SANDLER: I base it on conversations with Noah and talking about my own teams, my own people that I’ve seen throughout the years, Noah’s people that he’s seen throughout the years and just that sense of a person who’s so dedicated to one person or all his clients and how much damage that can cause at home, just because of the amount of time that takes to be dedicated to someone, and the arts. 3AM in the morning, things can come to that person’s mind that is very important to them, and you have to be there for them. So, yeah, it’s about kind of giving away any privacy and just being okay with that, and I thought that was fun to be a man like that, to be a guy that said, ‘hey, even though it pains me right now, you guys know the drill. This guy comes first.
BAUMBACH: It’s also like, to be good at your job…But to be good at your job in that instance means that you’re dedicating yourself and your time and your life, If you’re younger and you love it you’re happy to devote all day long to it, but then, as you start to have a life and a family, but you’re still doing it….You know, when I was starting, I would edit seven days a week. I still love editing as much as I ever did, but you know, I want a weekend with my family, and I want to knock off at six and go have dinner with the kids and do all that. Liz (Laura Dern’s publicist character) even says it to Ron. ‘In the beginning, it was fun. You know, he was our baby, and we take care of him, but now we have real babies’.
SANDLER: It’s a heartbreaking scene on the tennis court, just how much my daughter needs me there, how important it is, and just it’s out of my control. Something’s going on with the man I’m dedicated to, and I’m going to Europe with him, and you can’t talk me out of it, because I know what’s best.
BAUMBACH: Ron is like Jay’s shadow. I mean, the opening of the movie, when, you know, we make our way through the set, and Jay actually is a shadow when we first see him in the tent, and Ron and the shadow move together and then kind of converge. It was sort of a way to tell that story right off the bat… Jay’s having a sort of existential dark night of the soul, and Ron’s having the more ordinary version of ‘I’m away from my family. I’m trying to do a good job at work. I’m also trying to be a good parent, and how do I do this? And this is what I chose, or I need to re-choose this or not’.
DEADLINE: This wouldn’t have worked if we didn’t believe the relationship between Ron and Jay. Adam, you and George Clooney go back decades, don’t you?
SANDLER: Yes. We knew each other, George and I were always nice to each other, but we spent a lot of time on and off the set, and I’ll tell you what, no one was pulling for me like George every scene. Every scene, he was so excited about the stuff we’d do together and so excited…he was so quick to, on hearing cut, compliment what I did, and I would say, ‘well, do you just know how great you are and how easy it is to do this with you?’ And he doesn’t like compliments. He’s just like, ‘no, no, no, no, no, it’s okay, thank you, but what you’re doing’. He’s such a nice, giving actor, and we did have a nice time on set. When Noah was setting up a shot, we’d sit with each other, George and I, and just talk and get close and run scenes or just talk about life and talk about our families, and we’re very kind to each other.
DEADLINE: You’re running away with the reviews in this, if you read them.
SANDLER: Just so you know, I don’t read them, but I’ll take it. Thank you.
DEADLINE: There’s major awards buzz around your performance. How does that feel?
SANDLER: It’s really nice, man. I get to talk about it…I don’t know what a right answer to that is, you know, but it’s just all exciting. I do have to say, whatever compliment comes my way goes back to my man Noah. I’m proud to be this man but I know it came from Noah, and I’m really thankful that he gave me this part that had so many different things to do and ways to think.
DEADLINE: And it’s not the first time. Obviously, Uncut Gems and Punch-Drunk Love put you in the conversation, and on and on.
SANDLER: Man, I’m so happy. Noah called me, it was probably two years ago, and said he has an idea, and he wants to include me, and so, right away, you say, well, that’s big, because Noah’s writing, and how serious and how hard he works, you know there’s going to be something there that, as an actor, you say, ‘okay, man, this is the big time’, and you don’t want to waste a word of it. Then I got to read it, and then I said, ‘okay, this is something that I will never forget. I’m diving in deep and trying to be this guy, and I’m going to love being this guy’, and you don’t think of the other stuff. Others have brought stuff up while we were shooting, to me, and I would say, ‘I don’t think I want to talk about anything but how great this movie could be’, and so, that’s where you land. I just love Noah. I know that everything I did in this movie is where he led me. When I make my movies, I work hard on them, and I feel the pride in everybody’s performance, and I have the same feeling about this movie. I know I follow what Noah told me to do, and I would always be happy when Noah would say we got it. On a particular take, I’d say, ‘all right, if Noah’s happy, then we’re doing something right’.
Jay Kelly opens in select theatres November 14 and begins streaming on Netflix December 5.
