Sandler stretches comic boundaries
10:55am Friday 15th August 2008
The Waterboy star Adam Sandler explains why it took him eight years to make his new movie You Don't Mess With The Zohan. He wrote and produced the film, in which he plays an Israeli counter terrorist who decides to become a hairdresser.
As Adam Sandler chases a terrorist along an Israeli beach, his hairy, muscled torso glistens in the sun.
While the Jewish-born comic actor will always be more Austin Powers than James Bond, there’s no denying those muscles are real.
America’s favourite goofy guy has clearly been working out for his latest film, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan.
He may be famous for his slapstick schtick, but this time Sandler - the film’s lead actor, producer and writer - has decided to push both himself and the boundaries of comedy to the limit.
In You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, Sandler plays Zohan Dvir, an Israeli commando who wants to become a hairdresser. After faking his own death, Tel Aviv’s finest counter-terrorist heads to Manhattan, armed just with a book of 1980s hairstyles and a desire to make all hair ‘silky smooth’.
Although many of Sandler’s 20 films over the last decade, such as The Waterboy, 50 First Dates and Spanglish, have catered for a mainstream audience, his more recent movies have been different.
Last year’s I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry delved into the subject of gay marriage and You Don’t Mess With the Zohan focuses on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Adam says the idea for the movie - which features a disproportionate amount of jokes about Jews, terrorists, Arabs, goats and hummous - came to him many years ago. “I had this Israeli guy who used to cut my hair and I always used to ask him questions about the Israeli army. And he would fix my hair while mentioning missions he was on and stuff.”
But although he wrote the movie almost 10 years ago, the events of 9/11 pushed the script to the bottom of the pile. It was only when other comedians began poking fun at sensitive subjects that he thought the world was ready.
“We were consciously trying to do our own thing,” he says. “But I do think Borat is one of the funniest movies. I tried to make sure we didn’t do Borat but I’m sure on occasion we went a bit Boraty.”
Adam’s character, The Zohan, has a legendary reputation for thwarting terrorists, womanising and disco dancing. The 41-year-old followed a strict workout regime to bring his alter-ego to life.
“He worked out for five hours every single day," says director Dennis Dugan. “And moaned about it every single day. Then when we shot for 100 days and he worked out every single day of the shoot and moaned about it every single day.”