Sandler, Brand Find Fresh Tone to Tell Some Bedtime Stories
Bedtime Stories
For Adam Sandler fans, seeing the comedian in Bedtime Stories may come as a surprise. Stripped of mature jokes and references (well, mostly), the fantastical, family movie focuses on a down-and-out hotel handyman who begins to achieve his dreams through his imagination.
For Adam Sandler, the prospect of making a Disney movie meant he finally had a movie he could take his children to see.
"I've always wanted to do a family movie," the father of two told press a recent Saturday. "I wanted to make sure that I made one movie in my career that mothers hugged me for."
As Skeeter, a man whose dreams of running his father's hotel were robbed by a scheming magnate, Sandler is single, gets no respect from his snooty colleagues and has a rocky relationship with his sister (Courteney Cox). But when she leaves her two small children with him for a week, a nightly bedtime story ritual begins and with it, a new world of possibility unfolds for Skeeter. Suddenly, he sees he can become the hero of his own story.
While the nightly adventures take him and the children anywhere their imagination allows — from a medieval castle to the Wild West, from ancient Rome to a spaceship — in real life, Skeeter lands on new turf when he gets a shot at running the hotel. He just has a few obstacles to overcome to win the keys to the castle — and the princess' heart.
Sandler's character gets some help along the way from the likes of his longtime collaborator Rob Schneider, who makes some choice cameos, and Keri Russell (notably, a former Mousketeer), who plays a tightly wound family friend helping to babysit. Standing by Skeeter through his challenges, meanwhile, is English comedian Russell Brand (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) as his best friend Mickey, the hotel's bellhop who spices things up with his raucous humor, sometimes even upstaging the main character.
The upstaging was no secret to Sandler, who met his costar several years ago during an appearance on Brand's show in the U.K. He joked that there have been only two times that he lost an audience's attention during a TV appearance. "I was on a show with *NSYNC, [that's] one time no one looked at me," Sandler said. "I was on a show in England with Russell, no one looked at me. Girls were staring at Russell, 'My god I want that man!'"
Like Sandler, adjusting his typical comedic style for a children's movie was something that Brand also had to learn for Bedtime Stories. "Sometimes parameters I think create better work, because otherwise you have go-to places, comedically," he said. (Of course, Brand then went on to crack a joke on the topic that is not publishable here.)
Ultimately, though, Sandler still brings his typical goofy and likable persona to the screen in Bedtime Stories and, as a family film, the message is clear: "This notion that spending time together, being creative, there are no limits and there are happy endings, because that's what a happy ending is, it's hope," director Adam Shankman said. "Hopefully that's the feeling you'll take away from it, and will inspire parents to spend more time with their kids and really talk."
Bedtime Stories opens Christmas Day.
