Adam Sandler recalls first time he read a review for one of his films: ‘Oh my god, what happened?’

Sandler co-wrote Billy Madison and says it “stung” when critical response was so negative.


All right, so yeah, everybody, a great honor.

While millions of people love Adam Sandler’s movies, critics are a different story.
During a Netflix conversation around his acclaimed basketball dramedy Hustle, Sandler recalled reading reviews for Billy Madison, the first film he co-wrote with longtime collaborator Tim Herlihy.

“When I was 17 and I got into this, I didn’t think about critics … I didn’t even realize that stuff was coming. I just thought you made movies, people go see it,” Sandler said. “When Billy Madison came out, me and my friend who wrote it,” he explained, “we were just like, ‘Oh yeah, they’re going to write about this in New York!’ We grew up reading the papers, we were going to NYU. And then we read the first one and we were like, ‘Oh my god, what happened? They hate us.’ And then we were like, ‘It must have been this paper,’ but then 90 percent of the papers are going ‘This is garbage.'”

BILLY MADISON, Bridgette Wilson, Adam Sandler, 1995

Adam Sandler in ‘Billy Madison’. UNIVERSAL/EVERETT

Sandller admits that the negative reaction “stung,” but mostly because “you know your grandmother’s reading it.” He worried that his family might be put in a position to defend him against naysayers citing bad reviews. Eventually, he and Herlihy decided “maybe we shouldn’t read this stuff because it’s so harsh.”

“I say the first two or three, Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, we would still kinda hear about it,” Sandler continued. “People would call us up, “Can you believe they said this about you?’ I’d be like, ‘I didn’t read it, man.'”

But all those years of harsh reviews haven’t led to any harsh feelings on Sandler’s part.

“It’s great, everything has turned out excellent,” Sandler said. “And it’s okay, I get it. Critics aren’t going to connect with certain stuff and what they want to see. I understand that it’s not clicking with them.”

That his latest film, Hustle, is clicking with them, however, is gratifying. “I’m glad I’m getting praise, I’ll take it, but everybody worked hard on the movie,” he added, “I had a great part and I did the best I could with it.”