Title: STRESS for
success; In the film Anger Management, Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson star as
patient and therapist - although at times it is hard to tell which one is
which. Hannah Jones finds out what makes both stars tick.(Features)
Date: 6/4/2003; Publication: Western Mail (
Byline: Hannah Jones
JACK NICHOLSONQIn Anger Management, you play a guy who's trying to help Adam Sandler's character with his anger. But what makes you angry?
AI blew my stack Friday afternoon at work. I'm always wrong when I do it, but not completely. I justify it. What really makes me angry is ignorant dogma. When people are so sure they're right.
Q: Give me examples.
A: I'm more of a flash, angry person. But on the second movie I ever did, I went into a restaurant with my girlfriend and the director Roger Corman. My girlfriend says to the waitress, `I don't like the way the steak is cooked'. The waitress looked at the steak and said `You asked for this and that'. I just took the steak off the plate and threw it straight up in the air. That's the kind of anger, the sweeping off type.
Q: And other times?
A: I've been in a few riots at sports events. I was at a football game at the Coliseum during the Vietnam War and these rednecks were sitting behind me and my girlfriend, Michelle Phillips. They were being very insulting to a group of ladies. I turned around face to face with this guy - the three big ones were off getting hot dogs - and he hid behind his wife.
I remember grabbing this poor man's wife and dragging her over the seats in order to get a hold of him. I was pretty enraged. I got one bad punch in, I cut my finger on his glasses and then we were out of there. I'm a coward, first of all, so when I get to that place, it's purely hysterical.
When I'm angry and I can't control myself, I don't like it.
I've never liked fighting. You know, I could get killed.
Q: There was a famous incident a few years ago when you smashed up a car with a golf club. There's a scene in Anger Management like that.
A: I told them we shouldn't do that. But when it came time to shoot the scene, we had a big discussion and it wound up being back in the script. The view of anger in this picture, all the therapy has authentic roots, all of it. In comedy, I feel you are freer to step over the line.
Q: What initially attracted you to Anger Management?
A: I was interested in working with Adam Sandler. I was very surprised when he offered me Anger Management. I read it, thought it was funny. I got together with him, asked him what he thought about movies and met the guys in his com-pany. He said that their metaphor for making the movie was they imagined the movie coming out in the audience and everybody laughing like crazy, like they were at a great party. That's what they'd shoot for. And I thought, ``Well, that's good enough for me.''
Q: So was doing a comedy something relatively new to you?
A: Restraint is a quality I admire and modern comedy isn't about that really. I thought, `Well, let me see how I'll function in a place where my own sense of what's good and bad isn't where the whole kit and caboodle is coming from'. I like to learn, that's what it's all about for me. I'm still getting better, you know?
Q: What impressions did you take from Adam Sandler?
A: My kids are crazy about Adam Sandler. He's a very, very sweet man to people. And I've watched him on the phone with his cigar, doing business. He's very smart and very sharp and strong. He won't be pushed where he doesn't want to be pushed. And I took a lot from the way he worked.
Q: The director of Anger Management, Peter Segal, said everyone was really nervous on the first day of shooting because you, the great Jack Nicholson, were on set. What did you do to calm their nerves? A: I looked around at all the people so they knew I was there, so they couldn't pretend they didn't know I was there. And I screamed at them. But I think people feel
very comfortable with me almost within a minute or two of being around me.
Q: Some of your facial expressions in Anger Management are hysterical. Have you had your eyebrows insured? Can you do any tricks with them?
A: I can do a few tricks with them. I can move them around at will, that's for sure.
Some movies I deliberately move my eyebrows and scream and yell and I did that in Anger Management. But I have never insured them. I could work without them.
Q: Have you ever been in therapy yourself?
A: My first official therapy was in the original groups that studied LSD. I was with Cary Grant and others at UCLA. Iwas a subject in this psychedelic experiment. I went into Richen therapy somewhere in my late 20s.
Q: What are you thinking when you go into therapy?
A: I've never gone into therapy with a broad, `who am I?' point of view. I go there because I've got something therapy's going to help me with. I was in therapy for a year-and-a-half fairly recently about a specific thing. The thing disappeared. I don't know what the therapy did.
Q: What was the thing, Jack?
A: No, I can't talk about what therapy it was but therapy's what it is. It helps people.
Q: In
your ability to have a good time. Have those wild days gone?
A: I didn't know it at the time but I think I found out they had when I did
The Shining. I actually went to
Q: Jack, why do you keep wearing those sunglasses?
A: I was sitting next to Fred Astaire at the Oscars (in 1976) and everyone looked so melted because there were about 150 lights trained on the audience. Fred and I we were having a few laughs together and they announced his category and he didn't win. I looked at him and the minute that he didn't win, he put on his sunglasses. I don't even think I had a thought, I just followed. I have too many sunglasses.
Q: How do you choose your projects and how do you keep fresh every time?
A: I'm a hard worker and I like all my movies. It's always challenging. I'm still trying to give the perfect performance. Not only is it easy for me to stay fresh but I would like to go back and play every part I ever played again.''
ADAM SANDLER
As I continued reading and imagining Jack in the role, I laughed even harder, which made it more fun to read
IF you had to imagine a therapist, who would spring to mind?
Chances are it wouldn't be the evil-eyed and often manic actor Jack Nicholson.
But for comic actor Adam Sandler, that's who he immediately thought of when he was asked to read the script of his new film, Anger Management.
The actor, who was recently nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor for his breakthrough performance in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love, is known for his high grossing comedies such as Big Daddy and The Wedding Singer. So he's a man who can demand big budget roles in Hollywood. And he wanted a part in Anger Management as soon as he read the script because, as the actor admits, he saw something of himself in the role he was being touted to play.
He says, ``I liked the title and knew I needed some in real life, so I figured I should at least take a look.
``Then I read it and I was laughing. And I just kept going and it didn't let me down.
``My character in the film, Dave Buznik, is like a cross between a lot of guys I know, me included. He's the type that can't confront people, so you let things bother you or keep it inside and make yourself miserable.''
Among the indignities Dave must suffer to rid himself of his pent-up anger are group sessions with a decidedly eccentric bunch of men and women who also suffer from anger control issues, confronting a childhood tormentor, being propositioned by a transvestite, singing I Feel Pretty on the Queensboro bridge during rush hour.
He also has to hole up with Doctor Buddy (Jack Nicholson), who proves to be a disruptive and demanding roommate.
``Doctor Buddy keeps pushing Dave's buttons to see how long he can go without snapping,'' says Sandler. ``Basically he's trying to get him to come out of his shell.''
Sandler had envisioned Nicholson for the role while he was reading the script because, ``I tried to imagine Buddy as someone who made me feel nervous at times and comfortable at other times, and I immediately thought of Jack.
``As I continued reading and imagining Jack in the role, I laughed even harder, which made it more fun to read. And then he actually said yes.''
Nicholson's suggestions gave the comedy additional resonance, says Sandler.
``The audience laughs at the funny stuff, but they also laugh when the story fools them, when it shakes them up.''
For the pivotal role of Sandler's girlfriend Linda, Oscar-winner Marisa Tomei came aboard. ``The thing that was so wonderful about Marisa playing Linda was her natural ability to make things seem real, like we were a couple who already had a history,'' says Sandler.
``Linda's a nice girl and they're really in love. But he's afraid to move to the next level because he thinks he's not worthy of her and that she's disappointed in him because he's made no advancement in his career. '' John Turturro was cast in the role of Chuck, one of the more explosive members of the anger management therapy group, and a man who is in every way Dave's opposite.
Doctor Buddy pairs Chuck and Dave as partners outside of class, which leads to comic mayhem. ``Chuck is probably the biggest nightmare of the class,'' says Sandler, ``A man who is completely and totally in touch with his anger.''
# The film opens this Friday # Sandler will next be seen in an untitled romantic comedy in which he will reunite with his Wedding Singer co-star Drew Barrymore.
Return to Main Articles Menu Page or Return to Home