Hollywood actor Adam Sandler has his fair share of awful and brilliant movies. But the actor created his fame with his outlandish comedic roles that helped him bring out his versatility. Thus, while most of his movies have been praised by the audience and critics, Sandler recalled how one of his fan-favorite comedy films was torn apart by the movie critics.
During a Netflix conversation, Adam Sandler stated how the criticism affected him to the core. Revealing his decision of not to read reviews after critics shredded Billy Madison, Sandler discussed his views following the harsh criticism.
Adam Sandler’s Movie Billy Madison Was Heavily Criticized
While millions of people appreciate Adam Sandler’s movies, critics had a different take on one of his cult classic films back in 1995. During a Netflix conversation surrounding his 2022 movie Hustle, Sandler recalled his classic comedy film Billy Madison. Speaking in retrospect about the reviews he got for his movie, Sandler claimed to be demotivated.
“When I was 17 and I got into this, I didn’t think about critics…I didn’t even realize that stuff was coming.” Sandler recalled. Mentioning how naïve he was during his initial years in the industry, the actor claimed, “I just thought you made movies, people go see it,”. Having no prior knowledge whatsoever about critics and reviews, Sandler claimed to have entered the industry.
However, following his 1995 film Billy Madison, Adam Sandler recalled understanding critics.
“When Billy Madison came out, me and my friend who wrote it, we were just like, ‘Oh yeah, they’re going to write about this in New York!’” He further added, “And then we read the first one and we were like, ‘Oh my god, what happened? They hate us.’”.
Failing to fathom what went wrong, Sandler recalled going through different papers to get a clear perspective. “But then 90 percent of the papers are going ‘This is garbage,’” the actor stated. Adam Sandler mentioned how his film was critically slammed, and how he felt dejected.
Adam Sandler Stopped Reading Reviews After Facing Criticism
Discussing the aftermath of the brutal criticism, Adam Sandler revealed how he stopped reading reviews. Feeling utterly demotivated by other people’s opinions, after working hard on the project, the actor mentioned quitting the habit of paying attention to critics and reviews.
Realizing that his grandmother read the reviews, Sandler mentioned feeling ever more disrespected. “You know your grandmother’s reading it” is what made him feel a gut-wrenching pain. Thus, ever since then, he and his friend, decided not to read any further reviews, “because it was so harsh”.
“I say the first two or three, Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, we would still kinda hear about it. People would call us up, “Can you believe they said this about you?’ I’d be like, ‘I didn’t read it, man…’”
Somehow, Adam Sandler’s decision worked well for him, and the actor even realized the differences in perspective with the critics is what caused them to give such horrific reviews.
“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.”
In the end, the actor discussed how happy he was to get praised for his 2022 movie Hustle. Working hard on the project, Sandler even appreciated his entire crew and rounded up the conversation with Netflix.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
