It would be fair to say that Adam Sandler is one of the most divisive personalities in modern-day Hollywood, with the actor’s movies regularly pulling in big numbers at the box office and drawing millions of viewers for his Netflix exclusives, despite none of his lowbrow comedic efforts getting much in the way of critical praise.
One of the most infuriating things about Sandler is that he’s more than capable of venturing outside of his wheelhouse and giving great dramatic performances, as he proved recently with his incredible turn in Uncut Gems, with many even predicting during awards season that he could be a potential dark horse candidate for Best Actor at the Oscars. However, this kind of work comes very few and far between for the 53 year-old, with the aforementioned pic only one of a handful of occasions over the last decade that he’s taken the trip out of his comfort zone and made a stab at some more serious material.
Sandler seems more than happy to coast by though, making movies shot in glamorous locations alongside a rotating cast of his close friends. And in a recent interview about his career, he claimed that despite the wildly varying quality of his output, he’s never phoned in a single performance.
“Man, I don’t know what the downs have been. I mean, maybe in some people, when they write about me, they talk about my downs. But I don’t have any downs. I love every movie I’ve made. I’ve never in my entire career phoned one thing in.”
While there’s no doubt a lot of people that would disagree with that sentiment, it’s an interesting way to look at things. Adam Sandler may not be everyone’s favorite actor, but he’s built a hugely successful and lucrative career on a brand that works for him, and he’s never been one to pay too much attention to what the critics are sayings, with the vast majority of his movies being pretty easy targets.