Adam Sandler says he stopped reading film critics after seeing the reviews of this one film
Actor is receiving some of the best reviews of his career thanks to ‘Hustle’
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Your support makes all the difference.Adam Sandler has said that he stopped reading reviews after the harsh criticism of Billy Madison.
The actor opened up about his views on film critics during a recent Netflix conversation for his recent movie Hustle.
Sandler, 56, said that he stopped paying attention to reviews after his 1995 comedy Bill Madison was torn apart by film critics.
Although the comedy – which Sandler co-wrote with Tim Herlily – is generally recognised to be a staple in the actor’s body of work, he recalled that 90 per cent of film critics called it “garbage” when it was released.
“When I was 17 and I got into this, I didn’t think about critics… I didn’t even realise that stuff was coming,” he said.
“I just thought you made movies, people go see it. 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!’
“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 per cent of the papers are going, ‘This is garbage.’”
Sandler said that he was hurt by the criticism mostly because “you know your grandmother’s reading it”.
He and Herlily decided not to read any further reviews of their work “because it was so harsh”.
“I say the first two or three, Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, we would still kinda hear about it,” Sandler said. “People would call us up, “Can you believe they said this about you?’ I’d be like, ‘I didn’t read it, man…’”
The Grown Ups star went on to say that he understands where the critics are coming from, adding: “But everything has turned out excellent. And it’s OK, 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.”
He said, however, that he is “glad” that he is receiving praise for Hustle. “I’m glad I’m getting praise, I’ll take it, but everybody worked hard on the movie,” the comedian said. “I had a great part and I did the best I could with it.”
The actor, who has a $350m (£199m) deal with Netflix, appears in sports drama film Hustle as a basketball scout.
Sandler’s previous films for Netflix, including The Ridiculous 6, Sandy Wexler and Murder Mystery, were all torn apart by critics.
Hustle, however, has earned Sandler some of the best reviews of his career to date – and even broke an impressive Rotten Tomatoes record.
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