THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 6, 1994 TAG: 9408050110
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Interview
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long : 110 lines
YOU FIND MAJOR stars of tomorrow in the oddest places these nights.
Somehow, you wouldn't expect the kid who is supposed to emerge as one of the new comic giants to make his breakthrough in a movie called ``Airheads.'' No one, not even Opera Man, should be forced to be in a movie called ``Airheads.''
But there he is, Adam Sandler, this season's breakout from TV's ``Saturday Night Live,'' scoring laughs - and jobs in future major movies - in his role as Pip, the shy, stupid rocker in ``Airheads,'' currently at local theaters.
``Hey,'' Sandler said, ``all the guys sit around during rehearsals on `Saturday Night Live' and we talk about who's going to break through, and I'm thinking, `I know I'm going to make more money than these guys, but will that affect our friendship?' I mean I'm probably going to make $9 million, and they'll make $4 million. They'll just have to accept it.''
He laughs, but he's already signed for two more movies - ``Lifesavers'' with Steve Martin and Juliette Lewis (to be released in December) and ``Billy Madison,'' now in production, which he co-wrote. Meanwhile, he'll continue on ``Saturday Night Live,'' where he has gained fame for playing Opera Man and Cajun Man.
``Airheads,'' though, is not as dumb as the title suggests. The plot concerns a lackluster heavy metal group that invades a radio station and takes the employees hostage in order to get its demo tape played on the air. Sure, it STILL sounds pretty stupid, but director Michael Lehman, the mischievously dark-minded director who made ``Heathers,'' has turned out another gem by keeping everything super-serious and satirical. This is an absurdist version of ``Dog Day Afternoon'' - a heist in which everything goes wrong.
Sandler's character, Pip, drummer in the fictional group The Lone Rangers in the film, is shy and uncertain around girls. He's pursued by a curvaceous blond employee at the radio station until it ends in a partially nude scene.
``Partially?'' Sandler said, mopping mock sweat from his brow. ``Man, that scene was totally nude. I mean I had to strip off and do the scene in front of about 20 burly guys who are the crew. The lighting people and all that crowd. Well, I mean, it was a COMEDY scene, and it's pretty harmless but, for me, I'd been putting this scene out of my mind for weeks until the day came I had to do it. It was with Nina Siemaszko and she was, well, uh, very helpful, but still. The guys in the crew applauded at the end of the scene so I guess, you know, well, uh, I guess, uh, it was all right.''
Sandler would rather have been playing a guitarist than a drummer. After all, that was his original goal. Born in Brooklyn, he grew up in Manchester, N.H., and played guitar in such high school rock bands as Storm, Spectre and Messiah. ``We'd play at clubs around but people kept telling us we were just OK - not great. And besides, people also kept telling us that those names for a band were already taken by other bands. I had a good, high, tenor voice back then. I could have sung with Rush, it was that high. But no more. I can't sing high anymore. Maybe that's what happens when you do these semi-nude scenes.''
After the failure of his rock career, he attended New York University and earned a degree in fine arts.
But instead of getting a regular job, he turned to stand-up comedy. He was in Chicago, at age 23, when ``Saturday Night Live'' producer Lorne Michaels caught his act and hired him as a writer on the show.
``I wrote skits for other people,'' he said, sitting for an interview in a New York hotel. ``Then I began to get one-liners on the show. I'd rehearse all week. I thought it was a now-or-never thing. I'd go over and over that one line right up to air time. I was actually surprised when no one paid any attention to my one line.''
They did pay attention, though, when he created a character named Opera Man, based on a street performer he saw on W. 57th Street in New York City. The man sang improvised operatic arias about current events.
Sandler followed up with Cajun Man, Canteen Boy and his own impersonations of Guns N' Roses' lead singer Axl Rose and Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. All were hits.
``I was not the kid, in school, that everyone thought would make it,'' he said, ``but now people who say they knew me in the third grade come up and ask for tickets to the show. In school, I never was like the big class clown. I had about five friends, and they were my only friends. I stuck with them.''
There was talk of an Opera Man movie, but he nixed it. ``I wanted to play a character from a real movie script, not trade off the `SNL' show,'' he said. His movie debut was in ``Coneheads,'' but he survived that disaster.
The most difficult thing about ``Airheads,'' he said, was ``getting up at 6 a.m. to get to the set. The second most difficult thing was being so serious. The director told us that we had to play it straight every second. We were to play it as if it were total realism - very seriously. The audience, hopefully, will think it's funny, but the actors must give no hint that we thought it was funny.''
It's part of Lehmann's style, the same serio-approach to comedy that he used in ``Heathers.'' Asked if his movie doesn't support a slack-jawed image for Generation X, director Lehman bristled. ``I'm not speaking for a generation,'' he said. ``The movie's comedy comes from the radical aspects of rock - and the labeling. Everyone wants to label.''
Next on Sandler's list is ``Lifesavers,'' in which he plays ``a goofball who lives in the same apartment house as Steve Martin and drives him crazy.'' To be directed by Nora Ephron (``Sleepless in Seattle''), it was filmed during breaks from ``Saturday Night Live.'' ``I never missed a `SNL' show,'' Sandler said. ``Nora is a good friend of Lorne's, so she arranged shooting so I could do both. I felt very comfortable being directed by a woman, when that woman is Nora. She's like my aunt, or someone in my family.''
In ``Billy Madison,'' which he is now filming, he plays a boy who goes back to school when he has to prove that he could get through all 12 grades again. He and his friends wrote it.
In the meantime, he claims his expanding movie career won't interfere with his steady TV gig. `` `SNL' is the most important thing to me,'' he said. ``I'm going to stick with it.'' ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Adam Sandler, from left, Brendan Fraser and Steve Buscemi star in
``Airheads.''
by CNB