Benny Safdie on Taking Up the Mantle of Villainy in Happy Gilmore 2—And  Christopher Nolan Telling Him to Get in Shape for The Odyssey

Time​ Magazine

4 days ago

Warning: This post contains minor spoilers for Happy Gilmore 2.
Nearly 30 years ago, Christopher McDonald left an indelible mark on pop culture with his performance as smarmy professional golfer Shooter McGavin in the 1996 sports comedy classic Happy Gilmore. Opposite Adam Sandler's quick-to-anger hockey failure-turned-unlikely golf sensation Happy, McDonald played Shooter as an arrogant yet moronic, finger-gun-blasting, third-person-talking prick of a man.
Now, Benny Safdie is taking up the reins of Happy Gilmore-verse villainy as Frank Manatee, the halitosis-plagued creator of Maxi Golf, a new stunt-based golf association intended to rival the long-established Tour Championship league in Happy Gilmore 2. And, according to Safdie, if he can inspire "even an eighth of the level of hatred Shooter did," he'll consider his character a success.
After co-directing Sandler alongside his brother, Josh Safdie, in the acclaimed 2019 crime thriller Uncut Gems—a film that earned its prolific lead the most serious awards consideration of his career—Safdie says he "instantly" accepted when Sandler called to offer him the role of Manatee in the long-awaited Happy Gilmore sequel, which hits Netflix July 25.
TIME spoke with Safdie about Happy Gilmore 2, buzzy forthcoming projects like The Smashing Machine, and his work with some of the biggest directors of our time.
Safdie: Oh my god. It's one of my favorite movies of all time. I can close my eyes and see it from beginning to end. There's so many Shooter McGavin quotes. There's so many Sandler quotes. It just was on repeat for me. With Shooter, there's such a level of like, wow, this guy is truly evil but he's so fully realized. And then Happy is almost like a parable of a guy. He's definitely got his issues, but at the same time, he's really nice and loves his grandmother. Sandler is just special. It's almost crazy to me that I'm even in this thing because that movie was such a big part of my childhood.
When Sandler called me to play this, he said there was something about one of my stand-up characters that he thought would be great for this role. So I instantly was like, all right, I know exactly how this guy looks. I wanted him to be one of those people you swipe past on Instagram and are like, "Oh, I know that guy." He speaks in broad platitudes about how to succeed. He's an energy drink disruptor. I really wanted to make him as real as possible because that's one of the things I think is really successful about Shooter. And I was able to bond with Chris [McDonald] about how these guys don't think they're bad, they just think they're doing what's necessary. So I really wanted to bring a level of authenticity. I wanted him to make sense.
There's a closeness. I look at him and I'm just like, "Ah, there's the Sandman." There's a real affection and connection there. And it's interesting because we'd always wanted to act together in something, but it never worked out. It's one thing to work with him as a director, but then to be in a scene with him and actually look into his eyes and act is amazing. He's such a perfectionist. He really cares about everything he's doing and wants it to be the best that it can be. There was one line we were really trying to hammer home: "Will you stop with the shoe? We're done with the shoe!" That was one he really wanted to hit hard. And it was amazing because it just kept going and going. We did it so many times. He had a very specific cadence. So he and I are both after the same thing, which is doing whatever it takes to make it as funny and great as possible.
I think he's giving as much thought to both of them. It was amazing to see him as Happy because I was like, "Oh my god. That's not Adam Sandler. It's Happy Gilmore." That was the coolest thing because Happy is a character of his. It's like [Charlie] Chaplin and the Little Tramp. And he's playing these roles with as much thought and care as he's doing the other ones. I don't think he makes that distinction. He's also just a really sensitive person and he allows that to seep into things. Even in Gems, it was amazing because he always wanted [his character] Howard to have this softer side. He really pushed for that and, when you look back at the movie, it's so important that was there. He wants people to be able to relate to him.
I treat the comedy roles no differently than the others because I'm doing just as much hard work trying to make it feel believable. But I do love comedy and I always want to make somebody laugh. There's a feeling on set where you want to ruin the take. You want people to be laughing at the monitors. You want to hear them go crazy and know that you went there. I did stand-up comedy and so I really enjoy that kind of no-net performance. I don't get to do it that often.
It was incredible, because with this project we both saw something in Mark's story that we really connected to. It was almost non-verbal. I could just see how passionate he was and I felt the same way. So it was really us trying to understand ourselves through this character. I felt like I could ask him to do anything and he would pull it out like it was nothing. It was really special to be a part of. He had a lot of respect for Mark and [his wife] Dawn and it was really about being truthful to their experience. There's a UFC tagline that my wife got me on a shirt: "As real as it gets." We just took that to the extreme.
I don't, really, because I'm lucky enough that if there's something I really want to do, I'll figure out a way to make it happen. I was editing Smashing Machine while I was acting in Happy Gilmore. So I literally had my laptop out in my trailer when I wasn't working on scenes. And I look back on it and am definitely like, "How did I do that?" I don't even know. You just kind of compartmentalize things. It was the same thing with The Odyssey. I was in the middle of editing when Chris [Nolan] called me and was like, "How's your body?" And I was like, "What do you mean? Like, how's it holding up in the edit?" And he says, "No, I want you to be in this and you have to be in better shape." And I was like, OK, I have to do that now. So then I was exercising and thinking about what I was eating and going to these crazy locations, and then coming back and working on finishing Smashing Machine—all while dressed as Frank with that hair and goatee.
One hundred percent. There's certain things they'll do that will ignite something within me and I'm like, "Oh, that's how they do it." So I'll try and reverse engineer those things and use them to my advantage. I think it's about being willing to go in and put yourself out there. There's a vulnerability. Like, I was going to speak with a Hungarian accent [in Oppenheimer] and Chris' implicit trust in me gave me the confidence to do that. Or Paul will gently try to get you in this competitive headspace so you want to be the best that you can be. And Claire is just always searching for something exciting. She'll stand up in the middle of a scene because she wants to be excited by it and was bored when everyone was sitting down. It's interesting to see the connection between all of them, because when somebody's doing it right there's kind of a throughline to it.
Definitely. I want to be able to experience a movie that I made with my kids and talk to them as an audience. I think there's something really special about that.
It's funny because we had an idea for a second season early on but then the first season really does work as its own self-contained thing. So there is a really funny idea for it and I think it would be good, but I don't know. Nathan and I also didn't even want to make a show together. We just accidentally came up with this idea and then it was one of those things where you have a friendship with somebody and it becomes a fun thing to talk about. I love his style of acting and I really liked pushing him to places he may not have gone before. I remember telling him, "When you get really angry, it's not funny. But there is something funny about it." He's also somebody who's obsessed with realism in a very different way than I am. He's obsessed with making you look at a real thing and then be like, "That's not real, right?" And I'm obsessed with looking at something and being like, "All right, this is fake, but I need to convince people it's real with every ounce of my being." So those two things do overlap in a nice way.