“Hustle"
CinemaBlend’s Sean O’Connell talks with Adam Sandler, Juancho Hernangomez, Anthony Edwards and Director Jeremiah Zagar.
CinemaBlend’s Sean O’Connell talks with Adam Sandler, Juancho Hernangomez, Anthony Edwards and Director Jeremiah Zagar.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 Sean O'Connell from CinemaBlend.
00:03 Gentlemen, how are you, sir?
00:05 Hello!
00:06 He's like doing his Instagram or something.
00:08 I don't know what he's doing.
00:10 I was watching my pictures yesterday with my friend LeBron James and some random guy.
00:16 Me!
00:17 You?
00:18 He's got pictures of him, LeBron, and me together and he's so excited.
00:21 I thought it was a fun.
00:23 A fan?
00:24 You.
00:25 Oh, no. It's Adam Sandler.
00:26 [Music]
00:32 Let's get to work.
00:34 How are you, man?
00:35 I'm wonderful. I love this movie.
00:37 I cannot wait for people to check it out. I'm really excited.
00:39 Thank you.
00:40 Thanks.
00:41 Adam, I want to start with you.
00:42 Is there such a thing as trash talking in the acting community?
00:45 That's good.
00:46 That's a great question.
00:47 Get your hands off of me, man.
00:49 I talk a lot of trash when we're shooting.
00:50 Yeah, when we're shooting, I would have an amazing take going and Wancho, because he's from the NBA world of trash talking, would just start saying nasty stuff.
01:00 I'd be like, "That's not in the script, homie. Don't do that. Let me finish my line."
01:04 He'd be like, "Your mother's this and your mother's that."
01:07 No. No, the answer is no. There's only support in this town.
01:12 I don't think it goes that deep, no.
01:15 I don't think they get too disrespectful in the games, but in the movie, I get really disrespectful.
01:21 Yeah, it's crazy.
01:23 Yeah, there are some things that you say that I thought went over the line.
01:26 Yeah, a lot of things that I'm saying over the line.
01:29 Does that level of trash talk or trash talk begin all the way back to when you're kids?
01:35 At what level of playing does it really start to kick in?
01:37 You're trapped, man.
01:39 The kids that I see now today, that's like fifth grade, fourth grade, they talking trash.
01:43 We wasn't talking trash back then, but they's talking trash already because the game is evolving year after year after year.
01:52 It's getting pretty bad.
01:55 Where you from?
01:56 Spain. Sounds whack.
01:58 You think you can stop me?
01:59 Welcome to America.
02:01 I love the moment when Adam's character has to pull out his phone and call Dirk Nowitzki to prove that he is who he is as a talent scout.
02:09 So I'm curious, who's the most famous person you have in your phone contacts?
02:13 Adam. Yeah, by far.
02:16 Yeah, definitely.
02:18 Definitely the most famous person I know.
02:20 Oh yeah, how about you? Who's the most, in your contacts, who is the most famous?
02:25 I know you got some NBA guys.
02:26 I think probably you.
02:28 Me? Don't ever call me.
02:30 Oh my God.
02:31 Don't ever use that number.
02:32 When I'm trying to show somebody who I am, I probably would call Pat Bev.
02:39 Yeah, I call Pat Bev.
02:42 That's what I would call. I call Pat Bev.
02:44 Who is the most famous in your phone?
02:48 Oh, I got so many. It's insane.
02:50 Oh wow.
02:51 Name somebody. You just name a famous person, I'll tell you if they're in my phone.
02:55 Okay, you got Barack Obama?
02:57 No.
02:58 Hell yes!
03:00 Well, not Obama, but a guy who knows.
03:03 Okay.
03:04 That wasn't him. That wasn't even close to him.
03:06 Juancho, please don't tell my children I said this, but I have two sons, and the second one is better at basketball than the first.
03:12 Because he played against his older brother the entire time, and played up.
03:17 I was curious if that was similar to your experience.
03:19 I mean, different games.
03:21 Yeah, my brother and me, we are different games.
03:24 He's great at what he does. I'm great at what I do.
03:27 We both won the national team, world championships.
03:31 That's probably the best accomplishment we'll have, winning with your country.
03:35 And I'm so proud of him, what he achieved, how hard he worked, how he became a player and a person.
03:42 And we love so much each other. He's not just a brother. We are best friends.
03:47 Right. Certainly can grab a rebound too, your brother.
03:49 Yes.
03:50 Taking me to see basketball or bare knuckle boxing.
03:53 We do everything.
03:54 So the movie also makes the journey to the Combine incredibly nerve-wracking, with the amount of pressure that's put on people.
04:00 Was it a pretty accurate portrayal of that journey as well too?
04:03 Yeah, for sure. I think it shows the life outside of just them making it to the draft.
04:10 It shows the hustle, as what the movie's called, the dedication, the time that it takes, and everything that it takes until getting there.
04:19 So I think it was outstanding.
04:21 The line that hit the hardest to me, "Obsession is going to beat talent every time."
04:25 And I'm curious if that applies to filmmaking and the filmmaking community as well.
04:30 Yeah, I mean, I think obsession by extension, you know, work hours beats talent.
04:38 Because I'm not that talented, but I try to work a lot. I try to work hard.
04:42 I'm curious how much basketball you actually have to shoot to film to get the shots that you want, to get the finished shots that you want.
04:50 Especially when you have an environment like you often have in this movie, which is, you know, your players playing in a massive crowd or trying to pull off specific shots.
04:59 How much do you have to actually dedicate to film?
05:02 Each game, I think we had four to five days to shoot.
05:07 And we would choreograph and rehearse them before shooting.
05:12 And so the way we did it is we shot the full game on the first day through what we called Stanley Vision.
05:20 So that was Adam's perspective of the game.
05:22 We'd look at the Stanley Vision game, and we would talk about the editorial needs for the game after that.
05:32 And we had a lot of different techniques that we would use to implement or to accentuate the moments in between and heighten the moments in between the game.
05:44 And so the editors would cut those different techniques into it day after day.
05:49 So maybe we'd do a day of tarot, which was like a tiny little remote control car that spun around the players.
05:56 Or a day of, you know, of close up dunks or a day of, you know, whatever it was.
06:03 Or a day where we would do these different techniques and we would build the scene throughout the day.
06:07 And then the final day, Lewis and Tim, who were the second unit team, would come in and fill the last little elements and close ups in with the doubles.
06:18 When you walk on that court, you have to think, "I am the best guy out there."
06:26 Adam, why the Sixers and not the Knicks?
06:29 I thought Sixers felt like, just felt neat. That town lives for the Sixers.
06:38 They, I mean, and New York lives for the Knicks too, but just kind of made more sense.
06:44 Made more sense. Made more sense for, I think, that's a good question. I'm going to come back to you on that one.
06:52 All right, sounds good. Let's timestamp this. Who wins the finals and in how many games?
06:56 Ooh, that's good. How many games do you think it's going to take?
06:59 I would love to see seven games and I will go with the Greens. I will go with Boston. I used to play there.
07:05 I mean, I got a lot of, a lot of loved ones there. I mean, I can fall in love with the city, with the fans, with all the players.
07:12 They got the talent. They wore their ass off and they deserve it.
07:16 There you go.
07:17 All right. I got to roll with Steph Curry. He's my boy from Charlotte.
07:20 So, well, I see you. I see you. Yes, you. Steph Curry, just so you know, can hit from anywhere.
07:30 I've heard this. Just so you know. Just so you know. Yeah. Breaking news.
07:35 It doesn't matter what angle he's at. He's going to find a way. That's just so you know.
07:40 The Celtics and, man, I don't want Draymond to be mad at me for saying this.
07:45 I want Draymond to get another ring, man. Like, I like the Warriors to win, but I just think the Celtics got too much.
07:52 I might be wrong. So, Draymond, if you see, because I haven't said this in the previous ones.
07:57 Draymond, if you see this, I want you to get a ring.
08:00 But I just don't know if y'all got enough for Chaelen Brown, Tatum, Al Horford, Peyton Pritchard coming off the bench.
08:08 Like, they got a really good team.
08:10 All right. Last question. What's the best basketball movie and you can't say Hustle?
08:17 My favorite? Sure. Blue Chips. Oh, it's a great one.
08:22 I love Blue Chips. I think it's amazing. I think that the I think it's amazing.
08:28 I love the way they shot basketball. I love Shaq in it. You know, I love Nick Nolte's insane in that movie.
08:34 I think it's great. Let's face it. It's you against you out there.
08:41 So let me ask you again. Do you love this game? Punch Drunk Love turns 20 this year.
08:53 That's great. And we all look at that movie and we say, oh, that's the movie that showed other sides of Adam and what he could do.
08:59 But is it do you really view it as something that changed a lot for you?
09:04 I view it as something that I had an amazing time doing and it might have opened up other thoughts about me.
09:10 I'm sure that happened in my brain. I always thought, yeah, maybe one day I'll do a different style of movie.
09:17 And luckily, Paul wrote that movie, called me up, said, let's go.
09:22 And I hear about that movie a lot. So it means a lot to me.
09:27 And I had an amazing time. And I'm Paul's one of my best buddies. I love him.
09:32 And so that that's the greatest thing that happened with that movie.
09:35 [BLANK_AUDIO]