David Spade Gets R-Rated for Adam Sandler's New Netflix Comedy Coming This Memorial Day
The Do-Over, the second of Adam Sandler’s Netflix movies, premieres May 27, and it’s clear that the hands-off approach of the streaming service is pushing Sandler into some interesting new directions. Along with co-star David Spade, he’s doing his second R-rated (and first action-based) comedy. We spoke with Spade about working on the project, how he’d like to fake die, and what he’ll do when he gets his Netflix deal.
Shot on location in Savannah and Puerto Rico, Sandler and Spade play two guys who fake their own deaths and find themselves in more trouble than they were to begin with. Spade says his friend pulled him aside during the filming of Ridiculous 6: “He said, ‘I think I might have something great.’” Although they’re often in films together, they rarely co-star. “I didn’t know — aside from Grown Ups — if we’d ever get to do something together. I actually thought we probably would not.”
“It’s the biggest movie I’ve done in a long time,” Spade says of the film, which has echoes of Midnight Run and maybe a little Pineapple Express. There’s a lot going on, including gun fights, fast cars, cliffs, and butts. “All for a guy like me who works in a bank in a supermarket,” he says chuckling. “We went by the script. Then, of course, in classic fashion, we just started making up stuff as we went.”
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It’s not just the genre that is stretching Spade’s abilities in the film. He enjoys the Jason Bateman/Ben Stiller-type role, “where a guy is in over his head, overwhelmed,” he says. “It was fun for me to do something a little different. I always play variations of the same thing, which is fine…”
The Do-Over called for some restraint — and some swallowing of pride. “That was tough. On the set, to be reminded, 'You’re not cool.’ You know what I mean? The director and Adam would be like, 'That sounds like Spade,'” he says. So he would have to dial back his instinct for snarky commentary. Fortunately for Sandler, he didn’t have the same issue. “He looks super cool in the movie, which made me jealous,” Spade says. “I look like a doof.”
So how would Spade fake his own death in the real world? “I think I would do it skateboarding in a pool. Something cool,” he says. Though, he quickly realizes, “I guess that would be easy to figure out. When I lay on the bottom of the pool for three weeks, and I’m like, 'I gotta move at some point.'”
Although he likes working with Netflix creatively, he doesn’t use it to binge like most of us do. “I like to watch with people, so if no one’s around, I don’t want to start something,” he says. But he finds, because of that, he’s falling behind. “I literally talked with someone today and said, 'Let’s get Netflix, pick a show, and start it. I don’t want to be the guy talking about Jaws,” he says, when everybody else is discussing Making a Murderer.
Related: David Spade Talks 'SNL’-Related Feud with Eddie Murphy in New Memoir
Spade hasn’t been offered a Netflix deal like Sandler, but he does have some ideas percolating in the back of his head. “I’ve always threatened to do a rough-around-the-edges comedy,” he says, sounding unconvinced. “Maybe an R-rated sitcom over there.” (He’s about to shoot The Kicker pilot for CBS, though, so he’s hoping that goes seven seasons first.)
And in case The Do-Over’s still not enough of the duo for you, they’re both currently on a big theater tour doing stand-up with friends. “[Adam] hasn’t done it in 20 years,” Spade says. They’re doing classic material as well as new stuff. “We’re coming up with jokes on the flights, on the bus. We did Vegas, a lot of the West Coast, and now we’re going to do the East Coast for The Do-Over. [Nick] Swardson’s on it, [Rob] Schneider and Norm [Macdonald] have been on some, Tim Meadows. A lot of surprises.”
The Do-Over premieres May 27 on Netflix.
