Summary
- Adam Sandler's realistic acting approach in the dodgeball scene of Billy Madison caused controversy as he hit child actors hard, making some cry.
- Despite the backlash, there were no long-term injuries and the producers decided to keep the scene in the film due to the strong relationships and funny moments it showcased.
- Sandler's camaraderie with the child actors in the movie is what draws audiences back to revisit Billy Madison and its humorous quotes.
While much of the plot of Adam Sandler's breakout hit Billy Madison remains implausible and unrealistic, one scene in the comedian's movie caused some serious real problems behind the scenes. Adam Sandler has been in the industry for decades now, long enough so that certain on-set protocols followed today may not have been followed so stringently during the filming of some of his earlier movies. In hindsight, sometimes scenes were shot using techniques that wouldn't go over well in modern times.
Realism in acting, or playing a role authentically so that the performance can not be distinguished from real life, is nothing new to cinema. However, Sandler took the realistic acting approach to a whole other level during certain Billy Madison scenes when he was supposed to be attending elementary school. Parents were furious that someone much bigger and stronger than their children were putting them in a position where their kids could potentially be injured.
Billy Madison's Dodgeball Scene Genuinely Hurt Some Kids
The parents of the child actors in Billy Madison's dodgeball scene did not realize that when Billy shouts, "Now you're all in big, big trouble!" on the playground, it was, in fact, true. According to Sandler in an interview with Conan O'Brien, the actor did not take it easy on the small children in the dodgeball scene and hit several of them quite hard while the cameras were rolling. He even itted to hitting multiple kids on purpose and continued to hit some of them after the cameras rolled again following a pause.
Sandler further revealed that he hit some of the children so hard, they began to cry. At that point, the enraged parents argued nothing was being done to protect their children during the scene, and they forced the shooting of the movie to stop. Sandler tried to assuage the parents by persuading them it was all part of the act, explaining, "I'm like a big guy who went back to school, I peg all these kids, it's part of the joke." The parents apparently did not buy this line of reasoning and things grew heated on the set, particularly after he continued to hit the kids during shooting. There were no camera tricks or cut-away shots while these scenes were filming. When Billy Madison is standing mere feet from children and hurling dodgeballs at them, it's real.
Why The Billy Madison Scene Works – Despite The Controversy
Despite the controversy that surrounded the scene where Sandler hits the kids, there were apparently no long-term injuries and the producers of the movie decided to leave those moments in the final version of the film. Even though there certainly could have been a less threatening way to show how much stronger Billy Madison was than the children, the scene lines up with the best parts of the movie when Madison creates strong relationships and shares funny moments with the other children.
Whether it's Billy splashing water on his pants so his friend Ernie wouldn't be embarrassed, Billy shaking a kid and telling him, "Stay here. Stay as long as you can. For the love of God! Cherish it!”, or Billy getting upset after being laughed at because be can't write "Rizzuto" in cursive, his moments with the other children have some of Billy Madison's funniest quotes and are the heart of the movie. The relationships he developed with the child actors were real, and it makes the realism of the dodgeball scene flow seamlessly through the plot of the movie. Billy Madison may be a movie about an adult trying to make other adults appreciate and respect him, but the reason that audiences return to this movie again and again is to revisit how Adam Sandler developed such camaraderie with the child actors that shared scenes with him.
Source: Conan O'Brien YouTube
