There isn’t an awards show on the planet that wouldn’t benefit from an Adam Sandler acceptance speech. He should be an EGOT recipient every year, even after he retires, just to bring some flair to these typically stuffy proceedings. As his speech at the 2020 Indie Spirit Awards — he won Best Male Lead for Uncut Gems — and his speech at 2022’s Gotham Awards demonstrate, if you give Sandler an award, he will bring down the goddamned house.
The recipient of a Performer Tribute Award on November 29, Sandler took the podium at the 32nd Annual Gotham Awards in New York City after a touching introduction by Uncut Gems duo the Safdie bros and proceeded to tell the audience he had declined to write a speech. Instead, his daughters, Sadie and Sunny, wrote one for him. “Daddy’s fucking tired,†he says he told his daughters when they called his lack of preparation “rude†and “mean.â€
And so Sandler went on to deliver an acceptance speech supposedly written by the 16- and 15 year-olds, seizing an opportunity to make fun of himself relentlessly. “While Daddy is with you tonight, we’re doing everything we’re not allowed to do when Daddy is home,†he read. “Like eat his Yodels or try on his Spanx or, dare we say, laugh out loud at Ben Stiller movies. The last time Daddy caught us chuckling away at the Meet the Parents trilogy, he immediately stormed into the room he calls ‘The Screaming Room’ — which we just call ‘the shower’ — and bellowed out the phrase, ‘Only the Sandman makes people laugh. Fuck every other comedian.’â€
Other highlights of the speech included Sandler’s quips about his film career (“Daddy’s silly film career began in 1988, formed by two guiding principles: People in prison need movies too, and TBS needs contentâ€), Sandler clarifying to his daughters that Big Daddy was not just the movie that launched Dylan Sprouse’s and Cole Sprouse’s careers, but rather “the movie that paid for this fucking house, and your grandma’s house, and your other fucking grandma’s house, and Rob Schneider’s fucking house,†and Sandler refusing to let his daughters attend the ceremony because he didn’t want to share the spotlight with Timothée Chalamet (“I don’t want to spend a whole night that’s supposed to be about me and my greatness listening to you two newly pubitized buffoons screaming where is Timothée Chalamet and how can we legally squeeze that fine little Jewish ass of his?â€).
Sandler even found a way to squeeze in a thank-you to his wife, ending the speech on a touching note. “Thank you, Mommy, for putting up with Daddy and his crazy fucking mood swings all these years,†he read. “Now that truly is a feat deserving of a lifetime-achievement award.†Give Sandler all the awards! Let him make a speech at the BAFTAs, the ESPYs, the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony for Physics. He won’t disappoint.