Carey Mulligan says she’d love to star in a rom-com with Adam Sandler following their work together in the new Johan Renck-directed Netflix drama “Spaceman.”
“The Wedding Singer’ is one of my favorite movies, ‘50 First Dates,’ everything he’s done with Jennifer Aniston, I am there for it,” Mulligan told me at the “Spaceman” premiere Monday night at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. “We have to do a rom-com 100 percent!”
And she’s already got the pitch – sort of: “We have to pick the location first where we want to have a really nice holiday and then build the story around that.”
Sandler stars in “Spaceman” as an astronaut on a solo, year-long mission in space. As he comes to realize that his marriage is in trouble (Mulligan plays his wife), he also starts seeing and talking to a giant spider (voiced by Paul Dano) that suddenly appears on his ship.
Sandler signed on to the film, based on the 2017 novel “Spaceman of Bohemia” by Jaroslav Kalfař, after meeting with Renck.
“I had a meeting set up with Johan because I loved ‘Chernobyl,’ Sander said. “He gave me the script and I read it and I said, ‘That’s pretty powerful, romantic, heartbreaking stuff.’ I was like, ‘Let’s do it, man.’ Then Carrie came and then Paul.”
Sandler said he related to his character being away from his family for such a long stretch of time. “There are times that I’m away that it crushes me. You’re away. You can’t get back there,” he explained. “Your family has their life and your heart’s pounding and you’re going, ‘I can’t wait to see them.’”
Isabella Rossellini plays the director of the space voyage. She admitted she was nervous to work with Sandler. “I was terrified because he’s a big star,” she said.
When the film premiered in Berlin earlier this month, Sandler revealed how painful it was to be in a harness when he had to simulate walking in zero gravity. At one point, Renck said that he saw Sandler starting to bleed because the harness was cutting into his skin. “That’s the thing about being a director. Unfortunately, there’s always a version of hurting your actor,” Renck told Variety at the premiere Monday night. “But to be honest, it’s like, ‘I don’t give a shit if it hurts.’ We have to make this movie, man. But the fact that he performed through it, it is very painful. Imagine by shooting day 23 and you’re hanging in that harness. I remember I would be shooting and I would yell, ‘Cut,’ and I would see his face just contorting [in pain]. I was like, ‘Shit, man, I’m abusing this guy.’ But he’s such a beautiful human being. He would never complain.”
Meanwhile, Sandler insisted that his sports movie directed by Josh Safdie is going to happen after producer Benny Safdie told Variety in January that the film was “on pause.” It was delayed due to the actors strike. “We’re figuring it out,” Sandler said. “Stuff got in the way. We were supposed to shoot during baseball season. We’re hopefully going to get back on track.”
Josh Safdie is currently directing Sandler’s new comedy special at Netflix. “We’re shooting all this cool stuff,” Sandler said. “We shot Saturday night. We worked today taping some stuff. I get to do standup but there’s stuff that leads up to the standup.”
