In 1996, Happy Gilmore inspired many of us to change the way we saw golf, or at least how to swing a golf club. Now, 30 years later, we’ve got a sequel. Happy Gilmore 2 stars Adam Sandler, Julie Bowen, and Christopher McDonald sat down with Mashable’s Executive Producer, Mark Stetson, to talk about the cultural impact of the first film, crucial elements that needed to be included the sequel, and the tech they used in the new film to create archival footage of themselves from the last 30 years.
Happy Gilmore 2 picks up with Happy (Adam Sandler) and Virginia (Julie Bowen), who have grown their family and their lives thanks to Happy’s success in the golf world. However, after a family trauma rocks their world, Happy, who has since retired from the game of golf, has to come out of retirement to help pay for his daughter’s schooling. Of course, his rivalry with Shooter McGavin (McDonald) proves to be an obstacle he must get over in order to re-establish himself as one of the G.O.A.T’s of golf.
In the interview, Bowen and McDonald reveal whether or not they got the sense of how big the 1996 original film would actually become. Bowen reacts immediately: „Oh, God. No… It was my first movie so I had to idea that it was possible.“ McDonald had more of a gut feeling about the film’s potential, saying, „I mean, I had an idea of it. I don’t know how easy that is to predict, though, because, in this world, it’s like, we never know. And sometimes I’ve done great work, and then it does mezza business. But then they discover it later on.“
Happy Gilmore 2 has a few important flashback scenes where they had to figure out a way to make it look like Happy hosted SNL in the 2000s, and that he won multiple PGA championships. This, Sandler says, required „a lot of special effects. More than I’ve ever done before in my life.“ Bowen goes on to describe the experience. „You go after every scene, you have to go into this truck with hundreds of cameras… and stand there and you kind of go, ‚Are they stealing my soul?‘ But they take every single thing about you in that outfit and make you look young.“
The interview ends with Sandler talking about how he was able to hold on to his sense of self throughout his career. „In the beginning, you don’t even know who you are. Well, I didn’t know who I was. And all of a sudden I was working and doing stuff that, I would be on the set, or I’d watch it and I’d say, ‚I like that. I’m so happy I’m in that, but I don’t know if it’s exactly what makes me laugh,‘ or whatever. And then me and my buddies just started going, ‚Let’s try to try to make stuff that we used to love growing up.‘ Stuff like the old Saturday Night Live guys, the Animal Houses and the Caddyshacks and stuff. We were like, ‚We kind of want to be in that world for the youth.‘ And we’d never think we did it as good as them but we worked hard to try to make the youngsters happy.“