Ben Stiller Teases a ‘Surprise’ Twist Involving His Dirtbag ‘Happy Gilmore’ Character

Move over Community movie, there’s a new project generating ceaseless updates concerning every minute element of production: Happy Gilmore 2. We’ve heard a lot about the making of Adam Sandler’s highly anticipated sequel, from the nightmarish casting call, to the Travis Kelce cameo, to the fact that the 70-year-old alligator who played the gator that ate Chubbs’ hand is totally available to come back, presumably as a ghost.

But one piece of Happy Gilmore 2 news is, admittedly, pretty intriguing: Ben Stiller will be reprising the role of the abusive seniors’ home employee known simply as “Hal L.”

This news spread after photos of a mustachioed Stiller on the set of Happy Gilmore 2 were posted online.

Stiller was recently asked about the role during an interview with Collider, and the Zoolander star suggested that there might be more to his dirtbag character than meets the eye. He admitted that playing Hal L. is “so much fun because he has no redeeming characteristics,” but he also tried to justify the character’s abhorrent behavior to some extent. “I think he's a good person inside,” Stiller argued. “I think he's misunderstood. It bothers him that everybody loves Happy.”

He seemed appreciative that photos of his cameo caused such a stir online, and teased a potential twist involving the character’s name: “It’s nice to know that people actually care about Hal L. – even that they remember his last initial, L. There is a good reveal in the movie having to do with Hal’s name that I won’t say. There’s a good surprise there.”

Surprise? Does this mean that we’re going to learn Hal L.’s surname, and get some kind of backstory? 

Oddly enough, this random creep from a 28-year-old movie has had a surprising shelf life, he even showed up at the beginning of Adam Sandler’s 2020 comedy Hubie Halloween. At some point in the past several decades, Hal transitioned from scamming the elderly to working as an orderly at an asylum.

And some fans have theorized that Hal L. is the same character as Dodgeball’s White Goodman — and by extension, Heavyweights’ Tony Perkis Jr. Could that be the “surprise” that Stiller is alluding to? 

Regardless of what the twist turns out to be, hopefully Happy Gilmore 2 will give Hal L. the comeuppance he never received in the original movie. The dude turned a seniors home into a forced labor camp, but walked away scot-free? He was supposed to get thrown out a window, but the scene was cut out of the movie for some reason.

Since Stiller appears to have a stunt double on the set of the sequel, perhaps Hal L. will finally face some sort of painful karmic retribution for his crimes.