‘Billy Madison’ at 30: Director Tamra Davis Recalls Adam Sandler’s First Starring Role
Don’t tell that nasty penguin, but Billy Madison is turning 30 today. It’s the movie that taught America that peeing your pants is cool, that shampoo and conditioner have been locked in a battle for the ages and that Adam Sandler was going to be one of the funniest movie stars of all time.
While Billy Madison was written by Sandler and his longtime collaborator Tim Herlihy, it was directed by Tamra Davis, who had previously directed Chris Rock’s CB4 and would go on to direct Half Baked.
This article not your thing? Try these...
Joining me for a Zoom call recently to mark the movie’s 30th anniversary, Davis was happy to recall her time working on Billy Madison, including sharing funny stories about Chris Farley stripping, why Sandler was convinced pelting kids with a dodgeball was comedy gold and how she still doesn’t understand what that penguin was doing there.
Getting Hired for ‘Billy Madison’
I had first heard of Billy Madison because I’d done CB4 for Universal and had a great experience with them. Then I got this script, and they wanted me as the director. Universal flew me out to meet with Adam in New York. I thought it went really well, but when I got back, I got a call saying, “Adam said that he wanted to work with one of his friends from NYU.”
But then, they started filming and were having issues. The studio wasn’t happy with the dailies, and they weren’t happy with the way things were going. I think they’d shot on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, then they closed down the movie and I got a call to start shooting Monday in Toronto.
It was very much like they were telling me to dive in, and “it’s up to you to save this movie.” From the moment I arrived, I spent almost every waking hour with Adam and Tim Herlihy, trying to get their form of humor and understand who their audience was.
Years later, I remember my friend Spike Jonze was about to direct a big comedy with a big comedy actor, and I told him, “You have to trust that comedian and believe that that guy is the funniest guy on the planet. Otherwise, you can’t do the film. You’re going to be in that world for a year. You’re the gatekeeper. You’ve got to trust that person’s comedy and be their biggest fan.”
That’s how I felt when I did CB4, I thought Chis Rock was the funniest man on the planet. Then, when I did Billy Masdison, I thought Adam was the funniest guy. When I met Dave Chapelle for Half Baked, I said, “This little 23-year-old is the funniest guy I ever met.” That was my authentic conviction. You have to sit in their hotel rooms and go out to dinner with them and see what’s funny to them and hear their silly side jokes.
Working with Adam Sandler
When I met Adam, I’d known him a little bit from Saturday Night Live but not really that much. Maybe I thought the opera singer was weird, that’s it. But when I met him, I thought he was pretty funny. At the time, I was married to Mike D, and I was very close to the Beastie Boys. And when I met Adam, he seemed kind of like that — I felt this familiarity with this Jewish kid from New York. I felt like, “I kind of know who this guy is, and I think I know who his fans are.”
Adam was incredibly serious and ambitious, and he knew Billy Madison was his big shot. He also had this whole buddy system from NYU that was super thick, and he was the front man. They were all really determined to make it.
In a weird way, I think I got along well with them because I wasn’t threatening. I wasn’t another guy trying to bro down with them. Because I was a girl, you realize that most comedians get into comedy to make girls laugh as well, so I was the girl that laughed. That was non-threatening, and technically speaking, I knew how to make a feature with shot lists and how to make the day. My job was technical in that sense, and those guys could be the goofy people coming up with whatever was funny. My job was to corral that crazy group and get a film made in a short amount of time.
The Rest of the Cast
Because the movie was already in production, I didn’t have anything to do with casting. For the maid, it’s written as this super sexualized funny character, so I was expecting this hot lady in a maid’s outfit. Then I get there and I’m like, “Wait a minute, that’s the maid?” I just had to trust it.
I remember being surprised by who they chose for his best friends, too. Norm Macdonald was like an old man. I ended up loving working with Norm, but at first, I was like, “Who is this guy? He’s the weirdest guy I ever met in my life.” I thought, “Is he a homeless guy?” I had no idea who Norm Macdonald was.
I also have a lot of memories of Chris Farley. We all stayed at the same hotel, and every actor who worked in Canada stayed at this hotel. They were shooting Tommy Boy at the same time, so Farley and David Spade were there and all of us and Gwyneth Paltrow was somehow in that hotel too. We would hang out and have the craziest parties at night. Some of the skits we did I saw on SNL later. Like, that whole Chippendales thing, that came out of our hotel. Adam’s suite had these double doors, and this one time the doors swung open and Farley was standing there completely naked, but his dick was tucked in between his legs and he did this dance — we all just died.
I loved Farley. He was crazy and funny and the biggest-hearted person in the world. He was also such a committed comedian. He wanted to nail his thing so much, and he’d make sure that Adam was happy. He gave Adam everything. He would go so far that I thought maybe he would die. I remember doing the bus scene, and right before he goes to sit on the bus, somebody brings him seven shots of espresso. And right before he shoots, he downs every one of them. Then he starts to shoot his scene, and he starts to hold his breath and he’s turning purple and I didn’t know if it was funny or if he was going to have a heart attack. It was funny and scary at the same time. I was always on the edge with him.
Going into the Classroom
The film was very tightly scripted. Though, when I did CB4, I learned that you shoot what’s scripted, and once you did that, you could go off script and do takes that are just comedy takes. You want to be sure that no joke is left behind. For example, the shampoo and conditioner scene in the bathtub, that wasn’t scripted. We’d already shot the scene, but Adam was just trying to make Tim and I laugh.
I love Adam’s little “Back to School” song he sings before his first day of school. The way Adam was standing there alone and feeling the space and his posture and the way he was dressed was great. You can do that with a song — it added more emotion than just waiting there for the bus.
With the dodgeball scene, Adam called me the night before and said, “I’ve got this idea; I want you to be ready. I’m going to really hit those kids tomorrow with the dodgeball.” I was like, “What? Adam, we’re shooting tomorrow and Entertainment Tonight is going to be there and all of the parents.” But he was like, “No, I want you to deflate the balls a little bit and get permission from the kids, and I’m going to really hit those kids.”
I didn’t know if he was serious or if he was just trying to get me, but he said, “Hitting kids is comedy gold.” He was telling me all these things about early comedy, like The Little Rascals and all these other examples of kids getting hurt. I wasn’t quite sure, but on the day of, I got all the signatures from the parents who have to agree: “Adam is going to hit your kid with the dodgeball, do you agree? Who wants to sign this?”
So, Adam hit those kids as hard as he could with those dodgeballs. I was dying. You can tell it was real because, after each kid gets hit, it cuts because they would get hit and they would fall on the ground crying and I’d have to swoop in and pick them up, make sure they were fine and move onto the next kid.
Filming the parties was a lot of fun. I couldn’t believe they let us put a jet ski in that fountain. I didn’t get some of the jokes though. Like, when the clown falls down and he’s got blood trickling out of his mouth. I was thinking, “That’s supposed to be funny?” But I couldn't question it; I just had to say, “Okay,” and focus on the technicality of shooting those parties in one day.
I also didn’t get any of the penguin stuff. And, I don’t know who it was to this day, but the guy in the penguin suit was a complete weirdo. He’d be so banned today. He was so inappropriate. He was the most annoying, foul-mouthed person — just a sexist, misogynist, dirty-joke-telling crazy person.
All Those Fussy Critics
When we made it, we had the best time. Then we screened it for Adam’s friends in front of 400 people and they loved it. We nailed it. Then the critics came and they hated Adam. Every review was “This is the worst film ever,” and “Adam Sandler is the worst.” It was awful. It was so heartbreaking. After that, Adam really never spoke to the press again. He felt like the press fucked him.
I tried to be punk rock about it, though. I was like, “If we made a movie our parents like, then we’ve fucked up” — and the critics were the parents. They were the old people. They didn’t get us. It wasn’t until later that audiences started getting it, and now it’s a classic.