The Casting Call for ‘Happy Gilmore 2’ Was a Total Nightmare
What’s the bigger long shot — becoming a professional golfer or starring in a movie with Adam Sandler?
The long odds help explain why chaos reigned this week when pretty much everyone in New Jersey turned out to possibly, maybe, if God was willing, appear somewhere in Happy Gilmore 2.
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One candidate for “Guy Cheering at the Golf Course” was Alex Meyers, a writer for Golf Digest who decided to try his luck at the open casting call. Almost immediately, he regretted it. After an hour of trying to park, Meyers walked up to a New Jersey hotel for the audition. The throng outside the building was so massive that he couldn’t even find the end of the line.
“Nobody really knows where it starts,” said one befuddled fan. “Everyone is telling us to go in a different direction.”
After finally entering the queue and slowly snaking his way to the hotel doors, Meyers celebrated when he finally entered the building. But that euphoria quickly evaporated when he realized that, like a Disney World ride, the longest part of the wait comes when you make it inside. Hours of waiting were still ahead.
The good news? A member of the Happy Gilmore 2 casting team told Meyers that the movie was looking for plenty of people to play golf fans in tournament scenes. “We need to hire 18,000 extras,” she said, “so this was a fantastic day for us.”
Eighteen thousand? For a tournament like The Masters, about 40,000 people show up over the course of four days. That’s 10,000 fans a day — or about half of what Happy Gilmore 2 needs. Maybe the movie has some hockey games it needs to populate as well.
After endlessly waiting for the chance to be seen, Meyers was part of a large group finally ushered into a Hyatt Regency ballroom — where everyone was told they could complete an online form instead of continuing their wait. What??? That was an option all along? For Meyers and most of the people who’d spent hours waiting for their chance, they’d committed too much time to give up now.
No one was in it for the money, even though pocket change was on the line. Anyone chosen to be an extra would get $176 for a 10-hour filming day, or $216 if they were a member of SAG-AFTRA. The bigger prize was to get to hang out with Adam Sandler — or at least to hang out in the general vicinity of Adam Sandler. I think that’s him! That black speck wearing the Bruins jersey! HI ADAM!
After about five hours of waiting, Meyers finally made it to the front of the line — where he got to fill out an application and get his picture taken. That was the same application he could have filled out online if he’d chosen to ditch 90 minutes earlier.
Will Meyers show up in the movie? His chances depend on who you believe. Meyers guessed 2,500 people auditioned that day but other estimates put the number at 12,000, making his odds significantly longer. At least Meyers gave himself the chance. As Happy Gilmore knows, you have to shoot in order to score.
