Adam Sandler Honored With Performer Tribute At The Gotham Awards

Adam Sandler treated a delighted Gotham Awards audience Monday night with a rollicking stand-up session, thanking the org for a Performers Tribute after a long career with two guiding principles, “that people in prison need movies too, and TBS needs content to show between all those basketball games.”

He claimed the speech was written by his two teenage daughters, who were upset he hadn’t prepared one. He said he promised them he would, and he did by delivering it in a goofy Southern accent. “Thank you for givin’ our daddy, Mr. Adam Sandler, this prestigious lifetime, all-time prime time achievement tribute award. It means a lot to him, seeing as most of his awards are shaped like popcorn buckets or fake mini-Oscars that say ‘Father of the Year’, which he sadly purchased himself.”

He said his daughters wanted to come to the ceremony but he refused, telling them: “I don’t want to spend a whole night that is supposed to be about me and my greatness listening to you…buffoons screaming, ‘Where is Timothée Chalamet?”

“As my daddy is with you tonight, we are doing the things we are not allowed to do when daddy is home, like eat his yogurts or try on his Spanx, or, dare we say, laugh out loud at Ben Stiller movies. The last time daddy caught us chuckling away at the Meet The Parents trilogy, he immediately stormed into the room he calls the screaming room, which we just call the shower, and yelling out the phrase, “Only the Sandman makes people laugh. F-ck every other comedian!”

He ticked off career highlights from comedies to later classic works like Uncut Gems that were “received with orgasmic critical acclaim.”

“Many intellectual have stated that daddy did these so-called artsy-fartsy movies to push himself as an actor and human being in an attempt at some heavy duty, much needed soul searching. But we, his children, know he did it for a much more tangible reason. To one day be invited to the Gotham Awards. Where he can longingly gaze at at least 10 different tables…and say, ‘Just how many f-cking movies did A24 produce this year?’”

The award was presented by Josh and Benny Safdie, co-writers and directors of the actor’s 2019 crime thriller Uncut Gems. The event at Cipriani Wall Street in NYC was the first major ceremony of the fall season and can draw early critical recognition and media attention to indie films and series.

RELATED: Steven Spielberg Has Covid, Misses Introducing Michelle Williams Tribute At Gotham Awards

The Fabelmans star Michelle Williams also was recognized with a Performer Tribute at the 32nd annual awards. See the winners list here.

“Adam Sandler’s spectacular performances across some of the most popular films of the past three decades have inspired the community of filmmakers that we represent here … time and time again,” said the Gotham Film & Media Institute’s executive director Jeffrey Sharp, who called the actor “a brilliant talent and “consummate performer who has brought immeasurable joy to audiences throughout the world.”

Sandler was nominated for Best Actor at The Gotham Awards for Uncut Gems (he won the 2020 Independent Spirit Award for best male lead) and for Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories in 2017.

The actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer and musician, who most recently appeared in Netflix’s Hustle as a down on his luck basketball scout, came to national attention during a five-year run on SNL. Small parts in comedies like Shakes The Clown (1991), Coneheads (1993) and Mixed Nuts (1994) led to a breakout with Billy Madison (1995), which he co-wrote. A string of hit comedies — Happy Gilmore (1996), The Waterboy (1998), The Wedding Singer (1998), Big Daddy (1999) — cemented Sandler as a comedic powerhouse and major box office draw.

He formed Happy Madison Productions in 1999, producing and taking on wider-ranging roles including Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love (2002), James L. Brooks’ Spanglish (2004) and Funny People, by Judd Apatow in 2009, along with comedies from 50 First Dates (2004), The Longest Yard (2005), Click (2006), I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007), and You Don’t Mess With The Zohan (2008). He anchored Sony’s Hotel Translyvania franchise, and produced and starred in Grown Ups and Grown Ups 2.