Adam Sandlerhas some practical advice for his daughters, aspiring actors Sadie, 17, and Sunny, 15: Learn fromCarey Mulligan’s performances.
“Our kids want to be actors. And we go, ‘Well, watch Carey,’” Sandler, 57, tells PEOPLE of Mulligan, his costar in the new Netflix sci-fi dramaSpaceman. The 38-year-old’s performance inMaestroalso earned her a Best Actress nomination at this year’sOscars.
InSpaceman, Sandler plays Jakub, an astronaut on a solo mission in outer space. Back on Earth, Jakub’s pregnant wife Lenka (Mulligan) has grown dissatisfied with the dynamic of the relationship, and decides to leave her husband while he’s millions of miles away.
Marc Piasecki/WireImage
“I love Carey. Listen, it’s stuff she does in a movie, there’s no way I could do it. There’s no way I could. I just watch her and I say, ‘Well, that is just the next level of acting,’” gushes Sandler.
Carey Mulligan and Adam Sandler in ‘Spaceman’.Courtesy of Netflix
Courtesy of Netflix
“I was just trying to make sure I stayed out of the way for Carey. She’s amazing. It’s so real. It’s so effortless,” he continues.
Sandler recalls being so moved during one scene in with Lenka tapes a message to Jakub, explaining that she’s leaving him.
The Sandler family in 2023.Amy Sussman/Getty
Amy Sussman/Getty
Mulligan is a fan of Sandler’s work as well. “I am such an enormous fan,” thePromising Young Womanstar recently said in an interview with Netflix. “In fact, before we shot, I watched all of his movies.”
But Sandler tells PEOPLE that’s not quite true. “She only watched like six,” he quips. “She started all of them. Turned a lot of them off.”
Her two favorites? The 1998 comedyThe Waterboyand the 2023 animatedLeo, which also features the voices of Sander’s daughters.
“She lovesLeo. You wouldn’t think she would loveLeobecause she’s a grown lady, but she locked in withLeo,” says Sandler.
Mulligan says she’s also partial to the 2017 dramedyThe Meyerowitz Stories, costarringBen StillerandDustin Hoffman.
“I think you love it because you thought I was Stiller in it,” Sandler jokes.
“I thought you were Stiller. I love Stiller,” Mulligan responds.
Adam Sandler and Carey Mulligan.Gerald Matzka/Getty
Gerald Matzka/Getty
“She loves Stiller and somehow that benefited me,” Sandler replies.
Sandler has previously opened up about giving his daughters career advice. “I tell them to make sure you feel good about what you do and how hard you worked, and you judge yourself,” he PEOPLE last year at theLeopremiere.
“Don’t let too many people try to get in your head. If you feel like you gave it your all, that’s all you can ask,” he continued.
In 2023, Sandler, Jackie and their girlsalso starred in Netflix comedy-dramaYou Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah. Sadie and Sunny played their dad’s onscreen daughters Ronnie and Stacy.
They have appeared in other Sandler movies including the 2010 comedyGrown Upsand the 2020 comedyHubie Halloween. Sunny also has a small role inSpaceman.
Spacemanstreams on Netflix Friday, March 1.
source: people.com
