THE ART OF  ORIGINAL FILMMAKING

Jack and Jill

The writers
Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Manchester, New Hampshire, Adam Sandler's first brush with comedy came at age 17, with a performance at a Boston comedy club.  From then on he was hooked, performing regularly in comedy clubs throughout the state, while earning a degree in Fine Arts from New York University.
Playing Jack and Jill, he is co-writer and producer and has enjoyed phenomenal success as an actor, writer, producer and musician.
Sandler's films have grossed over $3 billion worldwide.  His most recent film, Just Go With It, earned more than $214 million worldwide, and his previous film, Grown Ups, is the highest-grossing of his career, taking in more than $271 million worldwide.  Sandler also recently starred in Universal's Funny People, as well as the box office smashes Bedtime Stories, You Don't Mess with the Zohan and I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry.
Sandler's voice was recently heard in Zookeeper, and he also served as a producer of that film.  He is currently in production on I Hate You, Dad and will also voice the lead role of Dracula in Sony Pictures Animation's upcoming CG-animated feature, Hotel Transylvania.
Previously, Sandler has been seen in the starring role in Reign Over Me,Click, and The Longest Yard. He also starred in Spanglish, 50 First Dates, Anger Management, and Punch-Drunk Love.
Sandler's production company Happy Madison Productions was co-founded by Jack Giarraputo and Sandler and has gone on to become an almost self-contained mini studio, being involved in all aspects of film production.  Happy Madison has produced Click, The Benchwarmers, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, Strange Wilderness and the recent films The House Bunny, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Zookeeper, and the upcoming film Here Comes the Boom.  Sandler has also collaborated with writer Tim Herlihy on the screenplays for Happy Gilmore, Little Nicky, Billy Madison, Big Daddy, and The Waterboy and executive produced Grandma's Boy, The Animal, Joe Dirt, The Master of Disguise, The Hot Chick and Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.
Happy Madison Productions also has a deal with Columbia Tri-Star Domestic Television to develop shows for the studio including the current hit show Rules of Engagement.
Sandler's comedy albums on Warner Bros Records have gone multi-platinum. Collectively, they have sold more than six million copies to date.

Co-writer Steve Koren(who is also Executive Producer) began his comedy writing career by handing jokes to Dennis Miller and David Letterman in the hallways of 30 Rockefeller Center in New York City, where he worked as a tour guide.   This led to a writing position with Saturday Night Live, where he earned several Emmy nominations working with comedic talents such as Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Molly Shannon, not to mention sharing an office with Will Ferrell.  
Koren eventually left SNL for the primetime sitcom world, where he worked as a writer/producer on the award winning show Seinfeld.  Among his well-known episodes are The Serenity Now, The English Patient, and The Abstinence. Following Seinfeld, Koren spent several years as a writer/producer creating television sitcoms for actors such as Steve Carell, Valerie Harper and Ron Liebman.   
In the motion picture world, Koren's screenplay credits include A Night At The Roxbury co-written and starring Will Ferrell, the blockbuster Bruce Almighty and Click, co-written with Mark O'Keefe, and A Thousand Words. In addition, he has contributed as a writer in the development of Get Smart and I Love You, Man.  He has also served as executive producer on the Happy Madison comedy Just Go With It. 

Ben Zook (Story by) is a successful actor, screenwriter, and director, living in Los Angeles. He has several feature projects in development at several studios.
For television, Zook co-wrote two sketch comedy pilots with Jill Soloway of Six Feet Under.  He also wrote and performed in Bob Odenkirk's sketch pilot for FOX.
Best known for his work in the Chicago Improv and Theatre scene, as well as the Los Angeles Alternative Comedy scene, Zook was raised in Kansas, and went on to attend Indiana University, where he studied Music and Theatre. After graduation, he moved to Chicago, where he studied improvisation at the famed Second City.
He was also a founding member of Chicago's Annoyance Theatre, where, under the direction of Mick Napier, he co-wrote and performed in such hits as The Real Live Brady Bunch, That Darn Anti-Christ!, Manson: The Musical, Coed Prison Sluts, Your Butt, Shakespeare's Sid and Nancy, and Sexboy. He also co-wrote and directed the highly successful, Tippi Portrait of a Virgin: An After-school Special Gone Bad.  While there, Zook performed with Jon Favreau, Andy Richter, Steve Carell, Jane Lynch, Matt Walsh, Kate Flannery, Melanie Hutsell, and Jeff Garlin, among many talented others.
After performing in The Real Live Brady Bunch in New York, L.A. and San Francisco, Zook moved to Los Angeles, where he co-wrote, directed, and performed in several stage hits, including Not Without My Nipples! with Janeane Garofalo and Molly Shannon, Baby Jesus and his Holiday Pixies with Ana Gasteyer, Theatre a Go-Go's production of Valley of the Dolls, Scotch For Breakfast's hit St. Elmo's Phire, and the award-winning, L.A. stage hit Phoxes.
Zook was also a fixture in the Los Angeles Alternative Comedy scene, where he performed regularly with people like Jack Black, Will Ferrell, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Sarah Silverman, Zack Galifianakis, and Fred Armisen, among others, in hit shows like Laura Milligan's Tantrum, Character Assassination,Beachwood Palace Jubilee, Media Whore, For Entertainment Purposes Only, and Slap and Tickle. Zook is also the head writer/director of the highly successful, award-winning sketch comedy group, Margot's Bush.
Zook and former writing partner, Stephen Falick, co-wrote and co-directed the 80's dance spoof, Can't Stop Dancing!, which featured Zook. The film was an audience favorite at The Palm Springs Film Festival, The Seattle Film Festival and Outfest. Zook also starred in the indie feature comedy, The Thin Pink Line.

The director
Dugan is an actor-turned-filmmaker who began his career in the New York theater scene and first made his mark in Hollywood in front of the camera.  He starred in his own NBC television series, Richie Brockelman, Private Eye, and also guest-starred on such award-winning television programs as M*A*S*H, Columbo, The Rockford Files, and Hill Street Blues.
Dennis Dugan is a talented filmmaker whose diverse career in entertainment spans over two decades.  Dugan is considered one of the industry's top feature film comedy directors, whose films have taken in more than $1 billion worldwide.  He earned his reputation with such hits as Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy, You Don't Mess with the Zohan and I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry.  His other films include The Benchwarmers, National Security, Saving Silverman, and Beverly Hills Ninja.Dugan most recently directed Grown Ups and Just Go With It.
On the small screen, Dugan has directed dozens of television projects including, NYPD Blue, Moonlighting, and Ally McBeal, as well as the telepics Columbo: Butterfly Shades of Gray and The Shaggy Dog.
In addition to small, yet memorable, acting roles in his own films, the most recent being the taxi driver in I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, Dugan's feature-film credits include roles in Parenthood, She's Having a Baby, Can't Buy Me Love and The Howling.

The story
When you get together with your family for the holidays, everybody has that one family member who drives you crazy.  They mean well, and you love them, but still…
For Jack, that's his sister - his twin sister - Jill.  Growing up, their lives were incredibly intertwined.  But ever since Jack moved away, they have moved in different directions.  Jack has become a highly motivated and successful ad executive in L.A., while Jill was the one who stayed back east and took care of their parents.  Now, they see each other only once a year, at Thanksgiving, when Jill comes to L.A. for a visit.  Time and distance have taken a toll on their relationship - and now Jack finds himself enduring Jill's annual visit, rather than enjoying it.
Still, it's just a couple of days, right?  Wrong.  Jack and Jill get off on the wrong foot - just like always - and the only way Jack can make things right is to ask Jill to stay on through Hanukkah, giving her some time to enjoy everything L.A. has to offer, from game shows to horseback riding.  Still, Jack isn't exactly pleased that his sister is extending her trip…
And adding to Jack's stress is the fact that things aren't going all that well at his ad agency.  His biggest client, Dunkin Donuts, is demanding that Jack deliver Al Pacino to perform in a new Dunkaccino commercial.  Jack wonders how in the world he is going to get Pacino - does he even do commercials? - and his quest is intensified when he finds out that the famous actor is having a nervous breakdown and losing his mind.  Having played one too many roles, the actor is starting to confuse reality with the parts he is playing and is acting out in some increasingly erratic ways.
When Jack takes Jill to see the Lakers, he approaches Pacino about the commercial, but is stunned when Pacino is much more interested in talking to Jill.  It turns out that Jill reminds Pacino of everything he left behind - his boyhood home in the Bronx, his childhood - and for Pacino, who is preparing to play Don Quixote on stage, something clicks.  Because he's having trouble with reality, suddenly, Jill isn't Jack's wacky sister… she's Dulcinea, Don Quixote's idealized romantic love - and Pacino must conquer her affections to realize his quest.
Trouble is, Jill isn't interested.  But Pacino will not be brushed aside so easily.  Inviting himself to Jack and Jill's surprise birthday party, he sweeps Jill off her feet and takes her for a private party at his home - but Jill still isn't biting, which only inflames Pacino's passion (and insanity).  It's not clear who's more upset - Jill, from the experience, or Jack, who thinks his chance to get Pacino could be over, or Pacino, who is completely losing it for Jill.
For Jack, now the shoe is on the other foot: he has to try to convince Jill to extend her trip even further and give Pacino one more shot.  It's a move that sets in motion a wild, outrageous series of events that reveals to Jack who the most important people in his life are - and have always been.

Director Dennis Dugan re-teams with Adam Sandler for the eighth time on the comedy Jack and Jill. "What I found interesting was that somewhere partway through the production I thought of Adam as playing Jack, but I thought of Jill as if she were her own person. Adam didn't walk around off-camera acting like Jill, but after a while, it was as if Jill was a woman we hired who happened to look remarkably like Adam."
In the film, Sandler plays Jack, an advertising executive who is one commercial away from hitting the big time - or, if the deal falls through, unmitigated disaster.  Into this turmoil comes his twin sister, Jill - who always makes things more complicated than they need to be. 
"I knew Adam would have no problem playing Jill.  The part he worked at was to play Jack," says Steve Koren, who co-wrote the screenplay with Sandler.  "Jack's the kind of guy who's a little bit on edge - he's had to work to make that guy different from who he really is."
While writing the film with Adam Sandler, Koren found some interesting things.  "Some twins actually create their own language when they're little kids, so we invented a special, private language that only Jack and Jill speak," he says. "We also found out that twins have a bond that is a lot stronger than some siblings, so we tried to incorporate as much of that as possible."
Playing the dual role required an ingenious sense of timing from Sandler.  "Part of the joke was that Jack and Jill would do the exact same things at the exact same time," Koren explains.  "What that meant, of course, was that Adam would do the scene once, and then he'd redo it as the other character.  It was almost like a dance, a ballet; Adam had to have incredible focus and perfect timing.  It was pretty incredible to watch."
Describing the character and the plot of the film, Koren explains, "Jill had only two constants in her life - taking care of her parents and the love of her bird, Poopsie.  She's sacrificed her personal life.  When she comes to visit Jack for the holidays and won't leave, Jack tries to help her find a guy - a guy who he hopes will get her out of his house."
Of course, nothing goes as planned.  Instead of an internet date, Jill gets an impossibly unlikely suitor.  In the film, Jack needs Al Pacino to agree to do a commercial - and if he can't get Pacino, Dunkin Donuts will take their business elsewhere.  Just as he's wondering what he's going to do, who should fall for Jill but the Oscar®-winning actor himself.  Just one catch - in the movie, the character of Pacino is suffering from a nervous breakdown. 
For the role of Al Pacino, the filmmakers decided to get Al Pacino.  "In the movie, Al Pacino isn't really playing himself - he's playing an obsessive actor who has gone a bit off the deep end and is losing his marbles," says Koren.  "So, when he falls for Jill, he goes overboard. He's willing to go to any length to get the girl.  The trouble is, Jill's just not all that into him.  She knows more about 'American Idol' than she does about Al Pacino."
Pacino plays the character in a way that is very different from the man he is in real life.  "He's an actor who's losing control," says Pacino.  "He has had an overload of work and it's starting to take hold of him and affect his mental capacity.  He's clearly in the middle of a breakdown.  That's the track I've taken in order to play myself as somebody else - it's all heightened and exaggerated as to make it believable in a comedy.  However, I tried to keep it real so that the madness is real."
In the movie, the character of Pacino is starting to lose his grip on reality.  He has been mulling an offer to play Don Quixote in "Man of La Mancha" on Broadway - and when he meets Jill, he endows himself and Jill with characteristics of the characters.  "In 'Man of La Mancha,' Don Quixote is a madman who believes himself to be a knight, and he believes Dulcinea to be a princess, even though she's an ugly peasant.  He falls madly in love with her by endowing her with virtues she doesn't really possess," Pacino explains.  "When my character meets Jill, he does the same thing.  She becomes his Dulcinea.  In a sense, my character unconsciously uses her as a tool to find out if he indeed wants to play the part of Don Quixote.  He gives Jill all the traits of the character Dulcinea so he can rehearse it, try it out, and see if it fits.  He doesn't even know he's doing it, but there's method in his madness."
In addition, Jill represents something that the character of Pacino feels he has lost.  "Our character of Pacino is at a crossroads," says Dugan.  "He's kind of lost in Los Angeles.  The thing that's missing in life is who he used to be - a sense of home and roots.  Suddenly, here's a woman who comes to him at the height of his fame and reminds him of who he used to be.  He needs to go back to his home, and he thinks Jill is his ticket."
"I love the idea of playing an older movie star, clinging, trying to get back to what it was that made him do this thing in the first place," Pacino continues.  "My character is a guy who just wants to go back home, wants to be simple again, but will never be able to be that way again.  And no matter how crazy he is, his instincts are still working as an actor - if he engages her in the same way Don Quixote engages Dulcinea, he can find out if he can really play the part in 'Man of La Mancha.'  It's subtle and unusual, but this is the actor's journey out of madness."
Dugan says that working with Pacino was, of course, a completely unique experience.  "I didn't know what to expect - he's obviously a serious actor - but he embraced the insanity," says Dugan.  "He played his version of Pacino in a truly brilliant way.  He's a genuinely nice guy and he had a terrific attitude about the whole thing."
Naturally, the real Pacino provided exactly what you'd expect: a tremendous actor, having the time of his life.  "Al was at the top of his game - Adam would throw something at him, and Al would catch it and fire it right back," says Dugan.  "He embraced the way we work, which I think is different from the way most sets work.  But Al was never thrown off by any of it - he stood in there and hit it as hard as he could."
The film's cinematographer, Dean Cundey, says that the film changes very slightly in tone when Pacino is on the screen.  "Like a lot of comedies, we wanted a bright and high-key look - as opposed to something moody or dark - but in the Pacino scenes, we had an opportunity to bring more of an edge," he explains.  "Pacino is identified with many of his darker characters, so I thought it might be interesting to inject a little bit of that into his scenes.  For example, for the reveal of Al in the restaurant, I took a cue from the way we've discovered Al in the past and put him in dark silhouette, with smoke wafting from his cigar and some light across his eyes and face in a darkened room.  It's a fun moment in the film."
Katie Holmes joins the cast as Erin, Jack's wife and mother to their two children.  "She's a very busy wife and mother," Holmes explains.  "When Jill comes to town and creates a lot of mayhem within the family, she's the one who's trying to keep it all together."
"It was wonderful to see Adam transform into Jill," she continues.  "As a woman, it was nice to have conversations with a man about shaving legs, how pantyhose and heels feel, and all of the tougher parts about being a woman.  Adam was a great sport - it was really, really fun."
One of Mexico's top comics, Eugenio Derbez, joins in the fun as Felipe, Jack's gardener, who genuinely likes Jill for who she is.  "Felipe thinks he's funny - he's always cracking jokes, then saying, 'I'm kidding, I'm kidding.'"  Derbez was up for the challenge to be funny in English, even though his first language is Spanish.  "You memorize the lines and get the language under control, but you still have to deliver the joke - it's not just saying it in English.  And the delivery might be very different in Spanish and in English.  Finding the tone is the challenge."
It turns out that Sandler isn't the only actor playing a dual role as a man and a woman: Derbez also plays Felipe's grandmother.  "Yes, that's me, too," he says.  "They asked if I had a relative who could do the scene, and I said no, but I could play my own grandma.  I play a lot of different characters on my TV shows - so they saw my reel, and that was that.  It was a lot of fun to do, except for the makeup.  The process takes 3½ or 4 hours, and they put glue all over my face - my beard, too.  I had five different prosthetics on my head and face.  I'd still be finding glue three days after shooting."
From his experience on his shows in Mexico, Derbez had ample experience performing sketch comedy, which, of course, is where Sandler and his crew at Happy Madison got their start.  "That made him a good choice for the Adam Sandler squad," says Dugan.  "He gets the whole thing we do - we try whatever comes up as we shoot.  We stay on our toes - somebody throws it to you, and you throw it back.  He's funny - he's just funny."
Also joining the cast are Elodie Tougne and Rohan Chand, who play Jack and Erin's kids, Sofia and Gary.  Allen Covert, Nick Swardson, Valerie Mahaffey, and Geoff Pierson round out the cast.

Transforming Jack into Jill
For the behind-the-camera crew, the primary challenge of the film was in making Sandler into two characters.  The primary task went to makeup department head Ann Pala, hair department head Thomas Real, and costume designer Ellen Lutter.  Pala and Real went through dozens of hair styles, textures, colors, and lengths (short, curly, and long), various nail colors and lengths, lip colors, skin tones, lashes, and teeth, all in different combinations.  Working with three Sandler look-alikes, they created a number of different options for the filmmakers to choose from. Read more

How they did it
To handle technical challenges of filming Adam Sandler opposite himself, the filmmakers turned first to director of photography Dean Cundey, the cinematographer who shot Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Parent Trap, Back to the Future, and Jurassic Park. Read more

On the Cruise
In the film, the Sadelsteins go on a family vacation during the holidays every year; this year, they've booked a cruise on Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world. "We were lucky enough to have the timing of our movie coincide with the launching of the ship," says Dugan.  "They were building the ship in Norway while we were prepping the movie.  We contacted them and they were very happy to do business with us.  We sent a couple of electricians over to Norway to lay the cables and figure out all of our electrical hookups, so when the ship got here we'd be ready to go.  We met them in Florida, and during their trial runs, when they were still getting ready for the paying passengers, we were able to shoot on the ship for 10 days." Read more

The Production design
Much of the film is about contrasting Jack and Jill - highlighting their superficial differences to underscore all of the ways that deep down they are exactly alike.  One way the filmmakers were able to do that was to show the twins living very different lives - Jack in his Brentwood mansion and Jill in her spartan Bronx home.  Read more

The art of adaptation

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