On Saturday night, two superstars arrived at Fairfax High School’s basketball court to participate in a very special Vanity Fair Scene Selection Live. Adam Sandler and Timothée Chalamet, previously seen shooting hoops together out in New York City, greeted a rapturous audience of students and guild voters who had patiently lined up in the pouring rain to see these two friends discuss their work. Sandler, who stars in Netflix’s Jay Kelly, and Chalamet, who stars in A24’s Marty Supreme, first met on the set of Jason Reitman’s Men, Women & Children, though Chalamet’s scenes were eventually cut from the final film. The two discussed Saturday Night Live, working with director Josh Safdie, and their careers.
Each actor gushed about the other’s work. Sandler told Chalamet that before the two of them had even met, actor Grace Van Patten had raved to him about Chalamet on the set of Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories. “She’s like, ‘This kid Timmy is incredible,’” Sandler said. “You both were in high school, and she was like, ‘Everyone talks about Timmy.’” Chalamet went even further when discussing his love of Sandler’s performance in Punch-Drunk Love. “I know it’s not about awards—blah, blah, blah,” Chalamet said. “But you should have a golden man in your hand, because you’re one of the best fucking actors on the planet.”
After watching a scene from Dune: Part Two, Chalamet revealed he had only wrapped filming Part Three of the film series several days before. “It’s moving to me that something as out-there as Dune…has taken this personal resonance on for me,” Chalamet said. “I’m almost tearing up a little bit watching that because…I’ve grown up through those movies.” The film, set to be released at the end of next year, marks the conclusion of the Denis Villeneuve–directed trilogy.
After watching the SNL sketch “The Herlihy Boy House-Sitting Service,” Sandler spoke about his relationship with his late friend Chris Farley. “He was by far the funniest dude on the planet,” Sandler said. “Every comedian…it was unanimous that we all said he was the funniest. There was no competition.” Before taping an episode of SNL, Sandler said, Farley would joke with him backstage that he was going to get him to break—a big no-no for Lorne Michaels.
Both actors spoke highly of working with Safdie. He and his brother, Benny, directed Sandler in Uncut Gems, pushing the actor outside his comfort zone. “I’d be scared to do some shit and feel like I couldn’t do it,” Sandler said. “Or I felt foolish, or felt like maybe I don’t want to be seen like that. But I just dove in.” Chalamet said he had a similar experience in making Marty Supreme. “Josh gave me this opportunity where I feel like he empowered me to be something I would almost be wary of being in this world, in this day and age, which is to be openly aspirational. I feel like the gift of my life is to focus on this acting thing, the way Marty Mauser is locked in on Ping-Pong.”
The night ended with a surprise two-on-two basketball game, which saw Sandler and Chalamet take on two students from the crowd. The actors played hard while fans cheered them on, but ultimately lost 3-1. Kid Cudi, who appeared earlier this year in Sandler’s Happy Gilmore 2, and Josh Safdie both attended the conversation as well, with Chalamet giving Cudi a shout-out as one of his major inspirations. The two actors greeted fans after the basketball game as guests left the gymnasium to head back out into the rain. The full video of Sandler and Chalamet’s conversation will be posted in December.
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