Adam Sandler was humble during a recent stint hosting “Late Show With David Letterman.”
The star of “Reign Over Me,” Mike Binder’s dark, gentle film about unfathomable grief and undaunted friendship, told this anecdote: “When I read the script, I asked (Mike),’Why don’t you get Daniel Day-Lewis to do this movie?’ Because I’d like to see this movie.”
With “Reign Over Me,” Binder takes another look at the repercussions of 9/11. His first was the biting, vivid “The Upside of Anger,” starring Joan Allen and Kevin Costner, set in his beloved Detroit.
In Binder’s new film, Sandler is impressive as the traumatized Charlie Fineman. Co-star Don Cheadle is ever watchable as his old college roommate in this film that brims with sorrow but is ringed with hope and humor.
A few hours before the New York premiere of “Reign Over Me,” Binder, 48, talked with The Denver Post.
Q: Adam Sandler really digs down into Charlie’s truths. What kind of risk did your leads have to take?
A: With Adam, it was almost like working with Peter Sellers in his prime. He took all his talent and put it on the inside. He did so much research. He went to so many therapy sessions. He’d call me up and tell me these horrible stories that he’d been listening to all day. Then he let it all go.
Q: In Denver, we have a near stalker-like interest in Cheadle. What’s he like to work with?
A: Cheadle drove me crazy. He truly was a pain … to the point he wanted everything rewritten. He wanted to make everything work and feel real about his feelings about being married with children. Everyday before every scene I’d go, “Here we go – ‘Mike, can I see you?”‘ But I came to welcome it. He’s really the smartest actor I’ve worked with – not to put anyone else down.
Q: This is your second 9/11 movie.
A: “The Upside of Anger” was set in a time when the air was just filled with anger. I think this film is so much closer to ground zero and at the same time it’s so far away from ground zero. We made sure to never show footage of the towers. And Charlie never goes near that part of the city. He lives in another dimension.
There are people living in the grief and the great tragedies of our lives, whether it’s Katrina or the tsunami or Oklahoma City. The difference between our time and others is we live in this 24-hour news cycle. It’s a powerful spotlight. We look at everything so closely until there’s something else to look at. Then we leave people wandering in the dark.
Q: Weren’t you in New York City on Sept. 11?
A: Yes, I was a Detroiter living in L.A. at the time (doing press in New York for HBO’s series “The Mind of the Married Man”) and looked up and saw the towers burning. Later that night I was wandering and I saw a woman in Bryant Park crying her eyes out. You knew. You knew that that woman had lost her son or her daughter or her husband. There was a guttural wail. To come back three years later with my wife and two kids and walk right by there. I wondered “Who is still left behind?” “Who didn’t get out of that day, even though they survived that day?”
Q: When Charlie’s at his lowest, it’s the only time you use any flashbacks.
A: And I was going to pull them, those little flashbacks. My first cut, I just got afraid of the emotion of the movie. I was going to pull Sandler’s monologue about his family, too. I got afraid of the emotion, y’know? Then I hit another place where I said, “no way, you can’t be afraid.” You can’t because that’s short-shrifting the reality of the movie.
Q: It’s good you went there.
A: I’m glad I did. You can’t be afraid to be sappy when you have veracity. Not only that, you can’t tell someone’s story, then not tell their story.
