HOOP DREAMS
ADAM SANDLER is a basketball scout who unearths a potential superstar
Hustle
Available: Wednesday 8 June Genre: Drama
IN HIS LATEST movie for Netflix, Adam Sandler stars as Stanley Sugerman, a scout for the Philadelphia 76ers who discovers a talented street basketball player, Bo Cruz, while on a trip to Spain.
Stanley is convinced that Bo (played by real-life Spanish basketball star Juancho Hernangómez) is the player who can make the difference to his team, and decides to bring him to the US. But how will the other players react, and does Bo have the commitment it takes to become an NBA star?
Here, Sandler reveals more about the project…
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE FILM? It’s very much a Rocky story. Stanley and Bo have a real father-son relationship, and I connected to a lot of the stuff in the script, like having to go on the road and missing your family.
HOW DID THIS ROLE COMPARE TO SOME OF THE OTHER DRAMAS YOU’VE DONE? It has a lot of deep scenes that resonated with me, like playing a guy who’s been working hard his whole life, being overlooked. A lot of people have dealt with this in their life.
HOW DID JUANCHO GET CHOSEN FOR THE ROLE?
We saw a lot of great players, and a lot of guys who were good at acting also. I think Juancho just had some time to himself when he was hanging out like everyone else, and he made us a tape. We were like, ‘Boy, this guy is a natural.’
DID YOU GET TO SHOOT HOOPS WITH ALL THE BASKETBALL PLAYERS DURING FILMING? I played a little bit – they slowed the game down 90% so I could actually play with them. But I loved just talking to the guys. I got to meet a lot of coaches and talk a lot of hoop. And now when I watch the games, I have, like, 15 teams I can pull for, because we all became friends.