- Title: GERMANY: 'You Don't Mess with the Zohan' hits German cinemas
- Date: 30th July 2008
- Summary: RLIN, GERMAN (JULY 28, 2008) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR ADAM SANDLER SAYING "I did, I had a great time. And it was not too far from who I am. I am a very strong man. I am good at jumping, I am very good at-- I'm the best swimmer in the world and I wanted to bring that on to the screen. And also I'm very good with hair, playing with people's hair, making them look good. I'm very good at making love, so I just wanted the world to kind of see me doing all these things and kind of learn from it."
- Embargoed: 14th August 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Germany
- Country: Germany
- Reuters ID: LVAAFXA3P3LG7QH0UOW8ALGWMVUN
- Story Text: Star comedian Adam Sandler and co-star Rob Schneider seem to be at home in Berlin. The American actors were in the German capital on Monday (July 28) to present their latest film 'You Don't Mess with the Zohan'.
In the new movie, Sandler plays a top Israeli secret agent Zohan Dvir who is working for the Mossad secret service and accomplishes the toughest missions effortlessly. He is known to the entire country as 'The Zohan' where women love him and Palestinian terrorists fear him.
His Palestinian counterpart, called 'The Phantom', has repeatedly experienced what it means to mess with the invincible Zohan. However, Zohan has a big dream. Tired of hunting down criminals, he would like to start a new life working as a barber in New York.
The Zohan's parents laugh at him when he tells him his dream. Since 'The Phantom' is continuously released in the many prisoner exchanges, Zohan tires of this game and fakes his own death in order to leave the secret service business. While the Phantom celebrates his triumph over Zohan, the latter travels secretly to the U.S. in order to become a hair stylist.
After initial hiccups, Zohan finds a job in a barber shop of the beautiful Dalia and is a huge success only after a short period. But his old life soon catches up with him. A Palestinian taxi driver who had his favourite goat stolen by Zohan, recognises the former spy and begins to plan an assassination attempt on him. When this fails, the taxi driver contacts the Phantom who immediately travels to New York to help sort things out - only to realise that you don't mess with the Zohan.
Sandler turned up at a publicity barbecue, speaking to the media and signing autographs for fans gathered.
Both Sandler and Rob Schneider, who are both former Saturday Night Live colleagues, said they realised that not everyone would find the humour in a film with as serious and sensitive an issue as the Palestinian/Israeli conflict in it's background.
"When I first started thinking of this idea for this movie, my family was like 'you don't want to do this movie, you can't make jokes about that situation' and I heard that a lot but ultimately I knew the movie was about peace and wanting everyone to get along. So I thought this was a good movie even though people might get offended along the way," Sandler told Reuters "I think you have to find in any human experience, you have to find some comedy in it - in anything. And I think, like I said, we try to be balanced with it and as an artists you can't be afraid to offend. If anything, the worst form of censorship is self censorship," added Schneider So I think we tried to you know - I know that the writers of the script, I didn't write the script - were very conscious about not trying to be overly insulting. Like I said it's not mean in spirit and that goes a long way."
'You Don't Mess with the Zohan' opens in German cinemas on August - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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