Adam Sandler's Daughters Sunny And Sadie Are Growing Up Fast
With the arrival of his daughter Sadie Madison Sandler in 2006, "Big Daddy" star Adam Sandler landed a lead role in the comedy of errors that is daddyhood. The sequel followed in 2008 when Sandler and his wife Jackie welcomed baby No. 2, another daughter they named Sunny Madeline Sandler.
In a 2008 appearance on "Live with Regis and Kelly" (via People), Adam recounted how Sadie helped surprise him with the news that another baby was on the way. She'd stayed up past her bedtime to give her dad a wrapped gift, and it turned out to be a positive pregnancy test. "I was like, 'Woowww,'" the actor recalled.
We're just going to guess that Adam's daughters didn't get to watch that "Billy Madison" scene about how cool it is to pee your pants until they were old enough to know better, but apparently, pants-wetting wasn't his biggest parenting concern during the girls' early years. "The idea of my kids being spoiled, I go to sleep thinking about it and I wake up thinking about it," he said at a 2010 press conference, per the Boston Herald. However, this didn't stop Adam from raising his daughters to be big benefactors of nepotism — they've gone on to have entertainment careers of their own. After seeing how Sadie and Sunny have grown up to be such bright young stars, we have to say that their father made the right call.
Sunny and Sadie Sandler's big bat mitzvah movie
Sadie Sandler has quite the list of acting credits, beginning with an uncredited role as "girl riding on goat" in her dad's 2008 comedy "You Don't Mess with the Zohan." She's since appeared in more than a dozen Adam Sandler movies, including 2010's "Grown Ups." This marked the big screen debut of Sunny Sandler, who played the sister of Sadie's character. As the film's producer, Adam kept the casting in the family by giving his wife Jackie Sandler the role of their daughters' on-screen mom.
As teens, Sadie and Sunny got the opportunity to play siblings again when their dad's production company, Happy Madison, decided to adapt Fiona Rosenbloom's novel "You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah" for Netflix. This time, Sunny wasn't just offered a small cameo but a starring role as Stacy Friedman, a middle schooler who is excited about planning the perfect bat mitzvah — until her best friend Lydia (Samantha Lorraine) breaks the girl code in a major way by dating Stacy's longtime crush Andy (Dylan Hoffman). Sadie plays Stacy's older sister, Ronnie. Naturally, Adam cast himself as the girls' father. The film boasts an impressive roster of co-stars for the Sandler daughters, including Idina Menzel, Sarah Sherman, and Jackie Hoffman.
In an interview with Tudum, director Sammi Cohen praised Sunny's performance, saying, "She's got this incredible free-spirited nature, a natural silliness that elicits moments of charming vulnerability." Sunny and Sadie can also sing, as proven by their performance of the Taylor Swift song "Lover" at the Rock4EB! fundraiser in 2019.
The sisters' real bat mitzvahs were star-studded events
Sunny Sandler has grown up so much since being nominated in the Choice Celebrity Baby category at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards. Little did she know that the winner of that year's Choice Movie: Male Fresh Face Award, "Twilight" actor Taylor Lautner, would be attending her bat mitzvah someday. (Lautner appeared alongside Adam Sandler in "Grown Ups 2.") Per People, other celebs who showed up to celebrate the special occasion with Sunny in 2022 included Jennifer Aniston and Peyton List, who have also worked with Adam before. The comedian even snagged some big performers to entertain his daughter's partygoers: Halsey and Charlie Puth. Sammi Cohen told Tudum that the bash took place not long before the Sandler fam started shooting "You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah" together. "It was a big coming-of-age moment for everyone. And filming the movie felt like a continuation of that," she said.
Sadie didn't have to be jealous of her little sis, because her own bat mitzvah was also the place to be in Hollywood when her parents went all-out for her in 2019. On "Conan," Adam and attendee Conan O'Brien gossiped about some of the guests, which included Dustin Hoffman, Chris Rock, and David Spade. But it sounds like Adam scored the biggest points with Sadie by asking Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine to perform at the party. "Oh, she hugged me so much, my Sadie," he said on "Jimmy Kimmel Live."