Sitting down with stand-up

Anthony Giovanini

Before the conference call, Rob Schneider was on the set of &Bench Warming,& a comedy co-staring Napoleon Dynamite star Jon Heder set for release in 2006. Here is what he had to say.

Q: With your new movie (&Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo&) what is your favorite scene in the movie?

A: That&s a good question. I like the scene where I find out the girl I fall in love with works in the porn industry. I throw a midget out the window. It made me happy.

Q: Who wrote this one?

A: David Garrett, Jason Ward and a few others.

Q: Who directed it?

A: Mike Bigelow

Q: Why did you decide to take the second movie?

A: People really liked the first movie. I never intended to make a sequel but people kept on asking me. I thought it would be interesting taking it to Amsterdam.

Q: As far as sequels, they usually aren&t as good as the original. How is this movie better than the first?

A: The ideal sequel was &The Pink Panther Strikes Again.& The movie (&Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo&) 8211; it&s pretty funny. There&s a character that has a nose that grows when she gets horny. The character wears a vale so you can&t really tell.

Q: How was it like working with Eddie Griffin again?

A: He&s a really funny comedian. It was fun to write to his strengths.

Q: Do you guys ever improvise?

A: This one we played around more. There&s a little improvisation in this movie

Q: As a Giants fan, can you relate to Robert De Niro&s character in &The Fan&?

A: I never saw that movie. I got to meet some of my heroes. I met the last two presidents, but they don&t hold a candle to meeting Willie Mays.

Q: What would you say to your fans to get them to watch the movie?

A: If you liked the first one you should come watch this one.

Q: What would you say makes a good comedy?

A: When you laugh so hard you can&t breathe. When I saw &The Return Of The Pink Panther& I laughed my balls off. I saw &Team America& and boy God I laughed my balls off at that comedy. A good comedy can&t be afraid to offend.

Q: How was it like working with Adam Sandler?

A: I&ve worked with Adam for 20 years. He&s just a real comic genius. We do all of our movies together. His company produces all of my movies. He&s the nicest guy you&d ever meet.

Q: Where did you shoot this movie?

A: Completely in Amsterdam

Q: How did you like Amsterdam?

A: It was fantastic. When I wasn&t working I&d see the guys from the set taking time off on their boats with their families. They enjoy their downtime. When you have some time you want to be with family and it was nice to see that.

Q: Have you ever met any actual gigolos?

A: There&s Richard Pryor.

Q: Can you relate to the character?

A: I&m not as big of a loser. I&m about as successful with women as he is. He&s kind of a goofball and I&m kind of a goofball.

Q: What are some of your plans in the future?

A: I&m working on this &Bench Warmers& movie. Then I&d like to take some time off and maybe go to Cuba.

Q: Why Cuba?

A: I want to get some old Cuban movie posters and cigars.

Q: What was your favorite movie you&ve ever been in?

A: I really liked &50 First Dates& with Adam Sandler. &The Hot Chick& was fun, too. I love to work. Getting to work with Anna Faris and Rachel (McAdams) was great. They have a good sense of humor and they laugh at everything I say, which is nice.

Q: Do you miss working on &Saturday Night Live&?

A: Sometimes when I&m up at night trying to roll what&s left of a joint. When I get an idea I call up Adam and he&s great at laughing at ideas, we both are.

Q: What was it like working on &Saturday Night Live&?

A: It was like being accepted into an exclusive club. It was like a marathon every week. You have a chance to have everyone in America talking about it that Sunday. I haven&t really seen the show since I&ve left. It seems to be more performance driven rather than script driven now. We used to have funnier writers when I was on the show. But Will Ferrell is hilarious. It was a great experience and it&s a great place.

Q: Where did &You can do it!& come from?

A: I got a call from Adam saying, &Do you want to be in &Waterboy&? There was this one line that his screenwriting partner (Tim Herlihy) and a friend came up with. They didn&t think it was funny until I did it in the voice &You can do it!& It just became a thing. Adam thought it would be a thing that everyone would repeat. We try to put it into every movie. It was an inside joke that just got outside.

Q: Is there an inside line that you always want to put into a movie?

A: &That&s a huge bitch!& From the first Deuce Bigalow, we try to put it into every movie in the credits.

Q: How is it like shooting a movie with Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder)?

A: He&s one of the funniest guys I&ve worked with. We will make fun of him saying the lines from &Napoleon Dynamite& and he&ll be like: &I never said it that way. I can do whatever I want. Gosh.&

The release date for &Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo& is set for Aug. 12, 2005.