Adam Sandler Acceptance Speech | 2023 Mark Twain Prize

Hello, yes, thank you all, I love you, thank you, thank you, thank you, it's okay, thank you, it's okay, thank you, it's okay. I appreciate it, okay, thank you, that was a nice feeling and thank you, I love you and I appreciate it very much. here we go hello my name is Adam Sandler and me and I had 20 23 Mark Twain Humor Winner of the press award for greatness in American comedy and for bringing thunderous belly laughter to the sweet people of planet Earth Can I get a Hell yeah, to all my incredibles? friends who spoke tonight, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the time I listened to you.

I was filled with gratitude that the original people the Kennedy Center asked to come were unable to attend. Nicholson Hoffman Pacino, everyone had dinner reservations in advance. that they couldn't cancel and as you guys went on and on about me, I couldn't help but think that Hillwood's ratings and talent, you are my true friends, to my family, who flew from New Hampshire in Florida to see me. get this award, yes I will pay for your hotel rooms but you have to pay for your own incidentals mother God I'm kidding I love you I'm going to lower my voice and tell some people try to talk normal and I feel bad.

I've been making jokes about my mom for many years but she's a great lady and I'm sorry if any of them ever hurt your feelings Mom, it's okay, honestly, I've had an amazing life, I'll tell you what kind of led me to tonight. I come from a big family. A sweet, beautiful, funny, amazing, caring, loving mother who played Barbra Streisand. Johnny Mathis. I had a dad with a ponytail as cool as it gets funny that he sang Johnny Cash and Johnny Ray to me and showed me. the Marx brothers, Jerry Lewis, Jackie Gleason, every time they were on the show, he would call me into the room and growing up, my parents literally went out of their way to give me crazy confidence that literally everything I did, school sports, I sang, I joked, they acted like I was the best. in all those things even though other children were much better than me, my sisters Elizabeth and Valerie, they included me in everything they did, they always told me to sing, they told stories, they went to all my games, they supported me.

They even took me on dates with their boyfriends, they always made me feel like I was the star of the family. My older brother, Scott. I shared a room with him all my childhood and he was always kind to me. He is always calm with me. He just told me I'm funny all the time He said I was great on the guitar He told me I could sing as well as Stephen Tyler He retired He told me to read Mad Magazine and we would watch Benny Hill together When it came time to choose my college major, so that my brother was the one who said I should be an actor.

I told him what I should do with my life. He said you should be an actor. You're as funny as Rodney Dangerfield and, uh, Eddie Murphy and me. I never thought that, but he just made me feel like he was the one who brought me to Boston when I was 17. He was a senior in high school and he brought me to do stand-up comedy at Stitch's. Comedy Club, he set it all up. He says you are going on stage because you have five minutes to make jokes. You'll say? I told him I'm not sure. I'll just wing it because I really did it.

Even I had no idea what the hell. I didn't even know it was supposed to get ready, so I went up there. I was terrible. I don't even know what I said. I was like in a fog, those strange fogs. You understand when you're a stand-up, sometimes when you lose your mind, I was just babbling. I remember a guy yelling that he still has an advance and anyway, I left for some reason on the way home, my brother made me feel. like I had the best set of any comedian that night and he said you just have to prepare yourself next time but they loved you and in my head I was like them but uh and then I went to NYU and the first guy That I met was the Great One, Tim Hurley, he was my roommate and, um, I asked him what do you want to do with your life.

He said: I want to be a billionaire and I told him, and he says: How about you? I told him: I want to be a comedian. He said great. and then he asked me what some of your jokes are and I told him I don't have any jokes and then he went to Poughkeepsie to see his family, he came back and handed me three yellow sheets of paper with jokes about him and he just did it by himself, I He told these jokes and that's when we like formed a team and we started trying to kick ass together and all my friends, uh, my friend Eric Lamonsaw, who I grew up with, and the guys in my dorm, Jack Garopputo, Frank Karachi, Alan .

Colbert, who I met in my history comedy class, we all became very close and comedy became our obsession, and Colin Quinn, who was a great comedian, and I was him. He used to host a show at a place called The Paper Moon. in Greenwich Village and they used to hire me all the time and it wasn't because of my talent, but they knew when I showed up, as did at least 30 NYU students in my dorm, so they said, let's hire that guy, but I I really had no idea I was being used because, again, the confidence made me think, wow, these Greenwich Village comedy clubs get it!

I'm going to be a sensation, then I graduated from college Bud Friedman, he saw me in uh catch Rising Star. He told me I should move to Los Angeles and he said I'd stay at The Improv. I told my dad. Should I go out there? Should I move there? He said well, friend Friedman, he said you should get out there, you gotta get out there. that guy knows what he's talking about, so the next thing I know I'm living is Judd Apatow, we're on the road, laughing all the time, we had the best time together, Dennis Miller saw me, told Lauren Michaels about me and then with the help of my manager Sandy Wernick pushing Lauren, they hired me.

I ended up on SNL with all my friends, uh, every one of these, my castmates became my best friends, we all supported each other right away, many co-stars and many writers I met. They seemed to have the same kind of self-confidence. He had a kind of strange confidence in comedy that we thought we knew what was funny and the world needed to see it. Hurley and I started writing, uh, Billy Madison about the facts and Bob Simons, who produced AirHeads, he read the script, he said you really want to do that movie, I can make it for you, we said yes, absolutely and Bob did that for us and then we really started cooking, we just started writing all our stuff and producing and directing and editing and we're very hands-on and it became an addiction and we knew the movies that we loved growing up and quoted growing up and we wanted to try to do things like that to the next generation and Having a kid come up to you and tell you he likes a line from your movie or one of your comedy albums or something like that was literally the best feeling I could ever have until one night and that night will always be my night. favorite of my life, so Stephen Dorff was having a birthday party and my agent and friend Adam Bennett said: come on, I go, I sit at a table, my friend Dallas introduces me to this woman over there and from that moment on I just couldn't go ahead.

I didn't take my eyes off her she was sweet, she was beautiful, as nice as can be and luckily she also had the habit of telling me that I was great at everything now my jokes were great and she said I have good hair she said my cheeks smell good everything I did in her eyes I was the best or that's at least how she made me feel so thank you, thank you um and then came two of the best things, the babies appeared Sadie and Sunny and a love from Our Lives with the greatest pride and joy that Jackie and I can feel.

When Life Changers talk, we either laugh, cry or just look at them in awe, every conversation we have, every day, every night, every trip, every meal, every smile, every fall we have. I just wish time would stop because being with YouTube and mom is the best thing life can have and they look like their mom and they are smart like their mom and they also give me confidence every year on my birthday by buying me t-shirts that say best farter in the world, so much fun, I think it's fun, so anyway, long story short, my career has been tremendous, nothing has let me down, I work hard, it's fun, I get up early, it's fun, I stay I stay up late, it's fun, I keep going. places if I take the family it's fun everyone in this room tonight has made my life fun people always asked me those bad reviews you get how does that make you feel it makes you feel and I would say no , it really is not like that.

I think the reason I can say that didn't hurt me was because so many of you in this room made me feel so good about what we've done together and about all my fellow comedians, actors, writers, collaborators, crew members, people in the streets, my family, my kids, my forever girl, Jackie, they all make me feel like the critics don't know what the hell they were talking about, so thank you for all that, thank you for creating a delusional psychotic man who now is the proud owner of the

2023

Mark Twain Award for Athletics Massive Sexual Prowess, Guitar Virtuosity, and Best Cheek Smell.

Good night, keep lying to everyone and God bless America, thank you very much.