Sammi Cohen has joked that Adam Sandler and Idina Menzel's 'You’re So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah' relationship is the prelude to their 'Uncut Gems' roles.
Adam and Idina play a happily married couple in 'Bat Mitzvah' but they portrayed an estranged husband and wife in the 2019 movie 'Uncut Gems' and director Cohen sees some similarities between the two couples.
She told Variety: "Idina is the best. Adam really loved working with her on 'Uncut Gems'. I joke that 'Bat Mitzvah' is like the happy side of their marriage, the prelude to 'Uncut Gems'. We wanted the Friedman family to feel warm, sweet, goofy, normal, relatable; she was just the perfect fit. And she’s also incredibly talented and on top of that is just a really lovely human being."
The movie is a family affair for Adam, whose daughters Sunny and Sadie play the Bat Mitzvah girl Stacy Friedman and her older sister Ronnie.
Even his wife, Jackie Sandler, has a role as the mom of Stacy's best friend Lydia (Samantha Lorraine).
Cohen said: "Sunny and Sadie were attached when I came on board, I knew I’d be working with them - that was part of my excitement, getting to work with the girls - and then we built out the cast from there. Adam came on board to play Danny, Jackie [played Lydia’s mom] Gabi and then we found Samantha, who plays Lydia. It really came from the girls and we built the world around them."
"There wasn’t a huge struggle for me in terms of working with them. Adam plays dad to his daughters, but they’re able to detach. When we enter the Friedman house and we’re making the movie, it’s its own thing. I think there’s such a beautiful natural chemistry you get — I love that moment in the car when Adam fake-spills the coffee on her. There are just these beautiful little moments that feel so slice-of-life. But Adam gave the girls space to do their own thing. Everyone had space to do what they do best, but there’s also support when you needed it."
