Saturday Night Live alum Robert Smigel co-wrote the script to Adam Sandler's latest comedy, You Don't Mess with the Zohan. The silly story of an Israeli agent fleeing the violence to become a hair stylist actually addressed the Israeli/Palestinian conflict with humor.
Smigel Writes Zohan
"We worked on the script," said Smigel. "It was a long process and we were careful. It wasn't so much about any specific thing that we took out. It was more just over the time we wrote it, I had some friends I would occasionally send scripts to, Arab-American and Jewish friends, just to get a sense of is this too much? Or is it appropriate?"
Having written controversial sketches on SNL, Smigel has said that any comedy dealing with race or prejudice will make somebody mad. However, that is not to say he sets out to do so.
"The last thing we were doing was trying to antagonize anybody. When I said that quote, I was certainly not implying that I do sketches on Saturday Night Live with the intent of pissing people off. What I was trying to say was that any time you do comedy about sensitive subject matter, there are going to be people with passions on both sides who are ultimately going to find something offensive about it, because they have something invested in it."
The Zohan also involved the controversial world of hair salons, but there Smigel just made up 'dos like The Avalon. "I think I just pulled that name out. I think I was just looking for names that took themselves sort a kinda seriously. The '80s idea of glamour, just an ancient haircut that would sound [like] the Avalon and the Lexington."
Smigel also acknowledged his star and director's contribution to the script. "Adam wrote a lot of the movie. I do want to say that. Adam wrote a crapload of this movie and he wrote some of the smartest jokes in the movie. I do a lot of cartooney comedy, but I have to say some of the funniest stunts in the movie were written by Adam and [director Dennis] Dugan actually. They collaborated on the thing that ends all our trailers, 'Smell it, smell it.' Dugan came up with that whole thing."
You Don't Mess with the Zohan opens to theatres on June 6th.
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