You wrote about your love for the 2024 animated film Flow.Would you ever make your own kids' movie?

Benny Safdie The actor and fi lmmaker on playing the baddie in Happy Gilmore 2, his UFC movie with the Rock, and training for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey

- By Megan McCluskey

Definitely. I want to be able to experience a movie that I made with my kids and talk to them as an audience. I think there's something really special about that.

What was your relationship to Happy Gilmore before taking on the role of the sequel's villain? It's one of my favorite movies of all time. I can close my eyes and see it from beginning to end. [Adam] Sandler is just special. It's crazy to me that I'm even in this thing because that movie was such a big part of my childhood.

What did you most want to bring to the character of Frank Manatee? I wanted him to be one of those people you swipe past on Instagram and are like, “Oh, I know that guy.” He speaks in broad platitudes about how to succeed. He’s an energy-drink disrupter. I wanted to make him as real as possible because that’s one of the things I think is really successful about Shooter [McGavin, the first film’s villain]. I was able to bond with [Shooter actor] Chris [McDonald] about how these guys don’t think they’re bad, they just think they’re doing what’s necessary.