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Like many of Adam Sandler’s recent movies, Happy Gilmore 2 is a Sandler family affair. Both Adam Sandler’s daughters, Sadie and Sunny Sandler, and his wife, Jackie Sandler, are featured in the movie. No one can ever say the Sandman doesn’t take care of his family!
The sequel to the 1996 hit comedy Happy Gilmore finds Sandler’s character down on his luck, to put it mildly. After accidentally killing his wife with a golf ball, Happy is a depressed, broke, alcoholic struggling to provide for his five children. He definitely can’t pay for the fancy ballet school for his talented daughter, Vienna… unless he returns to the game that killed his wife.
At its heart, Happy Gilmore 2 is about family. So it makes sense that—in addition to a lot of other celebrity cameos—Sandler opted to cast his real family in the film. Sandler’s younger daughter, Sunny, play’s Happy’s on-screen daughter Vienna, the aspiring ballet dancer. While Julie Bowen plays Happy’s deceased on-screen wife, Sandler’s actual wife, Jackie Sandler, also appears in Happy Gilmore 2 in a few brief scenes, as the ballet instructor for Happy’s daughter, who sees her potential.
Sandler’s older daughter, Sadie, plays a young woman named Charlotte that Happy meets in Alcoholics Anonymous, who helps him on his sobriety journey. The two share a cute moment at the end of the movie, in which Charlotte tells Happy that he reminds her of her father.
Sandler has a long history of family cameos in his movies. Jackie has appeared in over 30 of her husband’s films, and their daughters, Sadie and Sunny Sandler, have appeared in over 20 of his films.
Recently, Sunny in particular has been taking on more significant roles in her father’s films—like her heartwarming performance as the lead in You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, and now this lead role in Happy Gilmore 2.
In a recent interview with USA Today, Sandler spoke about what it meant to him to work with his daughters on camera. ” It is just all happening fast,” Sandler said. “Kids are growing up − they really are into acting and movies, and it’s always been our thing to work with our friends and family. It’s cool to see them getting better. They work hard, and they go to school for it, and they love it. So, yeah, I’m just proud. Couldn’t love them more.”