Cole Sprouse fan page

Sandler knew an important key to the film’s success would be his on-screen chemistry with the actors playing the adopted child. Because of child labor laws, identical twins had to be used to limit the amount of time either child would be working on the set.

To ensure the proper chemistry, more than twenty-five sets of twins were interviewed. The interviews consisted of Sandler and each set of twins playing together on the floor with popular action figures.

The chemistry worked best for Sandler with Dylan and Cole Sprouse, a set of six-year-olds.

When filming began, the Sprouse twins required the constant presence of their grandmother. Sandler encouraged her presence and even sought her approval. “I have some weird thing where I feel I need to be accepted,” he said. “Their grandmother would come up and kiss me and that would make me feel better about myself. Then we could work.

Big Daddy opened June 25, 1999, to the usual array of negative reviews but with some reviewers taking note of Sandler’s efforts to mature his screen persona. Another criticism concerned many of the activities Sandler’s character and his young charge indulge in for the sake of comedy. They run the gamut from public spitting to the larger issue of Sandler falsifying his identity to adopt the boy. If Sandler had done in real life what he perpetrates in the film, it would be considered a criminal offense.

The greatest criticism did not involve either the story or Sandler’s performance. It centered on the poster used to advertise the film. The poster depicted a scene from the movie in which Sandler and one of the Sprouse twins urinate together on the side of a building. Some critics felt that with Sandler’s popularity among young viewers, it would encourage such unsanitary behavior. “I guess I understand,” Sandler said about the controversy. “Some cities don’t like it. But I got to let some cities in on a secret. I think people pee on streets even without my little poster.”

On June 22, 2003, Sandler and Jackie Titone were married in Malibu at the oceanfront estate of popular TV personality Dick Clark. Four hundred guests
were invited to witness the Jewish ceremony in which Sandler wore a tuxedo and a white yarmulke, a traditional head covering for men during religious services.

The ceremony was not completely traditional, as touches of Sandler’s trademark humor were apparent. The bride was preceded by Sandler’s bulldog, Meatball, who also wore a yarmulke and tuxedo as he lumbered down the aisle with the wedding ring on his back.

The bride gave the groom a mate for his dog, a female bulldog named Matzoball. Following the ceremony, Sandler serenaded his bride with a song he wrote for the event, very much like Robbie Hart in The Wedding Singer. Dylan Sprouse, costar of Big Daddy, commented about the song. “He sang her weight and how ‘she’d rather not be with me except in a mall.’ She was laughing and crying,”.