It shouldn’t surprise us that Anthony Edwards is a good actor. He’s endlessly entertaining. Whether he’s calling himself Black Jesus, claiming to be able to play every sport, or telling us he doesn’t know who Alex Rodriguez is, Edwards charms the NBA faithful every time he’s in front of a mic.
But he received high praise from Adam Sandler on the most recent Bill Simmons podcast. Sandler was on the pod promoting his new movie, Hustle, which features Edwards and old friend Juancho Hernangómez. Sandler says Hernangómez, the former Minnesota Timberwolves forward, was good in the movie, but Edwards could really act.
“Yeah, I think what’s cool about some of the sports movies now is that you can pull some of these real-life people in,” said Simmons. “Like you have Anthony Edwards in, I don’t think he’s even 21 yet.
“I’m fascinated by him. And he’s like a really good actor. He was kind of a dick in the movie.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Him and Juancho are really tight,” explained Sandler.
Juancho knew we needed a bad guy in the movie who was messing with Juancho’s character, and Juancho just texted us one day, Jeremiah Zagar, the director, texted us and said, ‘I’m friends with Anthony, we were teammates, and we always go at it when we’re practicing and stuff, and we said, ‘Does he want to do it?’ and, ‘Yeah, he seems to want to do it.’
So then he just came in, worked on his acting. We had this woman that kinda dealt with all the basketball players, and helped them with their lines and what they’re thinking and what they’re doing and what everything means, and Anthony Edwards got incredible in there. Him and Juancho, pretty damn real.
“I think he has it,” said Simmons, “just in general.”
“I mean, c’mon, yeah,” Sandler agreed. “He’s one pure funny guy.”
“He’s just got a charisma and a personality,” said Simmons. “He’s got the athletic ability. I’m even talking outside the movie. If you’re talking about guys under 27 who might be the biggest star in the league, I don’t know if it’s gonna happen for him, but he has a lot of the tools.”
“All the guys loved him, too,” added Sandler. “We played one day, we had a week where, he was with a lot of the guys from the league, and they were shooting around, and you couldn’t help that any time Anthony did something, everybody would smile, laugh. He’s just ferocious and funny as hell.
“You know about his dog, right?” asked Simmons.
“Yeah, yeah,” Sandler acknowledged.
“His dog has a Twitter account that Anthony Edwards runs,” Simmons explained, “and his dog is named Anthony Edwards Jr.”
“That’s right,” said Sandler, laughing. “That’s right.”
“And he just tweets about his dad,” Simmons chortled.
“Yeah, man,” Sandler said, “he’s cool.”
Every Wolves fan knows Edwards is something special, on and off the court. But to have Sandler give him props for his acting chops is unique. Hustle is in theatres now.
