By: Marcie Somers
As a man whose screen credits seem never ending, it’s hard to believe Allen Covert isn’t a household name. At least not yet.
There comes a time in everyone’s life when faith becomes as important as identity. For Allen Covert, the path to Judaism became clear while making Eight Crazy Nights with long-time friend and collaborator Adam Sandler. As the first studio release with Chanukah as a backdrop, it tells the story through animation of a Jewish man who finds his faith. While reading up on the Festival of Lights for the film, Covert, 41, the son of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother, began to explore his own faith. Eight Crazy Nights led him to a deeper examination of Judaism. “I wanted to learn more about the actual religion so I could honestly say that “I’m Jewish,” says Covert. It was also during this time, that he began to study for his Bar Mitzvah. “I was supposed to have had my Bar Mitzvah in the fall of 2004, but had to stop my studies due to some filming commitments so everything was put on hold for a year,” explains Covert. “But I plan on picking up the pieces and eventually being called to the Bema — especially after bumping into my Cantor and Hebrew teacher at the premiere of The Longest Yard, he laughs. “They gave me a guilt trip of what happened to you”?
While the name Allen Covert might not be familiar, his face certainly is. Over the past sixteen years, Covert has appeared in seventeen movies, including over ten Adam Sandler films. He was the guy getting the snot kicked out of him in Mr. Deeds. He was also Ten Second Tom in 50 First Dates and Adam Sandler’s gay roommate Todd in Little Nicky. And who can forget the crazy caddy Otto in Happy Gilmore. That was him. Basically, Allen Covert has been in nearly every Adam Sandler picture as the supporting guy. And now, after all these years, Covert is finally starring in his own Hollywood comedy, Grandma’s Boy, coming to theatres nationwide on January 6, 2006.
The acting bug caught Covert at an early age. As a child, he appeared in school plays, but didn’t take acting seriously. In fact, his plan was to become a lawyer, but that idea got waylaid while attending a drama class at the University of Florida. It was there, that after watching a video that asked what turned out to be a pivotal question, “Who’s telling you not to major in theater”? that Covert decided to switch his major to drama. The seed was planted and his desire for formal acting training grew. “You have the talent, now learn the craft” were the words of an ad for New York University’s theatre program that caught his eye. With an instinctive decision he left the palms of sunny Florida for the sidewalks of the Big Apple in search of an acting career.
It would take Covert a combination of luck and talent to get into the drama program. Although his grades were not top notch, he was fortunate that a friend’s mother knew the president of NYU. This important contact told him that if he passed the Theatre Department?s audition, he could pave the rest of the way for him. The first stop Covert made after that meeting was the library. Wanting to stand out from the crowd, he opted to go for something different. Says Covert, “I was nervous that everyone would do the same monologue, so I went to the library and found some old Tennessee Williams play from the 1930′s that few people would have heard of called Confessional and did a monologue from that”. His strategy worked, acing the audition, Covert was in.
It was at NYU where he met Adam Sandler in a History of Comedy class. Finding that they laughed at the same things and liked the same movies, a strong friendship and partnership began.
When Covert was breaking into Hollywood, it helped that his friend Sandler was already a star. Sandler, believing in Allen’s talent as a comic, asked Covert to be his opening act on his 1996 What The Hell Happened To Me” college tour. But even the best of the best get nervous. “I get stage fright badly,” explains Covert. “I would pace back and forth behind the curtains going “Oh g-d, oh g-d, I hope they like me” while the guy manning the curtain would literally say “they’re gonna love you, you?re going to kill them”" and you know what, once I stepped through the curtain, I was fine.”
Since then, Covert’s career has taken off. These days, he is a business partner with good friend Adam Sandler in Sandler’s production company, Happy Madison Productions, where he not only writes and acts, but also produces. Despite wearing all three hats, acting is Covert?s favourite part of the business. “I studied acting at NYU, went to Circle in the Square, and studied with a group founded by David Mamet. But at the end of the day, give me a silly haircut, some clothes and let me be funny. When it’s all said and done, despite my studies, I’ve done scenes with monkeys, dogs and five year olds”, says Covert.
To prepare for his roles, Covert has often gone to extremes, such as perming his hair for The Wedding Singer or gaining 40 pounds for Mr. Deeds and Little Nicky, so much so that often he would forget about his get-ups when leaving sets. Flirting with girls in this type of costume would either leave them laughing or uninterested. Only then would he realize that he was still dressed in character from a long day’s shoot. “I’d be saying things like “hey, guys, how’s it going” and they would be looking at me like “you look like a very fat Justin Timberlake”, laughs Covert.
Luckily for Covert, the only extreme he had to go to for his latest film, Grandma’s Boy, was to play a lot of video games. Grandma’s Boy is the story of an adult video-game tester forced to move in with his grandmother. The movie begins with Covert’s character (Alex) getting evicted after his roommate spends their rent money on hookers. He winds up living with his grandmother and her two friends and then his friends meet her friends resulting in what Allen calls an inter-ageal relationship. The grandmothers also take an interest in their roommates’ hobbies, mainly video games and drugs.
Not surprisingly, the movie was inspired by Covert’s real-life experience of living with his Jewish grandmother and father. It was several months of too-close-for-comfort living in a 2-bedroom condo while he helped his father recover from bypass surgery.
At the time, Covert was in his early 30s. It was challenging to say the least, being with his 85-year-old grandmother and living life as any guy would in his 30s. “It meant that there were a lot of things that I had to hide from her”, Covert says, “like my tattoos”. Covert is going to have to hide a lot more from his grandmother this time around — like his masturbation scene to a Lara Croft doll. He may have been able to hide things from her ten years ago, but not this time. True to form, she’ll stop at nothing to attend the premiere of Grandma’s Boy. “I just hope I won’t be sitting next to her when she sees it, but a part of me is like, I gotta be next to her to calm her down.”
Family and religion are central in Covert’s life. An extremely warm and gracious man, Covert, who is single, speaks with passion about Judaism and plans on raising his children Jewish when he has a family.
While not actively involved with any particular Temple, Covert calls himself “a proud Jew” and stays active in the community by buying trees for Israel and donating to Chabad. Several years ago, Covert was recognized in the Jewish Community for his work on Eight Crazy Nights by the Jewish Image Awards in LA, where they presented him with an award acknowledging his efforts in portraying Judaism and the Jewish people in a positive light. Thrilled with the attention given to Eight Crazy Nights, Covert recalls Jewish children thanking him for making a movie about Chanukah. “I remember attending my cousin?s daughter’s Bat Mitzvah and having the kids come up to me and thanking me for making this film”, recalls Covert, glancing at a Star of David flag sitting on his desk.
Covert staunchly believes in the long history of comedy in Yiddish and Jewish culture and sites the Three Stooges as a perfect example According to Allen, the juxtaposition of crude humour and yiddiskyt is part of Jewish culture. Reflecting this belief, he feels there are certain aspects of family only those who grew up in a Jewish home can understand ‘ particularly when it comes to Jewish mothers. “A Jewish mother is the only one who can sit there and tell you you’re the greatest person and a complete schmuck at the same time,” laughs Covert. He also used to believe that his grandmother never cursed until someone translated her Yiddish for him and he discovered that his own nana is a walking juxtaposition of crude humour and yiddiskyt. “When I realize what she’s just said, I’m like I can’t believe that my grandmother just said that.”, says Covert.
Next up for Covert is a film about miniature golf that he is writing with Nick Swarsdon, his co-writer on Grandma’s Boy. He is also developing a television pilot called The Gay Robot, a show about a gay robot trying to find a date. It?s a ridiculous premise but something that Covert definitely gets to chew his teeth on. Next to working with monkeys and dogs, it seems almost normal.
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