Adam Sandler has spent the past 12 weeks in Toronto shooting his latest film, “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah.”
Sandler, his wife Jackie Sandler and their daughters Sunny, 13, and Sadie, 16, all star in this bat mitzvah-themed film, produced by Netflix and Sandler’s production company Happy Madison, in the United States. alongside Idina Menzel, Saturday Night Live’s Sarah Sherman, and Luis Guzmán.
They shot the film, aimed at a pre-adolescent audience and inspired by the eponymous novel by Fiona Rosenbloom published in 2005, in Toronto, in the premises of the conservative synagogue Beth Tzedec.
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“They filmed in the synagogue, the gymnasium, the religious school gift shop, the rabbi’s office,” said Steve Wernick, senior rabbi of Beth Tzedec.
“They filmed everything you can film about a bar or a bat mitzvah. »
Wernick and the synagogue’s rabbi, Robyn Fryer Bodzin, reportedly wanted to invite the production members to Shabbat dinner.
“We live right next to the synagogue,” says Fryer Bodzin, “and I was like, ‘Who wouldn’t want a home-cooked meal?’ »
Unfortunately, the filming took place late on Friday evenings, which did not allow this project to be carried out. But that doesn’t mean Wernick, Fryer Bodzin, and other Beth Tzedec staffers didn’t sympathize with their guests.
During a month and a half of filming at Beth Tzedec, Wernick explains, meals for the cast and crew were taken care of by the synagogue’s catering department, as everything served in the building must be kosher. “They loved it! says Fryer Bodzin.
Hosting a film crew in the synagogue allowed Fryer Bodzin and Wernick, wearing their “rabbi” badges, access to the set and the actors’ dressing room, sometimes accompanied by family members.
“We have never been so close to a film set,” laughs Fryer Bodzin, whose seven-year-old daughter was more amazed by the fact that her camp counselor was doing extras than by the presence of Sander himself.
Wernick earned the respect of his 21-year-old daughter when she saw Sandler and the rabbi check up.
“It adds something to the building,” Fryer Bodzin wrote on Facebook. “Adam Sandler and I now call each other by our first names. Every time we passed each other, I said ‘Hi Adam’ to him and he replied ‘Hi Rabbi’. »
The film about a Reform bat mitzvah, Conservative Rabbi Wernick put producers in touch with nearby Reform synagogue Holy Blossom Temple, where the new assistant rabbi’s wife is a fifth-year rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College, the consultant ideal rabbinic for the film.
“She will be quoted in the credits”, specifies Wernick, just like Beth Tzedec.
The rabbis found that Sherman had attended the Little Neck Jewish Center in New York, where Wernick and Fryer Bodzin have family.
“She knows her stuff, she’s completely legit,” says Fryer Bodzin, adding that Sherman and a colleague had planned to come to dinner on Shabbat but ended up too late that night.
“It’s amazing to see the level of detail in every shot,” says Wernick. “The whole crew – the actors, Adam Sandler and the security guys – couldn’t have been friendlier and more respectful. It’s a great experience. »
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Adam Sandler shoots film at Toronto Synagogue