Adam Sandler changed his name when he moved to Hollywood in honour of some "studly" guys in his home town.
The 48-year-old actor was largely raised in Manchester, New Hampshire, and can vividly recall how in awe he was of some of the older boys in the area. That led to him making a questionable decision when he moved to Los Angeles to try to make it in movies.
"Chucky Blaze was a very studly dude and Julian Whizz was another guy... he was like the toughest guy in my town and I always wanted a z in my name because of the Blaze and the Whizz," he explained to talk show host Jimmy Kimmel. "And so when I first moved to Hollywood, my headshot I put 'Adam Zandler'. Just to start a whole new life for myself."
Adam first came across these guys at his local arcade, which was called The Electric Dreams Arcade. He took the name for the play area in his new movie Pixels in honour of this, not least because of all the memories he has of the place. For the most part they are good recollections, but occasionally tinged with embarrassment.
"This is where I learned about cool people... Chucky Blaze looked the coolest, I thought, in my town. He had cool curly hair and he wore tinted glasses and I saw him, I think, wear overalls with no shirt on. The girls were going bananas for him, he had [buff] arms and he was playing... so I was like, 'I gotta do that man!' So I did it," Adam giggled. "I just made the choice on a Sunday night, 'I'm gonna do this on Monday to school. I'm going overalls, no shirt, tinted glasses.' And it was the biggest beating I ever received."
Adam joked that his father would give him "one quarter" to go to the arcade and tell him to have fun. He always did though, because the area had such an air of mystery to it.
"Before arcades you had to stay home and talk to your parents and stuff. Then all of a sudden you were taking the bus, going downtown, you'd hang out [and] there were all these kids inside smoking. The signs said you can't smoke unless you're 16 years old, but literally half my little league was in there. I was like, 'Wow! This is a dangerous place!'" he said.
Pixels is a big-budget flick which sees aliens get confused by messages they receive from classic video games and so declare war on Earth. It co-stars Peter Dinklage and Sean Bean.
