Rob Schneider’s problematic acting advice: “I don’t need any lessons”
In an increasingly divided world, I think we can all agree that Rob Schneider sucks. Not only has he been responsible for some of the most horrendous slop ever committed to film, but he’s also a highly questionable individual.
His hateful rhetoric on topics such as feminism, vaccines, and the transgender community got to the point where his own daughter, musician Elle King, publicly distanced herself from her father and his views. It’s clear that, were it not for his friendship with Adam Sandler, he’d have disappeared years ago.
In 2001, he starred in one of his many odes to human faeces, The Animal. Directed by Luke Greenfield, the film stars the ‘comedian’ as a man who is put back together with various animal parts after an accident, and his new DNA causes him to act like the creatures he now consists of.
The film was torn apart by critics and even caused a minor scandal when it was revealed that Sony had created a fake review as part of a publicity campaign. As it turns out, this wasn’t the only controversy surrounding this horrible movie.
Guy Torry plays a minor character in The Animal called Miles. He works at an airport and, in a ‘hilarious’ subversion of stereotypes, is a Black man who is ‘reverse racist’ towards white people. Speaking to Vlad TV on YouTube, Torry confessed that he hated working with Schneider because he kept trying to interfere in his scenes.
“I’m used to directors trusting me,” he said, “If they don’t, cool, no problem. Actors should never direct other actors. But in every rehearsal, you know, [he’d] say ‘Hey, what about this?’ and I was like, ‘He was trying to teach me how to act Black. I’m already Black. I don’t need any lessons in that…’ I called my agent”.
“I don’t want to do this shit”.
Guy Torry
While Schneider might pass as caucasian, his maternal grandmother was actually from the Philippines, and this mixed heritage comes up often in his material, but being one-quarter Filipino and being a dark-skinned African-American man who has experienced racial prejudice throughout their life are far from the same thing. There’s also the added context of Schneider’s long history of playing offensive caricatures. He’s changed his appearance for movies a number of times, from playing a Saudi businessman in Click to his stomach-churning turn as a Japanese priest in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
Even if you remove the racial element from this story, which you shouldn’t, Torry is spot on. Actors shouldn’t interfere with other actors. That is the job of the director. It speaks to Schneider’s ego that he felt he was qualified to tell his co-star what to do when he lacked the experience and the authority to do so.
From his terrible filmography to his hideous opinions to his public spat with Roger Ebert, there are already enough reasons to hate Rob Schenieder. Guy Torry’s experience on the set of The Animal is just another thing to chuck on top of the ever-increasing pile.
