Adam Goldberg is Mordechai Jefferson Carver aka The Hebrew Hammer, a superhero for the year 2003 or 5764 depending on who is counting. In the tradition of such films as Shaft and Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song the Hebrew Hammer is a Jewsploitation film. Hes a complicated man who no one understands but those who read the Koran. Santa Claus has been murdered by his own son [played by Andy Dick] and now hes in charge. The new evil Claus wants to destroy Hannukah and the Jewish Justice League have called in the Hammer to save its least religious holiday before its too late. Even though his mother will be very upset that hell be late for Sabbath dinner the Hammer must team up with Mohammed [played by Mario Van Peebles] to defeat the new Santa and his team of big wheel driving elves.
This is Adam Goldbergs first role as an actor star after such acclaimed turns in films like A Beautiful Mind, Saving Private Ryan and Dazed and Confused. Hes the son of a Jewish father and lapsed Catholic of a mother which makes him one of the funniest people Ive ever spoken to.
The Hebrew Hammer is in the theatres December 19th.
Daniel Robert Epstein: Hello Adam. For a Jew who grew up on Long Island The Hebrew Hammer is like the best movie ever made.
Adam Goldberg: Its a movie made for Long Island Jews.
DRE: Plus Mordechai is my Jewish name.
AG: Oh yeah. There you go. Mine is Steve.
Hey so what the hell is this website? Chicks with pierced noses?
DRE: Yeah with piercing and tattoos but not all the girls have that.
AG: Art girls. What do you do with them once you get them?
DRE: They are the site, you pay to be a member and you get to see pictures of them naked.
AG: I see but you cant have them delivered to your home.
DRE: No but youre not the first person to ask that.
AG: I just want to understand but then in addition to that there are celebrity interviews.
DRE: Yes interviews and a whole community of message boards and a chatroom. The girls are also regular people. Did this movie come to you in the traditional way?
AG: It was very untraditional. Oh shit I just set my English muffin on fire, ow.
Two years I met Sofia Sondervan, who is partners with Ed Pressman at Content Films, about my own script which they were considering producing. It was an initial meeting to talk about the financing of my movie. Then she gave me the old slip and handed me The Hebrew Hammer script. I was reading it on the way home and once I got the line Shabbat Shalom motherfuckers. Even if the film ends up being a complete waste of time at least I will have committed the line Shabbat Shalom motherfuckers to celluloid. So I agreed before I finished reading it.
As kind of ambivalent as I was to play someone I could be forever identified therefore further typecasting me then if you cant beat them, join them. So I might as well corner the market on Jewsploitation films. It all happened rather fast.
DRE: Are you considered the Jew in Hollywood?
AG: I dont think so. Certainly I am considered a Jew in Hollywood. I guess I sprung to their mind when they were casting The Hebrew Hammer.
DRE: My fianc and I saw you on The Daily Show and you said youre mother isnt Jewish.
AG: Yes Im only half Jewish.
DRE: My fianc was like so that means hes not Jewish!
AG: My penis is Jewish. Thats all that matters. I guess it forces me to become sensitive to things. I quote myself from TimeOut New York, I was never quite so aware of being some thing, whatever that is until I started acting.
I guess for Saving Private Ryan because every Jewish journal in the world wanted a piece of the action. Strangely no skinhead weeklies want to chat.
DRE: Have you ever been to a website for racist organization just to check it out?
AG: I did once to some skinhead website. It was so fucking random because you asked if Im the Jew Hollywood but they are all over the place. The website was talking about how in the old days of Hollywood had the common decency or at least the self awareness to change their last names like Mel Brooks and Woody Allen but now Jewish actors such as and it mentions three people in this order, Jeff Goldblum, Adam Goldberg and Sarah Silverman. It says these three people are so filled with Jewish pride that they maintain their surnames. I was thinking if this fucking Nazi knew how filled with self loathing I was I think he would reconsider that statement. Then again hes a Nazi with sub average intelligence.
DRE: Dont insult Nazis.
AG: Right in this case I should say, white trash skinhead because of course the Nazis themselves were rather resourceful intelligent people who just had a fucked up agenda.
DRE: Did you like being an action star? It could turn into a franchise. Would you do a sequel?
AG: I dont know. I never really considered the possibility. I know thats the producers idea. It would have to have a really good script. I could see it having a big cult interest.
Of all the things Ive done lately it seems to be the thing random people in bars ask me about while it hasnt even come out yet. Thats happened even before I started shooting it. But as far as being an action star they cut the one scene where Im running out of the movie. So the extent of the action is me climbing the Batman rope with Mario Van Peebles on my back. its hard to do those running and jumping scenes when you have a hangover but they wanted to shoot the movie in New York, because of that they got a whole mess of hangovers.
DRE: Yeah Ive worked on a few low budget movies here. Everyone goes out drinking every single night.
AG: Yeah I was actually on good behavior because it was a grueling shoot. I was a homebody much of the time. But I do remember one night I did go out and the next morning we were shooting the scene where I do the standoff with Andy Dick and the elves are on big wheels. It was just one of those days you just want to end. It was like the hangover scene in the Jerry Lewis Nutty Professor.
DRE: Did anything in the original script offend you at all?
AG: No.
DRE: Did you ever think that anything in it could potential offend someone else?
AG: It could be that I am completely insensitive or so solipsistic and feel disassociated from any group of people. Films like Blazing Saddles and Airplane they were much bolder in terms of their political correctness but truthfully Im not sure what would be offensive. Like would Jews be offended that certain stereotypes would be reinforced. To me the most offensive thing is making fun of that skinhead bar. What would you deem offensive?
DRE: I found it all funny but the only thing I could see that could be offensive is when Mario Van Peebles drops the pennies and you go to pick them up.
AG: Thats a perfect example of making fun of the stereotype but not stereotyping the guy. The reason that happens is because Santas lair has a stereotype alarm system so if you start dribbling a basketball or eating watermelon it picks it up and sounds the alarm. So its not actually detecting Jews.
DRE: I think you mentioned on The Daily Show as well that Comedy Central doesnt seem to be promoting the movie that much.
AG: Frankly no one has really explained to me what this brilliant marketing scheme is all about. I had spent a day having a very curmudgeonly day having a series of conversations with my publicist and manager in large part because I flew to New York to do talk shows and Im stuck here for a week without anything to do. The more I dig the more I seem to find that people dont understand what Comedy Central is doing. Assuming that putting it on Comedy Central is the best thing for the movie then its some kind of backwards grassroots campaign where you show it in a more mainstream setting then put it out in the theatre.
DRE: A Jewish friend of mine said that it was perfect marketing to Jews because you get to see it for free first.
AG: Thats very funny. Whats sad to me is that they will probably bleep out everything. It makes me wonder what the point is. This kid yesterday in a bar said he couldnt wait to see it on Comedy Central. I told him to skip Comedy Central and see it when its in the theatres. He didnt even know it was coming out in the theatre. It annoyed me because you would think that Kid Notorious was the only thing that was ever produced in the history of television. I get it, its on Comedy Central.
DRE: I know this may be a silly question but did Steven Spielberg see this?
AG: Hes actually under the covers still sleeping, let me wake him up.
I think you get a one year window of time where he accepts all your calls. You can send him scripts, hang out with him and smoke big fat guys with him then that window expires. No I havent spoken to him since the night of the Academy Awards so I have no idea if he has seen it. I would imagine he hasnt.
DRE: Because of the way you look and the way Andy Dick looks it seems like he is almost the film negative of you. It was perfect teaming.
AG: It was and he was a last minute addition. They had been trying to cast that part forever. He came in after we had been shooting for a couple of days. It was a little nerve racking because I had been involved with the casting of the female part. I had little to say about Santa because we were already shooting. But the first day we worked together was the scene where I whine him to death and a lot of that is largely improvised. It turns out we both felt very comfortable with each other and improvising.
DRE: Was there a lot of improvisation?
AG: Yeah a lot of the movie. Like the whole Passover dinner with Nora [Dunn]. I made up that whole thing I am yelling. A lot of the stuff in bed with Judy [Greer] is made up.
DRE: It must be great to improvise with a comedy great like Nora Dunn.
AG: That was fantastic. It was the first day of shooting and it set the tone. I love her. I think shes a great actor and a nice person. We were completely riffing right out of the gate. It was better than a bunch of scenes of us walking down the street.
DRE: Are you seeing a Jewish girl now?
AG: No Im dating a shiksa.
DRE: Is there a big difference between what gets Jewish girls and shiksas hot?
AG: I like to employ the international source of pleasure, the orgasm. I find it crosses a lot of lines culturally.
DRE: Ive read that.
AG: [laughs] I dont know though. Theres supposed to be that thing about Jewish girls. Maybe they are less repressed but I suppose if you date an ex-nun shes going to be repressed. But if you compare her to a Jewish prostitute.
DRE: Were you raised Jewish?
AG: I think you need to ask my mother about this because I cant really supply the information. She was a Catholic school girl, disavowed her Catholicism and is now a stringent atheist. When her and my dad got married it may have been her decision to go to a Jewish day school called Temple Emanuel Day School in Los Angeles.
The other night at Thanksgiving she referred to all of us as mishpochas and I was like, what? I know the word but I didnt know what it meant. She said she was more Jewish than I am. So I guess culturally she may feel more akin to that.
The short answer is that I went to Jewish day school for six years and celebrated every holiday known to man. By the time I was twelve and came into my own I inherited all the self-loathing, neuroses and self doubt.
DRE: It prepared you to be a movie director.
AG: Exactly, that was the extent of my Judaism. I didnt even get Bar Mitvahed then I went to normal school called Oakwood in Los Angeles. But it wasnt that normal in the book Less Than Zero it was referred to as Cokewood. Its a progressive strident prep school.
DRE: Dazed and Confused was on Comedy Central yesterday.
AG: Cool. There was a period where I didnt do any of that TV looping to make the language safe for TV, so the next time you see that on TV its some other guys voice.
DRE: You have good memories of that movie.
AG: Oh yeah but you have to keep in mind that I over romanticize everything from my past. At the time I wasnt having that great of a time because that was the first time I was away on a location for a movie. So I was pissing and whining, missing my girlfriend and complete obsessed with doing a good job. It was during a time when I was genuinely excited and committed to the craft of acting. I was super serious about that and by the end of that shoot we disintegrated into a mass of foolishness and hilarity. I made some very good friends and it changed my life personally. But I do remember being whiny and miserable as well.
DRE: Thats probably what [Richard] Linklater wanted as well.
AG: Yeah so you could argue that I was doing research.
DRE: Do you have any tattoos?
AG: I have eight tattoos. Theyre seen in the movie.
DRE: Those ones in the movie are real?
AG: Yeah.
DRE: Theyre cool.
AG: Yeah and I got another one since then after wrapping the movie I just directed. I was supposed to hide them for the shooting of the movie because orthodox Jews arent supposed to have tattoos. I didnt want to get up at four in the morning to cover them up. Thats how dedicated I am now.
Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
This is Adam Goldbergs first role as an actor star after such acclaimed turns in films like A Beautiful Mind, Saving Private Ryan and Dazed and Confused. Hes the son of a Jewish father and lapsed Catholic of a mother which makes him one of the funniest people Ive ever spoken to.
The Hebrew Hammer is in the theatres December 19th.
Daniel Robert Epstein: Hello Adam. For a Jew who grew up on Long Island The Hebrew Hammer is like the best movie ever made.
Adam Goldberg: Its a movie made for Long Island Jews.
DRE: Plus Mordechai is my Jewish name.
AG: Oh yeah. There you go. Mine is Steve.
Hey so what the hell is this website? Chicks with pierced noses?
DRE: Yeah with piercing and tattoos but not all the girls have that.
AG: Art girls. What do you do with them once you get them?
DRE: They are the site, you pay to be a member and you get to see pictures of them naked.
AG: I see but you cant have them delivered to your home.
DRE: No but youre not the first person to ask that.
AG: I just want to understand but then in addition to that there are celebrity interviews.
DRE: Yes interviews and a whole community of message boards and a chatroom. The girls are also regular people. Did this movie come to you in the traditional way?
AG: It was very untraditional. Oh shit I just set my English muffin on fire, ow.
Two years I met Sofia Sondervan, who is partners with Ed Pressman at Content Films, about my own script which they were considering producing. It was an initial meeting to talk about the financing of my movie. Then she gave me the old slip and handed me The Hebrew Hammer script. I was reading it on the way home and once I got the line Shabbat Shalom motherfuckers. Even if the film ends up being a complete waste of time at least I will have committed the line Shabbat Shalom motherfuckers to celluloid. So I agreed before I finished reading it.
As kind of ambivalent as I was to play someone I could be forever identified therefore further typecasting me then if you cant beat them, join them. So I might as well corner the market on Jewsploitation films. It all happened rather fast.
DRE: Are you considered the Jew in Hollywood?
AG: I dont think so. Certainly I am considered a Jew in Hollywood. I guess I sprung to their mind when they were casting The Hebrew Hammer.
DRE: My fianc and I saw you on The Daily Show and you said youre mother isnt Jewish.
AG: Yes Im only half Jewish.
DRE: My fianc was like so that means hes not Jewish!
AG: My penis is Jewish. Thats all that matters. I guess it forces me to become sensitive to things. I quote myself from TimeOut New York, I was never quite so aware of being some thing, whatever that is until I started acting.
I guess for Saving Private Ryan because every Jewish journal in the world wanted a piece of the action. Strangely no skinhead weeklies want to chat.
DRE: Have you ever been to a website for racist organization just to check it out?
AG: I did once to some skinhead website. It was so fucking random because you asked if Im the Jew Hollywood but they are all over the place. The website was talking about how in the old days of Hollywood had the common decency or at least the self awareness to change their last names like Mel Brooks and Woody Allen but now Jewish actors such as and it mentions three people in this order, Jeff Goldblum, Adam Goldberg and Sarah Silverman. It says these three people are so filled with Jewish pride that they maintain their surnames. I was thinking if this fucking Nazi knew how filled with self loathing I was I think he would reconsider that statement. Then again hes a Nazi with sub average intelligence.
DRE: Dont insult Nazis.
AG: Right in this case I should say, white trash skinhead because of course the Nazis themselves were rather resourceful intelligent people who just had a fucked up agenda.
DRE: Did you like being an action star? It could turn into a franchise. Would you do a sequel?
AG: I dont know. I never really considered the possibility. I know thats the producers idea. It would have to have a really good script. I could see it having a big cult interest.
Of all the things Ive done lately it seems to be the thing random people in bars ask me about while it hasnt even come out yet. Thats happened even before I started shooting it. But as far as being an action star they cut the one scene where Im running out of the movie. So the extent of the action is me climbing the Batman rope with Mario Van Peebles on my back. its hard to do those running and jumping scenes when you have a hangover but they wanted to shoot the movie in New York, because of that they got a whole mess of hangovers.
DRE: Yeah Ive worked on a few low budget movies here. Everyone goes out drinking every single night.
AG: Yeah I was actually on good behavior because it was a grueling shoot. I was a homebody much of the time. But I do remember one night I did go out and the next morning we were shooting the scene where I do the standoff with Andy Dick and the elves are on big wheels. It was just one of those days you just want to end. It was like the hangover scene in the Jerry Lewis Nutty Professor.
DRE: Did anything in the original script offend you at all?
AG: No.
DRE: Did you ever think that anything in it could potential offend someone else?
AG: It could be that I am completely insensitive or so solipsistic and feel disassociated from any group of people. Films like Blazing Saddles and Airplane they were much bolder in terms of their political correctness but truthfully Im not sure what would be offensive. Like would Jews be offended that certain stereotypes would be reinforced. To me the most offensive thing is making fun of that skinhead bar. What would you deem offensive?
DRE: I found it all funny but the only thing I could see that could be offensive is when Mario Van Peebles drops the pennies and you go to pick them up.
AG: Thats a perfect example of making fun of the stereotype but not stereotyping the guy. The reason that happens is because Santas lair has a stereotype alarm system so if you start dribbling a basketball or eating watermelon it picks it up and sounds the alarm. So its not actually detecting Jews.
DRE: I think you mentioned on The Daily Show as well that Comedy Central doesnt seem to be promoting the movie that much.
AG: Frankly no one has really explained to me what this brilliant marketing scheme is all about. I had spent a day having a very curmudgeonly day having a series of conversations with my publicist and manager in large part because I flew to New York to do talk shows and Im stuck here for a week without anything to do. The more I dig the more I seem to find that people dont understand what Comedy Central is doing. Assuming that putting it on Comedy Central is the best thing for the movie then its some kind of backwards grassroots campaign where you show it in a more mainstream setting then put it out in the theatre.
DRE: A Jewish friend of mine said that it was perfect marketing to Jews because you get to see it for free first.
AG: Thats very funny. Whats sad to me is that they will probably bleep out everything. It makes me wonder what the point is. This kid yesterday in a bar said he couldnt wait to see it on Comedy Central. I told him to skip Comedy Central and see it when its in the theatres. He didnt even know it was coming out in the theatre. It annoyed me because you would think that Kid Notorious was the only thing that was ever produced in the history of television. I get it, its on Comedy Central.
DRE: I know this may be a silly question but did Steven Spielberg see this?
AG: Hes actually under the covers still sleeping, let me wake him up.
I think you get a one year window of time where he accepts all your calls. You can send him scripts, hang out with him and smoke big fat guys with him then that window expires. No I havent spoken to him since the night of the Academy Awards so I have no idea if he has seen it. I would imagine he hasnt.
DRE: Because of the way you look and the way Andy Dick looks it seems like he is almost the film negative of you. It was perfect teaming.
AG: It was and he was a last minute addition. They had been trying to cast that part forever. He came in after we had been shooting for a couple of days. It was a little nerve racking because I had been involved with the casting of the female part. I had little to say about Santa because we were already shooting. But the first day we worked together was the scene where I whine him to death and a lot of that is largely improvised. It turns out we both felt very comfortable with each other and improvising.
DRE: Was there a lot of improvisation?
AG: Yeah a lot of the movie. Like the whole Passover dinner with Nora [Dunn]. I made up that whole thing I am yelling. A lot of the stuff in bed with Judy [Greer] is made up.
DRE: It must be great to improvise with a comedy great like Nora Dunn.
AG: That was fantastic. It was the first day of shooting and it set the tone. I love her. I think shes a great actor and a nice person. We were completely riffing right out of the gate. It was better than a bunch of scenes of us walking down the street.
DRE: Are you seeing a Jewish girl now?
AG: No Im dating a shiksa.
DRE: Is there a big difference between what gets Jewish girls and shiksas hot?
AG: I like to employ the international source of pleasure, the orgasm. I find it crosses a lot of lines culturally.
DRE: Ive read that.
AG: [laughs] I dont know though. Theres supposed to be that thing about Jewish girls. Maybe they are less repressed but I suppose if you date an ex-nun shes going to be repressed. But if you compare her to a Jewish prostitute.
DRE: Were you raised Jewish?
AG: I think you need to ask my mother about this because I cant really supply the information. She was a Catholic school girl, disavowed her Catholicism and is now a stringent atheist. When her and my dad got married it may have been her decision to go to a Jewish day school called Temple Emanuel Day School in Los Angeles.
The other night at Thanksgiving she referred to all of us as mishpochas and I was like, what? I know the word but I didnt know what it meant. She said she was more Jewish than I am. So I guess culturally she may feel more akin to that.
The short answer is that I went to Jewish day school for six years and celebrated every holiday known to man. By the time I was twelve and came into my own I inherited all the self-loathing, neuroses and self doubt.
DRE: It prepared you to be a movie director.
AG: Exactly, that was the extent of my Judaism. I didnt even get Bar Mitvahed then I went to normal school called Oakwood in Los Angeles. But it wasnt that normal in the book Less Than Zero it was referred to as Cokewood. Its a progressive strident prep school.
DRE: Dazed and Confused was on Comedy Central yesterday.
AG: Cool. There was a period where I didnt do any of that TV looping to make the language safe for TV, so the next time you see that on TV its some other guys voice.
DRE: You have good memories of that movie.
AG: Oh yeah but you have to keep in mind that I over romanticize everything from my past. At the time I wasnt having that great of a time because that was the first time I was away on a location for a movie. So I was pissing and whining, missing my girlfriend and complete obsessed with doing a good job. It was during a time when I was genuinely excited and committed to the craft of acting. I was super serious about that and by the end of that shoot we disintegrated into a mass of foolishness and hilarity. I made some very good friends and it changed my life personally. But I do remember being whiny and miserable as well.
DRE: Thats probably what [Richard] Linklater wanted as well.
AG: Yeah so you could argue that I was doing research.
DRE: Do you have any tattoos?
AG: I have eight tattoos. Theyre seen in the movie.
DRE: Those ones in the movie are real?
AG: Yeah.
DRE: Theyre cool.
AG: Yeah and I got another one since then after wrapping the movie I just directed. I was supposed to hide them for the shooting of the movie because orthodox Jews arent supposed to have tattoos. I didnt want to get up at four in the morning to cover them up. Thats how dedicated I am now.
Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 25 of 29 COMMENTS
that title makes him sound like a prick ! He has probably better to offer