When Lauren Lapkus landed in Hawaii to shoot “The Wrong Missy,” she quickly realized that when Adam Sandler is the boss you’re not just making a movie, you’re also now part of Happy Madison’s extended family.
Happy Madison Productions, which Sandler launched two decades ago to produce movies for himself and his friends, made the Netflix comedy in which Lapkus stars as a cheerfully bonkers woman who won’t take no from the mild-mannered businessman played by David Spade.
And while Sandler himself doesn’t appear in it, the movie that debuts on Netflix on Wednesday, May 13 has Happy Madison veterans on screen — in addition to Spade, such regulars as Rob Schneider, Nick Swardson, and Jackie Sandler, Adam Sandler’s wife — and off.
“One thing that’s really nice is that there is a feeling of family within the production because a lot of people are actually related. But even if they’re not related, they’ve worked together for like 20 years,” says Lapkus, a veteran of TV series such as Netflix’s “Orange Is The Black” and HBO’s “Crashing.”
“He’s really loyal to his crew — people doing hair and makeup and every single department — so most of the people had worked on Happy Madison films for decades,” she says. “It was nice to feel like I was immediately brought into the fold that way.”
Lapkus says she was initially attracted to the project because Spade, who she’d grown up watching on “Saturday Night Live” and had long admired for other movie and TV comedies, was attached to play her unwitting love interest.
“That was the main push behind me going to the audition, but once I really got into the material and got to do the movie it was so fun because this role is just so crazy,” she says. “Missy truly can say anything, and she’s just living on another planet, so it’s very fun to play a character like that.”
Most Happy Madison productions feature guys — Sandler or his longtime comedy pals — as the agents of inappropriate behavior. In “The Wrong Missy,” though, it’s Lapkus who gets the raunchiest lines and action when she’s mistakenly sent a text by Spade — they’d had a disastrous blind date — who invites her to his Hawaiian corporate retreat in place of an entirely different Missy in his contact list.
“We definitely had a lot of moments where we couldn’t stop laughing because things were so ridiculous,” Lapkus says. “I mean, there’s the scene on the airplane. That alone has enough crazy stuff I wouldn’t want to mention in the interview. It was so insane that we had moments where they would say cut and we’re just like, ‘What is happening?’
“We couldn’t stop laughing,” she says. “It was absolutely so absurd that it was hard not to break a lot of time. And I like to push it so much too because the character has no limit, no boundaries. It was fun to see how far I could push things, and see if I could make him laugh.”
We won’t spoil the ending but suffice to say you can probably guess what happens over the weekend as Missy and Tim spend time together. Off set, Lapkus says it was fun if surreal to hang out with Spade, who she reckons is in her Top 3 all-time favorite “Saturday Night Live” cast members.
“It was really, really cool to get to work with him,” she says. “He’s just so funny, and he’s extremely kind. We both are fans of ‘The Bachelor’ so we would watch it together on Monday nights while we were filming.”
Lapkus, 34, came to Hollywood through improv comedy and still performs regularly with the Upright Citizens Brigade, and in recent years, a host of comedy podcasts, some she’s created, others she guests on.
“I started doing improv in 2003,” she says. “I was in high school and I started taking adult classes at Improv Olympics. And I really didn’t have much access to improv other than going to see a live show. So I would have killed to have podcasts at that time. That’s one of the reasons why I love doing that now.”
A guest appearance on Scott Aukerman’s “Comedy Comedy Bang” podcast turned into more work with that show, including live tours. She started her own podcast, “With Special Guest Lauren Lapkus” — each episode featured a fake show hosted by improv friends on which Lapkus was the guest.
Earlier this year, “Newcomers” teamed her up with actor-comedian Nicole Byer, host of Netflix’s comedic reality baking series “Nailed It!” to watch the entire “Star Wars” canon — neither had ever seen a single “Star Wars” — and dish with guests as they went on.
“I love the fact that you can reach such a wide range of people, and they can live anywhere and listen to this,” Lapkus says of podcasting. “Doing improv at UCB is so fun, and I do it all the time in L.A., I perform there regularly.
“But you can only perform to 120 people a night — there’s no chance there for it to be more than that — so to be doing a podcast, where you can reach thousands of people with an improv show, it’s really validating and also just fun.”
In recent months, Lapkus, like everyone, has been stuck at home and TV shows she’d been appearing on such as “Good Girls” and “I’m Sorry” now shut down. Even so, she and husband Mike Castle — one of the leads in Netflix’s new “Brews Brothers” and an improv comic, too — are finding ways to do comedy online including watch-along commentaries on TV shows that listeners can cue up like a commentary track as a show plays.
“It does help me feel like things aren’t as dreary — I have somebody in my house I can do improv with,” she says. “I miss performing on stage. I miss just all the freedoms that we took for granted.
“So I look forward to the day where we can just do shows and hold a microphone and not worry about if someone spit on it. It’s a weird time.”
