Vancouver’s Zed Dhalla can confirm that Hollywood superstar Adam Sandler knows what he is doing on a basketball court.
Sandler joined Dhalla and others about a week ago at the Robert Lee YMCA gym in downtown Vancouver for a little pickup ball.
“Right place right time,” said Dhalla of Sandler walking in and joining in on a game. “It was a pretty wild experience.”
Dhalla, who competed on the Amazing Race Canada with his father Shabbir in 2017, says he is a huge Sandler fan and he has watched Happy Gilmore, which was shot here in 1995, “probably 17 times.”
“He’s a super genuine dude, incredible human,” said Dhalla about the Jay Kelly and Grown Ups star who hung around and played for close to an hour. “He asked me questions. And I thought, what the heck does he want to know about me for? But he did. He’s just a normal guy and a really nice one at that.”
Adam Sandler, who is in Vancouver shooting his new movie Timeout, took some time out recently to play some pickup basketball at the Robert Lee YMCA in downtown Vancouver.
Dhalla said Sandler asked him about his recent battle with stage 3 colon cancer. Diagnosed last year at age 35, Dhalla, who lost 45 pounds, had just finished his last course of chemo a couple of months ago. Dhalla said he was wearing a F*CK CANCER ball cap, which he assumes Sandler clocked.
“He asked me a bit about my cancer journey,” said Dhalla. “I got diagnosed with cancer last year, and just finished chemotherapy about two months ago, and so he asked me questions about that. Asked about my story and my toughest moments.”
Dhalla runs a biotech firm called Topaz Diagnostics which he says just recently launched a colon cancer screening test. He hopes the test will help others who are under the usual screening age.
A video on Dhalla’s Instagram shows Sandler in action on the court as he delivers passes that would make Magic Johnson happy.
“He’s a good guy. The same when he is playing, he gives it up to other people. He likes to try to find other people,” said Dhalla about Sandler’s assisting skills. “He has a lot of skills. I don’t know exactly how old he is, probably around 50 or so (Sandler is 59) and still had a lot of skill.”
Sandler, who was spotted recently in Squamish, is in town filming the feature Timeout.
Co-starring Willem Dafoe, the Scott Cooper-directed Netflix film is based on the French film L’Emploi du Temps by Laurent Cantet and Robin Campillo. It’s a psychological thriller that focuses on Vincent (Sandler), who after losing his job can’t bring himself to tell his family. Rather than come clean, he lies to cover his situation, but things go sideways when he comes up with an investment scheme and asks friends to contribute.
The film began shooting in Vancouver at the end of March and is slated to wrap May 30.
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