Actor Adam Sandler assembled former "Saturday Night Live" cast members for the new animated monster movie "Hotel Transylvania," he said, because they are "the funniest people I know."
The film by director Gennady Tartakovsky premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival where Sandler and fellow SNL alumni David Spade, Molly Shannon, Andy Samberg and producer Robert Smigel spoke to reporters before the screening.
Sandler plays Count Dracula, as an overprotective father of a young ghoul who at 118 years old is eager to break out into the world.
"I like being around them," Sandler said of the SNLers, "And I know they're great at what they do and they're the funniest people I know, so that's why I like doing movies with them."
"You feel like you're working with friends," echoed Molly Shannon.
The all-star monster mash also includes Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, Fran Drescher and Selena Gomez as daughter Mavis.
Sandler commented that although his own children are still "very young," he sees coming the day when he will have to deal with the same emotions as his character.
"It breaks your heart to see a dad struggling and also a boy coming into your daughter's life and having to deal with that," he told a press conference.
Gomez said her own father is doting. "I can relate to (the film)," she said. "I just turned 20 and I still live at home, by my choice, and it's good but we've had our ups and down."
Samberg chimed in suddenly to ask, "Do they ever yell at you and say 'Get a job!'" to which Gomez, who has been busy this year in breakout movie roles as well as nurturing a singing career and launching a clothing line, replied: "That's one thing I don't have to worry about."
For her role as the bride of Frankenstein in the film, Drescher lamented that director Tartakovsky "wouldn't let me be as sweet as I wanted to be. He wanted me to sound obnoxious and annoying. All the time he said be angrier."
Of her unusual voice, she commented: "Who could make this up. I didn't make it up. I was born with it and figured out how to monetize it" in the film industry.
"My mom was once interviewed and asked, 'Did she always have that funny voice?' And in the exact same voice she said: 'We never knew she had a funny voice.'"
