‘Daddy’ Doubles the Joys of Gross Misconduct

Urinating on buildings, hanging footlong drool, gorging on junk food and acting like a brat are behaviors kids are usually discouraged from doing. But not so for 6-year-old identical twins Cole and Dylan Sprouse of Woodland Hills.

Recently they were encouraged by older folks to commit these childish transgressions and more, and then congratulated for doing such a fine job with them. That’s what happens when you share the role of Julian, the pint-sized foil to Adam Sandler in “Big Daddy,” the Columbia Pictures release opening today that doubles as a primer on boyish pursuits and irregular styles of parenting.

Sandler plays Sonny Koufax, a 32-year-old New York City toll collector with an immature streak who tries to grow up in a hurry by adopting Julian, a precocious kid with a small bladder and a talent for spinning threads of spit. No surprise here--Sandler’s no Mary Poppins, and things quickly get out of hand. In the role of Julian, the Sprouse twins spend most of the movie joyfully out-dueling Sandler in juvenile antics.

It sounds odd to talk about 6-year-olds as seasoned actors, but that’s the case with Dylan and Cole, thinly built and playful boys with a slight speech impediment that makes everything they say sound endearingly cute. They landed a toilet paper commercial before their first birthday, and then appeared for five seasons on the ABC series “Grace Under Fire,” sharing the role of Brett Butler’s youngest child, Patrick.

The boys have been caught up in the media whirlwind surrounding the opening of “Big Daddy,” including an appearance on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.” But a recent visit to their rustic hillside home reveals that they’re taking it all in stride. The release date of their first feature film, for example, is more significant to them as the last day of first grade and the joyous start of summer vacation. And although their image is plastered on billboards all over town, they act pretty much like, well, 6-year-old boys.

In their shared bedroom, side-by-side beds are covered in Rug-rats linen, while Dr. Seuss books and their own handcrafted ceramic dinosaur creations sit on a shelf. They play T-ball, love bugs and lizards, collect Pokemon badges and have a limited attention span when it comes to sitting down and talking to adults.

For Hollywood stars, they’re refreshingly candid. (The boys’ co-star, Sandler, doesn’t even talk to the press.) Cole scrunches up his face and mentions how his trailer on the set “smelled.” He wasn’t thrilled with what he was forced to put in his mouth to simulate vomit in one scene. “Oatmeal smushed up with Oreos--yech!” he says. When asked what they liked best about New York City, where the movie was shot, the boys mention ice cream, the monkeys at the zoo and the FAO Schwarz toy store.

“Hey, Cole,” Dylan suddenly says to his brother, “do you know what zero times four is?” Cole shakes his head. “Zero,” Dylan announces proudly. Cole just pulls on his toes, unimpressed.

Casting small children as a central part of a feature film is obviously risky business, and the makers of “Big Daddy” took their time before deciding upon Dylan and Cole. They auditioned hundreds of boys over a six-month period, even holding open casting calls in Los Angeles and New York City. Ironically, they chose the very first boy they had seen, Cole Sprouse.

“We saw this kid who looked great and was charming and funny, and he had this twinkle in his eye and this cute speech thing,” says Sid Ganis, the film’s co-producer. “When he left, we went, ‘Wow, that was good.’ ” They eventually added Cole’s twin brother to the cast to share the role in order to have longer shoot days without running afoul of child labor laws. Ganis says that the shoot went smoothly, even though the boys at times acted their age.

“If they could fool around with us, they’d do it. They would pull on my beard all the time, and that was a big joke with them, and they would kid me about my gray hair,” Ganis says. “The set was like a giant extended family for them. Everything was kind of like an extension of their day, rather than pure moviemaking.”

The twins are virtually identical in appearance, but their personalities are slightly different. Since Dylan is more extroverted and Cole more introspective, Dylan played the parts in which Julian is more physically active, and Cole took the scenes in which more sensitive acting was demanded. Ganis credits the boys’ mom and manager, Melanie Sprouse, with fostering a working environment that was both disciplined and fun for the boys. She also acted quickly to avert a possible crisis when each shed a baby tooth during production. She quickly arranged with a dentist to have artificial teeth fitted to fill the gaps in each boy’s smile, and no shooting time was lost.

Melanie Sprouse credits the director, Dennis Dugan, with making things easy on her sons. “He was able to get down to their level, so it was fun for them. It wasn’t like, ‘Hit your mark!’ or ‘Give me that line!’ ” she says. She says the bond between her sons and members of the cast and crew, including Sandler, has continued well after filming ended. Sandler calls to check in with them, and the boys recently took their new puppy down to the beach with the movie’s other co-producer, Jack Giarraputo. Despite the potential pitfalls of having kids be actors, Sprouse hasn’t regretted the decision to put her two boys in show business.

“It does have a really negative vibe to it,” she says. “But I think if I do my job as a mom, which is my first priority, then they’ll be OK.”

She’s now negotiating with several studios on a deal to produce a children’s video series starring the boys. They will appear in another film later this summer, “The Astronaut’s Wife,” starring Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron, in which they play alien twins. After that, it’s on to second grade.