Adam Sandler’s love life took a backseat next to George Clooney.
The 59-year-old “Happy Gilmore” star admitted that when he first became friends with the then-“ER” actor, 64, he quickly felt the overwhelming spotlight of Clooney’s fame.
The duo first met on “Saturday Night Live” in 1995, and soon after, they attended an NBA game together.
Adam Sandler and George Clooney attended the “Jay Kelly” red carpet during the 63rd New York Film Festival at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, on September 29, 2025.
“It was at the height of ER, and I went to a Knicks game with George,” Sandler, 59, told The New York Times. “I remember feeling as invisible as I’ve ever felt. I thought I was becoming a star, and I was like, ‘Oh, not a soul’s looking at me.’”
Sandler added, “Every woman in the place was looking at him, every guy’s going, ‘Man, I wish I was that guy.’”
Clooney, 64, played Dr. Doug Ross on the NBC medical drama for five seasons from 1994 to 1999, which followed the lives of staff at Chicago’s County General Hospital.
The Oscar winner remembered the outing differently. “That was really fun,” Clooney told the outlet. “We’ve always kept in touch, but never found a project. Then Noah called.”
Now, the longtime friends are starring together in the 2025 coming-of-age film Jay Kelly, directed by Noah Baumbach.
George Clooney and Adam Sandler attended AFI FEST 2025 on October 23, 2025.
The Hollywood icons also took a moment to reflect on their experiences with fame.
“I’d seen it from the point of view of my aunt [singer Rosemary Clooney],” Clooney recalled. “She was a big star in Hollywood in the ’50s, then pop music changed, and she was out of business. She didn’t handle it well and lost about 30 years to drugs and booze, being pretty angry at life.”
“Seeing fame from the side where it doesn’t work out was a great lesson,” he continued. “It teaches you how little it has to do with you and that there is no success without massive amounts of failure.”
George Clooney and Adam Sandler Star in “Jay Kelly”
Sandler still vividly remembers auditioning without success.
“It never really got in my way,” he said. “I was young and just thought, ‘All right, keep going. Go, go, go, until it happens.’”
In October, he told People how close he and Clooney remain decades later.
George Clooney as Dr. Doug Ross in “ER”
“He loves his friends,” gushed the Murder Mystery star. “George and I are good friends now. I love him. I really enjoyed our time together—exercising, running around, playing hoop, throwing the baseball, throwing rocks, talking, hearing his stories about being a kid. Our upbringings were similar in that our friends were always important to us.”
Sandler isn’t the only friend Clooney has kept from his early fame.
In 2022, the Ocean’s 11 actor revealed that he remains close with his co-stars from the series that launched him to stardom.
Anthony Edwards as Dr. Mark Greene, George Clooney as Dr. Doug Ross, Noah Wyle as Dr. John Carter, and Eriq La Salle as Dr. Peter Benton in ER Season 4
“I guess it’s the friendship I have with all of them, and that I continue to have,” Clooney said about his ER castmates during an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show.
“I had [Anthony] Tony Edwards at my house in Italy three weeks ago—he and Mare came,” Clooney added.
He also noted that he remains “really close” with Julianna Margulies and Noah Wyle.
A shot from season one of the hit ’90s medical drama ER
“They’re really good friends,” Clooney continued. “I feel like that show was a job of a lifetime, and it completely changed my career.”
In 2019, ER executive producer John Wells suggested there could still be a chance for a reboot.
“We made an awful lot of ERs—331 episodes,” he told Deadline. “That’s a lot of hours, so I can’t imagine we would. But if someone came in with a really interesting idea about how to do it, we might.”
Noah Wyle and George Clooney in ER
Noah Wyle, 54, who starred on ER from 1994 to 2009, now leads and executive produces the hit Max medical drama The Pitt.
In August 2024, Sherri Crichton, widow of ER creator Michael Crichton, filed a lawsuit against Wyle, John Wells, The Pitt creator R. Scott Gemmill, and Warner Bros. Television.
The lawsuit claims that The Pitt is essentially an unauthorized reboot of ER.
A shot of the cast from ER
“The Pitt is ER,” the lawsuit alleged.
“It’s not like ER, it’s not kind of ER, it’s not sort of ER. It is ER—complete with the same executive producer, writer, star, production companies, studio, and network as the planned ER reboot. No one has been fooled.”
Noah Wyle told Variety, “This taints the legacy, and it shouldn’t have.”
“At one point, this could have been a partnership. And when it wasn’t a partnership, it didn’t need to turn acrimonious,” the Emmy winner added. “But on the 30th anniversary of ER, I’ve never felt less celebratory of that achievement than I do this year.”
