Rob Schneider is an American comedian and actor. He was a cast member on the long-running live sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live on NBC between 1990 and 1994, then went on to star in such comedy movies as Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999), The Animal (2001), Hot Chick (2002), and Grown Ups (2010). He has had a long creative partnership with fellow SNL alumn Adam Sandler, appearing in many of his films, such as the aforementioned Grown Ups, as well as 50 First Dates (2004), and The Longest Yard(2005).
Mr Schneider was gracious enough to give an exclusive interview to our site before his lecture at MCC Budapest.
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What made you turn to politics? Was it the era when the left was aggressively coming after comedians?
Yeah, when you get attacked, when people try to prevent you from working, and you survive, you get emboldened to go: ‘Who are these assholes trying to take me out?’ I’ve always been a contrarian. So you have a left that is totalitarian in the sense that they’re not for free speech. They don’t really have the best interests of the culture in mind. They’re not open for debate, they’re open for demonization. They want to demean you, they want to demoralize you, they want to prevent you from speaking, and they want to take away your ability to make a living. That sounds authoritarian.
As a matter of fact, that sounds like communism. That’s why I’m so particularly supportive of Viktor Orbán because he managed to keep the barbarians out. Just to go back a little bit, when they asked Mikhail Gorbachev what the biggest surprise was that he had seen since he stepped down, since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the fall of the Soviet Union, he said very directly: the biggest surprise was the Sovietization of Europe. It’s like, what? The Sovietization of Europe; you have Brussels starting to be like a Trojan horse. It seemed like a good idea on the outside to have a group economy that could work together for the benefit of all. And it very quickly turned into a political authoritarian unelected group that is telling other countries what to do. And Viktor Orbán has been one of the few to have the courage and to have the love and patriotism to say: ‘No, Hungary is not going to become a puppet of Brussels.’
How did Hungary catch your attention?
Well, I’ve been watching France turn into an Islamic state, and also London. The cowards that run those countries: I mean, Keir Starmer’s a traitor, he’s a traitor to England. And the same thing with France. The fact that Macron has to reorganize and have people drop out to maintain power lets you know that they’re losing the faith of the people. And that is because these leaders no longer represent the people.
The populist return of Donald Trump as President has emboldened other populist countries. And a leader that, in some ways, I think is even more courageous than President Trump is Viktor Orbán, because, truthfully, the United States can stand alone economically, whereas the pull of the European Union and the threats of the European Union and the war right next to them are a lot more threatening. The fact that the United States tax dollars through USAID were trying to overthrow this country and its leadership is very daunting. So, in Viktor Orbán, Hungary has that one in 300 years leader.
‘Viktor Orbán has been one of the few to have the courage and to have the love and patriotism to say: “No, Hungary is not going to become a puppet of Brussels”’
Entertainment is pretty left-wing in the United States.
It’s communist. In the 1950s, the conservatives were kicking out the communists and were blacklisting artists. And they were right, actually, as it turns out. What you have now in the 2020s, you have the communists in Hollywood, leftists kicking out the patriots like me. But I don’t care. They ask why I am involved in politics. Politics is everything. It’s the roads you drive on. It’s the food you eat. It’s your rights. You had a Democratic Party that is infiltrated by far-leftists, from day one when the brainless Joe Biden was elected President. The media is also overwhelmingly leftist and irrational.
The Biden administration, a regime I like to call, had censorship from day one. That was the first thing they did. That was their idea to silence other Americans who would oppose their dictates. And that’s very telling.
It hasn’t always been this bad. When you started, entertainment wasn’t this political, I believe.
For me, it was the Obama years that really changed it. I mean, there’s always been politics. The CIA has infiltrated the show business since its inception. Since the CIA has been the CIA, they’ve tried to have a say in the culture. You know, politics is downstream from the culture, but the culture is downstream from entertainment. So, for me and other conservatives, it’s important to try to reclaim the culture, or at least be a buttress, like what Viktor Orbán is here. He is the guy at the gates keeping the barbarians out. And the barbarians are Brussels, make no mistake about it.
And for the young people who seem to be confused about wanting something different just for difference’s sake: that is a gigantic, critical error that could be critical for this country. You have safe streets; you are not having the youth, the college kids in Hungary going to a war that they shouldn’t be going to. But my fear is, and why I’m here today is, if the youth of Hungary votes—and it’s interesting because the opposition to Orbán doesn’t say anything specific, because they have nothing specific to say, because they don’t want to give away that they’re pawns of Brussels. So that’s a real tell. So, if you don’t mind being overrun with migrants who don’t care about your culture, who have no intention to assimilate, then go ahead and vote for the opposition. But if you want to keep these streets clean, if you want to keep them crime-free, if you love your country, then vote the other way. That’s the most disgusting thing that happened in Western civilization, the idea that we should be ashamed of Western civilization and its accomplishments. I’m very proud of Rome and Paris. Look at the accomplishments we’ve had as opposed to the opposite, you know, the Islamic hordes that come in. They offer nothing.
Can I ask you a couple of questions about your career?
Yeah.
So, Saturday Night Live is a very unique environment.
Yes.
Live sketch comedy. What did it feel like to you? Did you get accustomed to it fast, and it was just normal that you are on live television doing a sketch, reading cue cards? Or was it surreal?
Well, Saturday Night Live was—at that time that I was on, I can’t speak for it now—a place where they get young guys and women who aren’t really in show business yet.
Like your friend, Adam Sandler.
Yeah. They work you, and it’s about how hard you want to work. If you dedicate yourself, if you put 100 hours a week in, like I did, like Adam Sandler did, you have a chance of making it there. But I just loved how it could affect the culture. Actually, I shouldn’t say affect the culture. I’m saying that now as an older person, as an older artist, but at the time, my goal was just to be seen by the culture. In other words, you can write something, and then people all over the country could laugh about it, and then they’ll talk about it for a few days. That was unique, and I really appreciated that. And I still do appreciate it.
Your most recent work is Happy Gilmore 2, where you worked with Adam Sandler again.
My most recent work is performing live, doing stand-up comedy. That’s the stuff that I do. I’m very proud of it. I perform all over the United States. I also did Australia, I toured there.
But as an artist, as Italian Nobel Prize-winning playwright and actor Dario Fo said: ‘An artistic expression that does not speak for its own time has no relevance.’ You have to be an artist in your time, of your time, commenting on your time.
I mean, to be an artist that I care about, I think you have to be very much like George Carlin was, like Richard Pryor was. I want to talk about the culture. There are some great comedians now. Whether it’s Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, or Louis CK, you have some very interesting comedians. And I noticed that people are going to see comedy because of the confusion of the culture. I mean, the attack on the culture, it’s a leftist assault on your mind, trying to undermine Western civilization. So once you notice that there’s a real attack, and if you love Western civilization, if you love Paris, if you love New York, if you love societies that work and function, if you love women, women’s rights, if you love religious rights, if you are a God-fearing person, then you’re going to want to defend this culture because the idea that it’s just going to continue is an illusion. You must be eternally vigilant to protect Western civilization. And we must be Christian soldiers.
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