Many a Gen-Xer was first introduced to Adam Sandler through the MTV quiz show "Remote Control," which means that his role in the new film "Click" -- an exhausted husband and father who receives a magic remote -- had brought his career somewhat full-circle.

But the Adam Sandler in "Click" seems different from the wacky comic who appeared in "Billy Madison" and "Happy Gilmore." Where the Sandler archetype used to be a rude and unrepentant man-child, his "Click" character is moving closer to Everyman territory.

"I thought people who had seen some of my movies in the past, they can handle it," Sandler explains. "We give enough jokes to relax you, but there are... it gets heavier than we've ever had before in one of our movies."

In "Click," Sandler plays Michael Newman, an architect and family man discovering that there just aren't enough hours in the day to be a perfect employee and a perfect dad and realizing that his choices, his priorities, may not have been the right ones. The movie will hit theaters shortly after Sandler and Jackie Titone's third wedding anniversary and less than two months after the birth of their first child, daughter Sadie Madison. It's no wonder that Sandler is in a reflective mode when it comes to the balance of work and family.

"It's an amazing that we get to do what we get to do, but you definitely are away from the family more than you'd like to be and time keeps passing," he reflects. "And I go movie-to-movie a lot and, yeah. I'm 39 years old.... [L]ooking back on the past 10 years of my life I've been at work more than I've been at home. So I connected with this movie, the message of the movie. By the end of the movie, when I watch it, when I watched the playback the other day, um, I went home. I was excited to get home and do the right thing -- be with the family."

Over the course of 45 minutes talking with reporters about "Click," Sandler's age comes up several times, but he maintains that he isn't concerned by thoughts of turning 40 this fall.

"I've got the kid and I feel a little more relief that I don't have to just think about myself too much," he says. "Man, I've had 39 years just talking about how great I am. It's time, at age 40, to talk about the kid."

While "Click" builds to several scenes of intense drama, it feels like an evolution of the standard Sandler character, rather than the kind of sharp departure or intensification the actor experimented with on "Punch-Drunk Love" and "Spanglish."

"I'm just looking to make good movies and looking to be as good as I can be in them and that's about it," he insists. "But I feel much more comfortable doing a comedy, but the fact that I got to try a few dramas, I feel I've tested myself a little bit."

Lest you worry too much about Sandler's increased maturity, the "Waterboy" star gives a big smile when he's asked if his aging has made it harder to keep playing morons.

"I don't seem to be getting much smarter, so no," He says. "But I like being a moron. I've been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron, and a lot of times when I'm driving I hear I'm a moron."

"Click" opens everywhere on Friday, June 23.