Kathy Bates Nearly Threw Away ‘The Waterboy’ Script—And Almost Missed It All

Kathy Bates came perilously close to passing on one of her most iconic roles. The Oscar-winning actress admitted this week that she had no clue who Adam Sandler was when The Waterboy script landed on her desk in the late 1990s—and she nearly tossed it straight into the trash.

The Matlock star revealed she dismissed the 1998 sports comedy after just 12 pages. At the time, Sandler was a virtual unknown to her, and the football storyline didn’t immediately grab her attention.

“I didn’t know who Adam Sandler was,” Bates said. “It was a football script, and after about 12 pages I thought, ‘I can’t do this. This is ridiculous.'”

So she did exactly that—she tossed the screenplay in the garbage. But fate had other plans.

Bates’s niece Linda, who worked with her, spotted Sandler’s name on the discarded script and stepped in. Linda reminded her aunt of Sandler’s viral “Hanukkah Song” and urged her to give the script another shot. It was advice that would prove crucial.

Bates reconsidered and eventually landed the role of Helen “Mama” Boucher, the overbearing mother of Sandler’s character Bobby. The part became one of the film’s standout performances and helped push The Waterboy into box office gold.

“Turns out we had the most fun,” Bates reflected. “He’s brilliant. He’s a genius.”

Sandler himself recounted the same anecdote while accepting an award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival earlier this year, noting that someone close to Bates had rescued the script from the trash and convinced her to reconsider.

Directed by Frank Coraci and released in 1998, The Waterboy became one of Sandler’s biggest commercial wins despite lukewarm critical reviews. Today, it maintains a devoted cult following.

For Bates, what could have been a career misstep turned into one of her most treasured professional experiences.