Kathy Bates Admits She Initially Rejected This Iconic Movie Role and Threw the Script in the Trash

Kathy Bates once shared that she initially rejected her iconic role in the 1998 comedy The Waterboy. According to Bates, her agent had warned her off the script, and she only received it because the filmmakers attached a concrete salary offer.

Without that, she might never have played the unforgettable Mama Boucher, the fiery mother of Adam Sandler’s Bobby Boucher.

“I read the first 12 pages,” Bates told Vanity Fair. “It was really silly, it was a football movie, and I thought, eh, and I threw it in the trash.” However, her niece spotted the crumpled script and urged her to take another look. When she saw Adam Sandler’s name, she told Bates, “You’ve got to do this! You’ve got to do this!”

Bates admitted she gave the script a second chance, reading it in full. She realized the story, while absurd, was also heartfelt. “One of my Achilles Heels, both as a person and as an actor,” she said, “I take things way too seriously. This was an opportunity to just let it all hang out, and just play and be silly.”

At the time, Bates had never made a full-on comedy, and the idea of embracing her playful side was a new and appealing challenge.

Even the film’s writers didn’t expect her to accept. “It was like disbelief, you know?” co-writer Tim Herlihy told SB Nation in 2018. “You expect to get your third and fourth choice. You don’t expect to get Kathy Bates!”

The Waterboy, directed by Frank Coraci and co-written by Adam Sandler and Tim Herlihy, follows Bobby Boucher, a socially awkward football player, and his overprotective mother. The film also stars Fairuza Balk, Henry Winkler, Jerry Reed, and Kathy Bates. It earned $39.4 million in its opening weekend in the U.S. and $190 million worldwide.

Critics were mixed on the movie. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 33% approval rating, calling it “an insult to its genre with low humor and cheap gags.”

Metacritic scored it 41 out of 100. Some reviewers, like Roger Ebert, were critical of the main character’s irritating manner, while others, including Janet Maslin of The New York Times, found the film “so cheerfully outlandish that it’s hard to resist, and so good hearted that it’s genuinely endearing.” Audiences, meanwhile, loved it, giving it an A− CinemaScore.

It’s fascinating to think how close the world came to never meeting Mama Boucher. Bates’ story shows that sometimes taking a second look, or listening to a niece, can lead to a career-defining performance.

What do you think about Bates almost turning down The Waterboy? Would the film have been the same without her? Share your thoughts in the comments.