I’m going to catch flak for this, but in the long list of Adam Sandler comedies, The Waterboy is near the bottom of my personal list. I’ve only seen it once, so I may need to revisit the Sandman’s 1998 sports comedy, but I’d be surprised if the needle moves at all after giving it another go. At the very least, I didn’t turn the movie off or throw my DVD in the trash, which is what Kathy Bates says she did with the Waterboy script after reading the first couple of pages. While speaking with The Hollywood Reporter about the classic Sandler comedy, in which she plays Mama Boucher, the mother of Sandler’s Bobby Boucher, Bates said she junked the script after reading 12 pages, then her niece intervened.

Bates on the gig that almost wasn’t

“I didn’t know who Adam Sandler was and I got a script. It was a football script, and I was like, ‘Oh, let’s give me a football.’ Twelve pages I read and I thought, ‘Oh man, I can’t do this thing. This is ridiculous,’” she recounted. “So, I just tossed it in the waste basket, and my niece, who works with me, saw it and picked it out of the [trash]. She said, ‘What is this?’ So I said, ‘It’s a script that some kid Adam Sandler [wrote],’ and she went, ‘Adam Sandler! You don’t know the Hanukkah song?”

Her niece is referring to “The Chanukah Song,” which Sandler debuted on Saturday Night Live in 1994. The song quickly became an anthem for people of the Jewish faith, blending comedy with tradition and warm fuzzies. Honestly, it still hits real hard.

Bates had a blast with The Waterboy

“So I took another look at it, and I thought, well, I’ll do this for Linda,” Bates explained. “Turns out we had the most fun. He’s brilliant. He’s a genius. I dove in the deep end and just had a great time. Just screwed around. And I loved working with him. That’s when he first started really getting known and people really flocking to see him.”

Can you believe Bates almost passed on working with Adam Sandler on The Waterboy? Granted, he wasn’t the superstar he is now at that point in his career, but still. I have to imagine she would have kicked herself after watching his career soar in the years to come. Plus, who doesn’t like to work on a fun set? We all know that Bates can be hilarious, and Mama Boucher is a fantastic example of the actress cutting loose for the cameras. At any rate, I’m glad the stars aligned, and Bates joined the film. I can’t imagine someone else in that iconic role.

Are you a fan of Sandler’s The Waterboy? What’s your favorite Adam Sandler movie? Mine is The Wedding Singer, no question about that.