Adam Sandler has revealed that he gets upset by how critics' opinions of his work affects his family and co-actors.
The Happy Gilmore actor, now 56, made the revelation during a podcast appearance where he recalled the message that Kathy Bates gave him after he said that the film was likely to get slammed because he was in it too.
He made it clear that he's all too aware that his films, until fairly recently, haven't exactly been critical hits while talking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
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However, when he tried to drag himself down in this department to Bates, who co-starred with him in The Waterboy, she didn't seem to care, and said that the only opinion he should be bothered about is her's.
"I remember telling her when somebody brought up critics that I was like, 'They're probably not gonna like it. They're probably gonna say bad stuff, maybe don't read it,'" he said.
He then remembered her saying: "'Well, I like it, so that's all that matters,' or something like that. She was cool."
Sandler then went on to reveal that while he personally isn't bothered by his work having a bad critical reception, he does get upset at how it affects those around him.
He remembered: "I just felt bad for my family and I just felt bad for the people who worked really hard on the movies.
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"I had so many great actors in the movies.
"When we would get done shooting it, they would say to me 'I think the critics are really going to like this one.' And I'd say 'Oh no, they're going to say bad things, and they’re probably going to say bad things about you being in it.'"
While, as Sandler predicted, The Waterboy was a critical flop, earning a RottenTomatoes score of just 33%, commercially it was a huge success and took in a whopping $190 million at the box office when it was released in 1998.
But while things haven't exactly gone well for Sandler critically in the past, the tides seem to be turning as he recently won a Performance Tribute Award at the 2022 Gotham Awards.
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And his more recent films, like Uncut Gems, has viewers looking at him differently. His sports drama Hustle received a whopping 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, making it his highest rated film after Happy Gilmore, which sits at 85 percent.
Topics: Celebrity, Adam Sandler, Film and TV