NEED TO KNOW
- Julie Bowen told The Hollywood Reporter that she was initially under the impression that Happy Gilmore 2 would cast a younger woman to portray Adam Sandler’s love interest
- Bowen portrayed Virginia Venit, who falls in love with Sandler’s Happy Gilmore, in the 1996 sports comedy of the same title
- Bowen said her oldest son even told her at one point that an internet rumor said Sydney Sweeney would play Sandler’s love interest in the movie
Julie Bowen may have portrayed Adam Sandler’s love interest in 1996’s Happy Gilmore, but the actress thought she would not be asked to return for the upcoming sequel at first.
Bowen, 55, told The Hollywood Reporter at Netflix’s Tudum live event on Saturday, May 31 that she assumed she would not reprise her role as Virginia Venit in Happy Gilmore 2 when she first learned the movie was greenlit at Netflix. Instead, she thought that she’d be replaced by a younger woman playing a new love interest for Happy Gilmore.
“I had heard that it was happening and I thought ‘Well, I won’t be in it.’ And I didn’t – that was okay. I was like Virginia Venit, it’s been 30 years, he’s got a hottie,” she said. “He’s got some little bitty on the side, like a cart girl.”
Bowen’s character Virginia is introduced in the original Happy Gilmore as a pro golf tour’s public relations director; she and Sandler’s title character work together to help him succeed as a pro golfer and form a romantic relationship. With the amount of celebrities who appear in the movie, though, Bowen and her three sons — Oliver, 18, and twins John and Gustav, 16 — were briefly left with the impression that a young star like Sydney Sweeney would fill a romantic void in the movie.
“As a matter of fact my children told me, before I was even told officially that there was a Happy Gilmore sequel, my now 18-year-old said, ‘Mom, I hear they’re doing a sequel and he’s with Sydney Sweeney as a cart girl,’ ” Bowen added. “And I went, ‘I’m hurt and I so respect that move.’ Of course. Why wouldn’t you?”
“So when I got the call that I was actually in it, I was like, ‘Are you sure? Come on,’ ” she said.
Bowen’s character Virginia joins Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald) among original Happy Gilmore characters who will appear in the upcoming Netflix sequel. The movie, which was first announced in May 2024, also features an ensemble cast that includes Ben Stiller, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (Bad Bunny), John Daly, Sadie Sandler, Sunny Sandler, Conor Sherry, Ethan Cutkosky, Philip Fine Schneider, Maxwell Jacob Friedman, Travis Kelce, Blake Clark, Justin Thomas, Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau and Paige Spiranic.
Although rumors spread on social media in September 2024 that Sweeney, 27, would appear in the movie as a “cart girl,” the Anyone But You star does not appear to have a role in Happy Gilmore 2.
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Bowen, who is best known for her Emmy Award-winning role as Claire Dunphy in the ABC sitcom Modern Family, most recently appeared in a movie in 2023 when she starred in Totally Killer; she costarred in the 2024 television series Hysteria.
Happy Gilmore 2 is on Netflix July 25.
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