Since 1970, Oscar-winner Kathy Bates has been lighting up the stage and screens both large and small. Unfortunately, decades in the entertainment industry take a large and often unnecessary toll on a person, and Bates has not been spared from this. In a recent interview, the actress revealed her plans to retire after CBS’s upcoming “Matlock” reboot runs its course.
Abandoned Retirement
As you can imagine, a highly acclaimed performer doesn’t walk away from a well-established career willy-nilly. Bates originally planned to retire after things went south on an unnamed film.
“It becomes my life,” she told the New York Times. “Sometimes I get jealous of having this talent. Because I can’t hold it back, and I just want my life.” After giving the part everything she had, her gift was apparently ignored. So the next day she contacted her agent with her plans to retire.
Then a few weeks after the incident, her agent sent a script for “Matlock.” While she had little attachment to the original series, which ran 1986-1995, and a procedural wasn’t what she was looking for, she read it anyway. The script for the reboot morphed the folksy male attorney, clad mostly in seersucker suits, into something different.
The script had a female protagonist who feels aging has made her invisible. This fuels her to prove them wrong by showing up as a shrewd, brilliant, attorney. Bates connected with the character in such an intense way that she paused her plans to leave the industry.
“Everything I’ve prayed for, worked for, clawed my way up for, I am suddenly able to be asked to use all of it,” Bates said. “And it’s exhausting.” Saying that the new show will be her farewell, “This is my last dance.”
Bates is Back
Part of the reason Bates connected to the script so strongly was that this was far from the first time in her life that she felt invisible. In fact, this is an old wound that springs from her childhood as the youngest kid with two significantly older siblings.
“As I got older, I realized that I wasn’t meant to be,” she said. “That has informed my evolution as a human being, and who you are as a human being, it’s who you are as an artist.” She channeled this pain of being ignored into the fuel that drove her to such heights in her career. But her big break didn’t come until 1990 when she was already in her 40s, when she was cast as Annie Wilkes in the film adaptation of Stephen King’s “Misery.”
“I never really thought about being a movie star,” she said. “I just wanted to be the best I could be.” Bates got so deep into the role of a psychotic recluse that director Rob Reiner asked her to back off a bit.
“I told her, ‘You’re such a great actor,’’” Reiner said. “‘You could leave it here and then come back to it.’ She’s an amazing actress. I just didn’t want to have her torture herself.”
When asked if she listened to his advice Bate responded, “Probably not.” The results are hard to argue with considering the role nabbed her first Oscar. Despite the acclaim, she still never felt she measured up.
“I never felt dressed right or well,” she said of the publicity rounds for “Misery” and after. “I felt like a misfit. It’s that line in ‘Misery’ when Annie says, ‘I’m not a movie star.’ I’m not.”
Life After “Misery“
After that, she bounced around doing various parts on shows like “Six Feet Under,” “The Office,” and “Two and a Half Men.” As well as the “Matlock”-adjacent NBC procedural “Harry’s Law,” which ran from 2011 to 2012. Eventually finding herself on mega-hit series like “American Horror Story” alongside comedies like “Disjointed.”
While she clearly has the range to pull off these roles she still gravitates towards playing discontented women, the ones who struggle to be loved, accepted, and seen. “Typecasting,” as she calls it is often a dirty word in Hollywood but Bates was craving parts with a deeper connection.
“It was the only thing I’ve had, ever,” Bates said of acting. Channeling her private struggles with self-esteem and battling cancer into her work of bringing characters to life.
The Push For Perfection
Bates is so relentless her co-stars cannot help but take notice. “She’s always looking to improve,” said Rachel McAdams, who co-starred with her in “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” “Even though her first take is blowing everyone away, there’s something inside of her going, ‘There’s so much further to go; let me show you what I can do.’”
And now “Matlock” shows she has no immediate plans to start hampering her performance. It would be easy for such a well-respected actress in her mid-70s to start phoning it in. However, Bates instead signs on for a new network series with an 18-episode order.
“When she gets a script and she reads through it, you will see her challenge the directors, challenge the writers in a very healthy way,” said “Matlock” co-star Skye P. Marshall. “She is an all-around beautiful warrior who is so intuitive, so intelligent and unwilling to tolerate any injustice for anyone.”
“There’s this funny thing that happens when women age,” Bates’s character Madeline Matlock, says in the pilot. “We become damn near invisible.” Before adding, “It’s useful, because nobody sees us coming.”
Like Bates, Madeline, nicknamed Matty, uses her private grief to fuel her drive for justice. “Maybe on some deep level that’s why I was attracted to this,” she said. Before acknowledging Matty also has a desire to rectify the wrongs of the past.
“Matlock” will premiere on CBS on September 22nd.
