Yahoo Lifestyle Kathy Bates on When She’ll Actually Retire, Her 100-Lb. Weight Loss and Leaning Into Ageism for ‘Matlock’ Reboot
Before landing the lead role in “Matlock,” Kathy Bates was “contemplating semi-retirement.” Now, she might never stop.
“My friends say I’ll probably be like Molière and die in my chair on the stage,” says Bates, “because it really is a life force for me.”
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Ever since her first role in Miloš Forman’s 1971 film “Taking Off,” she has worked consistently. But it wasn’t until Bates was 42, when she won a best actress Oscar for playing the malevolent Annie Wilkes in “Misery,” that everything changed.
“I always knew going into this business that it was going to take me a while because I wasn’t a beauty queen,” the actor, 76, tells Variety. “I have to say I give an inner wink when I see friends who have been beauty queens who are no longer working because of ageism, and in my case, I’ve been able to continue working for many years because I don’t look like that. I don’t think I would have gotten the role in ‘Misery’ if I had been a beauty queen.”
She borrows a quote from her character Annie Wilkes: “Kathy Bates is not the movie star type.”
Now Bates, who has had a prolific television career with 13 Emmy nominations and two wins, is proving once again that she is the TV star type — by stepping into the lead role for CBS’ reimagining of “Matlock” (she’s also an executive producer). In the legal drama, which premieres Sept. 22, Bates plays Madeline “Matty” Matlock, a 70-something lawyer who joins an esteemed New York law firm. Facing ageism from her colleagues, she uses it to her advantage while harboring hidden motives of her own. (There’s a twist at the end of the pilot that shocked Bates.) The character has “uncanny” similarities to Bates, who jokes that sometimes she wonders whether showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman lives in her head.
The first season tackles hot-button topics, including the #MeToo movement. In one episode, Matty is assigned the case of a young woman who claims she’s been sexually assaulted. However, the attorney finds herself disagreeing with her client’s point of view. Bates says she can relate and “had exactly the same response that Matty has.”
“Let me preface that by saying I am incredibly sympathetic with the #MeToo movement. I do think it swings sometimes a little too far, but I’m not one to say — I haven’t been in their shoes,” says Bates. “It’s just that my experience was different.”
Yet she understands where Matty is coming from. “Matty says, ‘In my day, I wouldn’t get drunk with this guy. That’s ridiculous,’” says Bates. “I don’t think Matty is a prude, I just think she hasn’t really absorbed the fact that things have changed so dramatically for young women.”
That’s not to say that Bates identifies entirely with her sly character. Unlike Matty, Bates is “too much of a kiss-and-tell girl” — she shares “way too much,” even to strangers. And although she can lie on-screen, she’s no good at pretending in real life.
Bates had to “dig deep” when she took on the role. She began thinking of her mother. “There’s a lot of my mother in Matty — or, let’s say, there’s a lot of what I imagine my mother could have been if she had had the opportunity to realize her dreams and become a lawyer. I think about that frustration of having that kind of dream and having that dream subverted by the time in which she lived,” says Bates.
Through the years, she’s met with so many people from so many walks of life — and many times, has wondered, what she’d be doing had she gone down a different career path.
“What could I have done with my life? What were the possibilities I didn’t even know were possible when I went to school because I was so focused on being an actor? Now that I’ve gotten out to the end of my life, I think, wow, can’t go back. You made your bed. You’re lying in it, you’re having a great time,” Bates says. “I think, just getting to this moment chatting with you, I realize that this is what I wanted to do. As difficult as it’s been, and I can’t believe it’s been 50 years, I do feel that what I’m really trying to give people is empathy.”
After years of supporting roles — including six different disturbing characters in Ryan Murphy’s “American Horror Story” franchise — Bates finally is the lead for the first time in six years.
But the stamina it takes to star in a broadcast drama has presented the biggest challenge.
“It’s helped me tremendously that, over the last six or seven years, I’ve lost 100 pounds.” she says. “I don’t think I’ve been this slim since I was in college.”
When she led “Harry’s Law” for NBC in 2011, she was at her heaviest. “I had to sit down every moment that I could. It was hard for me to walk. I’m ashamed I let myself get so out of shape, but now I have a tremendous amount of energy.”
Bates says she doesn’t foresee revisiting “American Horror Story” And if she does decide to retire, as recently reported, she’s hopeful she’ll do “several years” of “Matlock” first.
“I can’t believe I’m saying that about doing episodic TV, but this has been so much of a challenge and a delight,” she says. “Matty is certainly my magic carpet right now, and I want her to go sailing on for quite a long time.”
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