Actress Kathy Bates is a woman with very little fear when it comes to being a performer. After years of earning fantastic notices for her stage work through the 1970s and ’80s, Bates got a chance to reprise her role from the stage in the 1982 film version of COME BACK TO THE 5 & DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN, directed by Robert Altman. After years of plugging away in small supporting parts in film and television, Bates became a part of the cinematic lexicon in 1990, playing the notorious “number one fan” Annie Wilkes in the adaptation of Stephen King’s MISERY. It should be noted that in that same year, she also had roles in DICK TRACY, WHITE PALACE, and MEN DON’T LEAVE.
It wasn’t long before Bates became a favorite among casting directors, landing parts in such films as Woody Allen’s SHADOW AND FOG; AT PLAY IN THE FIELDS OF THE LORD; FRIED GREEN TOMATOES; PRELUDE TO A KISS; DOLORES CLAIBORNE; DIABOLIQUE; PRIMARY COLORS (opposite her BAD SANTA 2 co-star Billy Bob Thornton); and of course as the unsinkable Molly Brown in James Cameron’s TITANIC.
Bates will admit that the 2000s were less kind to her in terms of roles, but a few rose to the surface and got her a great deal of notoriety, including in LOVE LIZA and most notably, opposite Jack Nicholson in Alexander Payne’s ABOUT SCHMIDT. But in the last 10 years or so, Bates has been climbing back into the public eye again with roles in THE BLIDE SIDE, REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (in which she played Gertrude Stein), and extended run as a temporary boss on “The Office,” and her short-lived series “Harry’s Law.”
But soon after the network lost faith in that series, Bates me one Mr. Ryan Murphy, who proceeded to cast her in several season of his “American Horror Story” anthology series. And just in the last year, she’s appeared in such films as THE BOSS, COMPLETE UNKNOWN, and the recent release BAD SANTA 2, in which she plays the root of Willie Soke’s evil, his mother Sunny. The pair make peace long enough to pull of a heist in which the rip off a Christmas charity of its holiday earnings, but nothing is quite what it seems with Sunny, including her sick old lady act. The movie may not be that great, but the scene between Thornton and Bates are pure gold. I had the chance to have a lively chat with Bates recently, and nothing could have been more enjoyable. With that, please enjoy my talk with the unsinkable Kathy Bates…
Kathy Bates: Hi, Steve. How are you?
Capone: Good. How are you?
KB: I’m very well.
Capone: Excellent. I think the obvious first question is, what was it like to just have freedom to say and do pretty much whatever the hell you wanted to?
KB: And not get arrested. [laughs]
Capone: Exactly.
KB: Well, it was so great. I’ve played characters from other centuries where you have to wear a corset and you have to be in period style, and this and that and the other, and just let it all out… I’ve had a fantasy about being a biker chick, I’ve had a fantasy about having tattoos. You could be bad and not get in trouble for it.
Capone: It sounds like it was freeing in a way.
KB: Absolutely. Totally freeing. And to hang out with Billy Bob and Tony Cox, who I would just love to sit in a room and listen to them yack at each other.
Capone: I was talking to Mark [Waters, director] earlier about how one of the things you have to get right is the tone of this film. It can’t just be a free-for-all, everyone doing whatever they want. Tell me about just you, Billy Bob, and Tony working that out and getting the right levels of vulgarity and heart for the scenes that you’re in together.
KB: Well, for me what comes to mind—certainly Mark would know and have the overall point of view—but what I was most concerned about for me coming in is that I didn’t want to invade the chemistry of what was such a magical trio with Brett [Kelly, who plays Thurman Merman] as well. It was like, if you see a painting on the wall and they said “You’ve got this much you can fill in here and you’ve got to have exactly the right tone of paint, the right shade, the right shadows, the connection to all the other pieces,” and that’s the way I looked at it.
And I know from myself that I have gravitas, shall we say. And there were moments that Mark moved out, and I was so glad he left certain things out of the film. For example, one was when Billy Bob and I are sitting there toward the end of the film. Suddenly Sunny says, “I’ve got cancer,” because she’s been coughing. And he said, “That’s not cancer.” And I said, “No, I’ve got a touch of the big C.” And she gives him the gun that has the blanks in it, and says, “Let’s just do this one more heist. I want to go spend Christmas with you in Mexico, and we’ll have some margaritas.”
We did the scene beautifully. It was really great to play with Billy Bob that long, just through a lot of comedy and quick stuff, and it was great, but I was so worried. I remember I took the bus down with Billy Bob—he had his tour bus up there—and we talked about it a lot on the bus going down. I said, “Oh God, Billy. I’m really worried about this. I think it’s too heavy.” And also the last scene, you know, when she pulls the gun on him, there was more to it there than there is in the movie now. So I really have to credit Mark with that, because he got the balance exactly right, because that would have ruined the movie. I gotta tell you, it was fun. Seeing it was fun.
Capone: It sounds like you were going for something with heart that wasn’t overly sentimental too. You could go in the wrong direction the other way too.
KB: Oh, exactly. And what I love about this is that, there are moments that your heart fills when you’re on Willie listening to Thurman sing, and it’s unspoken. And at the end when Thurman’s asleep in the bunkbed, that’s an unspoken moment when he’s leaving presents in his stocking. But the things he’s leaving in his stocking are so Willie. And it comes out of the characters. That’s when work is really good, when it comes out of a real person. I had this wonderful script guy who used to do all the O’Neill plays with Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst, and he said this magnificent line in our script class: “The line disappears and a human being takes its place.”
Capone: In preparing for this role did you watch and study the first film?
KB: I didn’t have to. I’ve seen it so many times. I did watch it again, but oddly enough, the year before I happened to see it like twice on TV, then I was like “Wait a minute, I want to see that part where Bernie Mac keeps that kid from stealing the DVD. I want to see him talk to John Ritter about the fat women in the dressing room. Oh, wait a minute, I just gotta wait for this one more thing.” Because it’s a movie like a book you can’t put down. It’s got legs, as we say in the business, and I loved it so much. Although, when I was invited to do it, I did. I bought it and I watched it a couple of times, because I just wanted to—like we were talking about—understand the tone.
Capone: You playing the sick old lady card, you not only fooled Willie, but you fooled me, and I was so angry at you.
KB: You were? Good!
Capone: My question is, how do you live with yourself making me feel so terrible?
KB: [laughs] Oh, I loved it. My favorite scene is coming in and ripping that drag off. I just loved it. Where you shocked?
Capone: Hell yes. You have proven in so many films and on TV that you’re fearless. I think you’re one of the people that qualifies as fearless. There seems to be nothing you won’t do for a reaction or a laugh. Does anything scare you anymore?
KB: Originally, I said, “Guys, do I really have to sit on the toilet?”
Capone: That’s what did it?
KB: Yeah. I did that, and also I think Christina [Hendricks] had to say felching, and I said, “Can we just not talk about that?” When you’re an actor, you can’t do 70 percent. You have to go all the way. If you’re going to sign up, you just sign up and you jump in the deep end and you give it your all. Hell, I feel like I’m a little kid again. I love playing. It’s a play, like it’s a play in a theater, it’s a screenplay that we’re doing. Even in French, when you play on a stage, it’s “jouer,” which means to play tennis, like you’re playing a role. It is that way. You just play pretend, and I love it because you get to play pretend with the best makeup, the best costumes, the best script, and with the best actors. It’slike nothing ever.
Right now, I’m just like a kid at Christmas, no pun intended. I’ve gotten to have so many wonderful opportunities in the last five years. I had breast cancer five years ago, my show got canceled, I thought everything was done, then all of a sudden Ryan Murphy comes along, and these wonderful parts come along, I meet all these wonderful actors, and for somebody who’s been a hermit most of her life, to suddenly be brought out into the light like Boo Radley, and meet the likes of Sarah Paulson, Angela Bassett, Finn Wittrock, Denis O’hare, and Ryan, and stay in touch with them.
When I got my star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this year, I was trying to fit people into the guest list. I was working with my assistant Linda, who’s my niece. I said, “Yeah, but we have to invite so-and-so.” Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to fill it up. I’ve got my best friends in the world. I’ve got my four or five best friends, and they all live on the east coast or in Europe. It’s not that I don’t have great friends here, but suddenly at the age of 68, my life is full of all of this wonderful stuff. I don’t even know what question you just asked me [laughs], but I just feel so happy. I guess it was about acting. So I guess at this time in my life, I’m feeling particularly fearless.
Capone: What have you got to lose?
KB: Exactly. The other thing is, I worked really hard from the time I was a teenager until the ’80s developing the gift that God gave me. I really put in the time, the focus, what I was taught in school, and I expanded on it. I was determined not to take a wrong turn. I had the opportunity to do a sitcom out here, and a little voice in my head said, “Nope. You’re not ready yet. Go home. Go work in a theater,” and that’s what I did. I told my assistant the other day, I said, “You know what? I’m ready. I’m ready for all this wonderful stuff that’s coming my way. And not only am I ready, but I’m really happy and I’m excited and I feel confident and I’m going for it.”
A friend of mine came in my house one day and he said, “That’s a really beautiful dining room table, but where are the chairs? What is that say to people?” They used to joke about me being Mrs. Havisham. So this is just like unbelievable. I just can’t be grateful enough. Somebody asked “What do you do this Christmas?” I said, “I’m going to sit home and I’m going to be really grateful.” And I’m going to wish all the same for every human on the planet, every animal, creature on the planet that they have this, because people always say when I say “I feel so lucky,” people say “Well, you really deserve it.” And I say “Yeah, man. We all deserve it.”
Capone: Up until you just said it, this is how much “American Horror Story” has taken over the world, I forgot you had a show just five years ago. I remember you on “The Office” for a while, then this, but I forgot there was a show in between.
KB: Good. I don’t want to give them any press.
Capone: Ryan Murphy coming into your life was at the exact right moment.
KB: I know. I will never be able to thank him enough. I’m mortified that I did not thank him when I picked up my Emmy. Big, big, big faux-pas. And he really deserved a humongous amount of thanks. So whenever I have the opportunity, I always give him the due.
Capone: And I hear you’re playing Joan Blondell in his show “Feud,” which comes out next year.
KB: Just a cameo. I’m hearing that Susan [Sarandan as Bette Davis] and Jessica [Lang as Joan Crawford] are really tearing it up. I can’t wait. The couple of scripts that I read are off the wall, and Tim Minear, who’s a producer/director, who has written a lot of wonderful stuff for me over the years, is just del”icious, and I’m really excited about that. And I’m doing this new Chuck Lorre thing “Disjointed. Did I already tell you about that?
Capone: No you didn’t.
KB: I just did my first show in front of a live audience, three camera. This is for Netflix. It’s called “Disjointed,” and it’s about a mother and son. She’s an old hippie from way back, and she’s been a cannabis lawyer, cannabis activist, she’s used cannabis liberally over the years, and she has a cannabis dispensary. And her bi-racial son, played by Aaron Moten, wants to come at it from the corporate point of view, and it’s hysterical. The audience was hanging off the rafters.
Chuck Lorre and David Javerbaum are the writers/creators. You get no better. And [James] Burrows directed the first pilot. Nicole Sullivan, one of my favorites from “Mad TV,” plays an incredible supporting role. O-M-G. I’m not just saying that. I couldn’t believe it. None of us could believe it. We were all hopping up and down like kids going, “Oh my god. Oh my god. This is amazing!” So now we have a couple of weeks off for the holidays, we have 19 more to shoot, and Netflix was there the other night. They were ecstatic. “Oh, this is what we want!” And it starts airing in July, so people can binge. There you go. That’s why I’m telling you all this.
Capone: Did you just shoot a film with Xavier Dolan too [THE DEATH AND LIFE OF JOHN F. DONOVAN]?
KB: Yeah, I had a little part in that up in Montreal. Very talented young man. Incredibly talented. Hello! I couldn’t believe it. So life is good.
Capone: What is the role of fear in terms of choosing particular roles. Have there times when you say, “I’m not sure I can do this”?
KB: I thought of one right away. GODS AND MONSTERS. They asked me to play Lynn [Redgrave]’s role, and I turned it down because I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t have a handle on it. She did it brilliantly. I could never have done that. I think there are horses for courses.
Capone: Kathy, thank you so much for talking.
KB: Steve, thank you. It was a pleasure.
Capone: And continued success. I’m so happy for you.
