Kathy Bates
Kathy Bates
Kathleen Doyle "Kathy" Bates is an American actress and director. After appearing in several minor roles in film and television during the 1970s and the 1980s, Bates rose to prominence with her performance in Misery, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress; she also received a Golden Globe. She followed this with major roles in Fried Green Tomatoesand Dolores Claiborne, before playing a featured role as Molly Brown in Titanic, which was at the time the highest...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth28 June 1948
CityMemphis, TN
CountryUnited States of America
For a long time I did not want to do television because I did not want to get stuck playing the same person. I wanted the ongoing challenge of a variety of roles.
Every time an Oscar is given out, an agent gets his wings.
I look for a role that hopefully I feel empathy with and that I can understand and love, but also that has that challenge for me to play - a different kind of role, a different type of character, a different time period.
Alexander Payne's very specific. His scripts are always complete when you start working on them.
After winning the Oscar, I was committed to do 'Fried Green Tomatoes,' but I didn't know what the next thing would be after that. It was a scary time. But the advantage of TV is the regular work. All you need is a hit series, I guess.
I'm not a stunning woman.
A heart can only discover what it really wants with experience.
I went from years of honing my craft to sudden recognition. It was quite a life changer.
The bottom line is that I'm an actor, so when somebody pitches me a great part, it's a no-brainer. You never know what it's gonna be like, in terms of the actual experience. You can be really excited about a part that can turn out shitty, you can have a bad time, there's a bad egg or two or three, in the bunch, or the producers are weird, or something like that.
I'm not that conservative. I do feel - I guess I'm more of a Democrat at heart, although I've never affiliated myself with a particular party.
I think that being in an environment is a much richer experience than just working on a soundstage.
I have to pay the bills just like everybody else, but it also pays my soul to work.
Jack made it very comfortable for me on the set. We'd met socially before but never worked together. You know, he's very professional, very disciplined and he's always prepared and knows his lines.
The roles I was lucky enough to get were real stretches for me: usually a character who was older, or a little weird, or whatever. And it was hard, not just for the lack of work but because you have to face up to how people are looking at you.