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We all belong outside. We're drawn to nature. Whether it's the recorded sounds of the ocean we doze off to, or the succulents that adorn our homes, nature makes all of our lives, well, better. Despite all this, we often go about our busy lives removed from it. but the outdoors is closer than we realize.
With All Trails, you can discover trails nearby and explore confidently. With offline maps and on-trail navigation, download the free app today. I'm Jane Pauley. With an Oscar, two Emmys, and two Golden Globe Awards, you might not blame Kathy Bates if she decided to take it easy these days. Nope, she's the star of the new hit series Matlock on Paramount Plus.
And by way of proof, she's just gotten yet another Emmy nomination. She's talking with Sunday Morning's Ben Mankiewicz.
So I want to go back to 1971. as a Milos Foreman movie. taking off. And you have a scene in it. where you're auditioning and you're Singing a song, playing a guitar.
Well, they talked to me about it, and I shickened out because I didn't read music, and I just thought, nah.
So there was such a personal song I wrote in Backyard Swing, you know, by myself when I was 16 about loss of innocence. You wrote that song when you were 16? Mm-hmm. I thought it worked out wonderfully the way it edited. They did.
They were just really nice scenes. I I didn't do anything at 16. That was lovely. Um So I'm curious, you're about 23 years old then. How did that 23-year-old What were your plans?
And what were your dreams then? Could you have imagined This.
Well, I couldn't have imagined any of this. And I was lucky to have friends from college who were a couple of years older than I, and they had an apartment, and some were going to Stratford, you know, to Be in the Shakespeare Company, and so they had a free bedroom. I went and stayed there, and I just tried to get jobs and plays, but it was always a catch-22. In New York. Yeah, in New York, because if you weren't in the union, you couldn't go to union auditions.
And they had some off-off Broadway, which I was able to do. But look, I weighed tables and I ended up working at the Museum of Modern Art when they still took quarters and stuff to get in.
So I had to count the quarters and then they asked me if I wanted to become an accountant and I went, oh. What? Strong turn, I think, and I literally. I love how they think just because you're counting quarters, that your dream is to be an accountant. No, well, I kind of liked it.
You know, numbers are great. I was really good on the adding machine.
So You're working in New York, you make straight time, but that does not instantly lead to a big Hollywood career.
So you go back to New York where. Yeah, I'm trying to remember where I was in my life at that time. What what year was that? I guess I was. I was 78.
You're in New York in the 80s.
Okay, well by then I was starting to. I I'm not sure if it was the same time that I came out to do Um Test for Three's company. I can't kind of the years get tumbled up. This is a piece of information I did not know. You don't know?
No.
Okay.
Well, at some point when I was out doing vanities, We did it in New York in the 76, so it must have been 78. There was an A company that was with big stars, of course, at the Taper. And then we came in as the B company at the Getty, at not Getty, what is the wonderful little theater that's over there? I was just there. Uh Here in New York.
Here. Oh, anyway, shoot, things go right out of my head. If I get off the train, then I'm lost. Anyway, uh Yeah. Uh They they were thinking of recasting a role.
in Three's company. And so I went It was already on the air? I don't know if they'd done the pilot or what. I didn't know how things were done. I tell you, it's like my nieces, I think I got lost in the right direction.
But so, you know, I spent the whole day basically. Um Yeah. I mean, she was bent over, and you were supposed to look through her legs, and there was, you know, all this stuff, and making sandwiches. And I just got home, and I, like I said, when we first started talking, I was almost. religious about my craft.
And I thought, I don't know, I don't know. And I was praying that. That I didn't get the part that, you know, the party. Because you knew it would be too hard to turn down. Yeah, no.
I just thought, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. And I didn't, you know, in the back of the head, I was thinking of Hobb, the guy that ran, you know, the theater company at SMU and saying how long it would take. I knew I wasn't ready. I knew it wasn't soup yet.
And I thought, I got to go back. I got to go back. I got to learn more. I can't because it's going to take me down the wrong path. Did you audition with John Ritter?
No, I don't think so. No, I don't, no, no, no. I don't know who I auditioned with, but I just came back and I thought, this is not the part for me. Because it's interesting if you had audition with John Mitter. I know, because exactly, I'm with Jason.
He's divine. Yeah.
So, you didn't get to part on Three's Comment. Yeah, I am so sorry. Oh, that's okay. I came back and I and I started. There was a Actors Theater of Louisville was really Starting to, but I think you're wanting me to answer another question.
No, jumping ahead. No, no, Actress T, I mean I know because you had the, you did, was that where you did Night Mother or was that where you did? That was where I met Marcia Norman and I met Susan Kingsley who had done Getting Out. And actually Night Mother was written for Susan. But that's one of the plays you did.
we're very good in, right? It's a two-hander, right? And then Hollywood comes and they want to make a movie of it. They got the same director, right? And then Tom Moore, right?
Mm-hmm. And then Gets that part. Nothing against Sissy Spacec, but you I mean, you were very honest in talking about... What m that that that Kind of thing happening to you, where somebody else gets the part that you had nurtured and crafted and created. that you were like, what am I?
I'm doing all this work.
So that somebody else can come in and get the role. Let me read it to you, because I think I like it. Did I say something? Yeah, and it's not bad. It's not bad at all.
I like it quite a bit. All my bad days, you said. I got tired of developing material for Sissy Spacecra or any other star. I was starting to think, well What am I up here busting my hump for while they're out there picking gardenias off the bushes? Oh, God.
Let me see what I can do with this. And it was that manner of thinking that thought, I gotta go myself. Yes. I gotta go out there. Yeah.
And more than that, Yes, I can't deny it. And I do have gardenias, but What I thought was a shame is that We had spent two years working on those roles. How fascinating it would have been to see that on film. Right, with the work. That was a great loss.
Right. And I adored Anne Bancroft. In fact, when I wasn't nominated for Dolores Claiborne, she sent me the loveliest note. And she said, well, you didn't get an Oscar, but you got an Annie. Ha ha ha ha.
Oh, come on. Yeah.
That's pretty great. Because Assissy Spacecraft had your role and then Ann Bancroft had the other role. Yeah, and nothing against both of them and God rest Ann Annie. But they didn't know country roads. Yeah.
It's different. You'd put it in But without that motivation. Right. Uh maybe you're not Out in Los Angeles in the late 1980s doing a play with Elizabeth McGovern. Right?
Yep, we did. Oh my gosh, yes, we were out doing that. And honestly, the plays I'd done in New York were being done at the TAPER. Frankie and Johnny that I'd done in New York, Bill Goldman came to see. And he writes about it in one of his books.
And there's a scene where she opens her robe and lets him look at her bare body. And he said this wonderful thing. He said that she was. nervous and afraid, but she was hopeful. Yeah.
It was that moment that Bill Goldman recommended me to Rob Reiner. for misery.
So, but being out here, yeah, working with Elizabeth, that's also how I met Rob. He was, you know, he was in a relationship with her. He bought her a car, he sent her roses every night. And I was playing this role that Linda Hunt did brilliantly in New York and that I just massacred out here. And I think the only thing that he saw was probably an actress flailing about and, you know, being insane or something.
But, you know, so I got, I think between Bill Goldman and Elizabeth McGovern, I got the role. He said you looked like a fan. A fan. Right, because in the play, she's supposed to be a fan of who?
Okay.
I like it. Remember, it's been so Henry Kissinger. That's right. Because you know what they said, she was obsessed by Henry Kissinger. People may not like him, but everyone thinks he's sexy.
Is that what she says? No, not a question. I made that up. That's for sure. I don't know if that's the one.
I don't think that's. I don't know if I take the number in his line. But you still even even with the screenwriter William Goldman's recommendation, even with Rob Reiner seeing you, you still had to audition. Yeah.
Yeah.
I went in and met with him and that's when he ran Castle Rock pretty you know, it was his company. And I didn't know, again, about all that kind of stuff. Still don't know about all that business stuff. Yeah, I read with him and he gave me a few notes on things and He said, I don't need to see anymore. And I think he called Andy in.
Was it Schein, who was his partner then? He called him in and And they said, yeah.
So, and it was like, wow, I got this part. And I said, can I call my mother? Again, again, again was calling your mother. Does that make something real for you then? I guess it did.
You know, it was like I wanted to, you know what it was now? Because I've evolved so much, and it all feeds in. You know, your background, your experiences inform your life experiences. Certainly, you know, coming from the family that you do. I think part of me wanted to tell my mother, It was worth it.
She gave up her retirement. because I was born so late in life to them. And I think part of me has always felt tremendously guilty about that. It wasn't my fault. I know that.
But I think deep down inside, I always had regrets, and I've been very vocal about this. I've talked about it before. She was so smart. and one of the things she wanted to be was a lawyer.
So I think about her a lot when I'm doing this part. Do you remember her reaction to either getting straight time in 1978 or getting misery in 1990? I don't. But you would have been happy. I think she was proud.
I think she was happy. When I won the Oscar for Misery, she said, I don't know what all the excitement about. You didn't discover the cure for cancer.
So, um, did that make you laugh, or did you?
Well, I think it was because I forgot to thank her that night.
So, you know, it was tit for tat. But um I think she was I hope she was proud. By the way, you know, you did think. At the end of your speech, you thank her. I said, I don't know.
You said, I don't thank my mom and I want to thank my father. No, I did not. I did not. You go back and look at it. I didn't.
And. I would like to thank my family, my friends, my mom at home. And my dad. Who I hope is watching somewhere. What do you think of them?
Thank you. Why did I think I didn't thank her? Oh, what a relief. Why does that mean so much to you? Cause she should have had my life.
When she died, As it come into me, I wanted her spirit to come into me. Even though we had so many difficulties. I wanted her spirit to come into me. and enjoy everything I was hit. I was enjoying because of what she had given up.
Wow, thank you so much for that. How old was your mom when she had you? 41. My dad was born in 1900. My mom was born in 1907.
Yeah, it was very similar to my parents. Yeah.
So it's a. Uh They were always important to you? They played a big role in your life? They did in unexpected ways. They at the time And I always want to be very careful when I'm talking about it because I realized that My sisters, who are still alive, Um knew very different people.
They were young, they were vibrant. My father was in the Naval Reserve during World War II. He was away, and it was hard for them, and depression, and giving up and rationing, and all of the things that they had to do during the war, and how he taught himself engineering, and how when he pulled in in the car, he'd wait at the bottom of the drive, and they'd run out in their nightgowns, and he'd let them hang on to the running boards, and he'd drive up the driveway. And I had some of that when I was young with him. You know, we went, when they would have a party, we would go, I don't know where he went, where they had ice, like an ice place, because the water in Memphis was an aquifer, and the water was just, so we'd go, I must have been, I don't know, seven, eight or something like that, and we'd go and he'd put the ice in the back on the floor and he said, all right, how long can you hold your feet on it?
I bet you can't hold it on. Or he taught me how to mow the lawn. I think I was the boy he had always wanted. And my mother used to say, you know, when they found out I was a girl, they thought they were going to have to get a room at the hospital for him because they thought, at least if he had this third child, couldn't it have been a boy?
So I learned how to use tools, which has come in very handy.
So I had those years with them, but I also, as we grow old, we grew older together, there were a lot of problems between us and Many times that's one of the powerful engines that drives my work. I don't want to go into specifics, but they did so much for me. My father literally had a heart attack. Um after two or three years of Giving up He had to spend a fortune that we didn't have, sending me to Southern Methodist University. and went to work when he was in his seventies and I was lucky that I was able to graduate earlier and They did so much for me.
They gave up so much. They gave up so much. That's what parents do. I mean, and they do it, I gotta say, they do it pretty willingly.
Well, I don't know. You know, I. I don't know if I could have. We'll have more from our Sunday morning extended interview. after this break.
What does possibility mean to you? Um, that's a hard question.
Something that you can strive for. I'm able to do anything I set my mind to. You're confident in yourself and you believe in yourself. Stuff that you could achieve. I feel at Saida.
Anything is possible when you're more confident. Shoes are a huge part of that. They are the most important part of my style. You can like express yourself in the right shoes. Anything is possible.
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See mintmobile.com. I remember my mother saying once to me, and I totally misunderstood it, she said, you guys were so lucky to have the pill. And at first I thought it was because sh she wanted to have a lot of sex like we did, and I realized No, she wanted to, she didn't want to have another kid. You know, so anyway. Let me double back real quick.
That's great stuff. Thank you. Misery.
So, Rob Ryder said that he got that he knew. after like one word of the audition. Really? Yeah.
Yeah, like right away, he knew, okay, this is it. And it helped that that because they they tried betmitteler and it didn't work out for whatever reason. But William Goldman said, why don't we just go because go back to the Person, we had written for in the first place. Like, let's just go back, go back to that Kathy Bates. That's what we should.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was great. The experience of shooting it, challenges, some you a totally different style than James Kahn. Yeah, I loved Jimmy, but he was, you know, he was going through a rough time himself at the time. And Without going into specifics, but he wrote about it, we know. Yeah, he was.
He was having some trouble with drugs at the time. Also, I had just come from New York, really, so I was in my prime. and I'd come from doing Night Mother.
So I knew the character really well. And I was just obsessed with it. And I kept trying to make it like the book. And finally, Rob said to me. We're not making the book.
We're making a film.
So I said, Oh, oh, okay. and I remember having troubles with Jimmy at first when we were just starting to rehearse. And I said, He's not he's just not relating to me in the same way. And Rob was really smart, he said. You guys are she's having a relationship with who she thinks he is, who she wants him to be.
And you're like this. It's It's a lie, you know. I forgot exactly how he put it, but it. Yeah, it was something that I understood and I was able to let go of and then just go with it.
So I felt ready for the part. I was very dexterous. I was able to really be very nimble with that role. And you turned this character who. Could easily have been a caricature, right?
I mean, she's violent, she's a psychopath, right? And she's still a psychopath, but you gave her this humanity. You said, like, this is, she's not, Annie Wilkes is not a movie monster, she's a human being. I always want to do that in my roles. They're always human beings.
And none of us is perfect.
Some of us are more imperfect than others, God knows. But certainly I wanted to give her She was always reaching for something she couldn't have. She wanted to be a hero. She wanted to be a heroine. And I think that's why.
She was the angel of death. in some way she was being a heroine by sending these people off to that she felt sorry for was totally misguided, of course. But she wanted to nurture people, take care of people, be worshipped and And this became totally obsessed with this guy. And I gotta tell you. I have that side to me.
There are times when I see a musician or an actor or whatever and I can become very obsessed. not to the degree that she does. but I certainly know what that feels like. Or obsessed with things like obsessed with a particular murder that's happened and the trial that's happening. You know, I I I can understand those obsessions.
You had compassion for Annie. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I did. And I think Bill did too. Definitely, yeah, that's written into the character.
You said so many things that interested me so much. I don't care about anything having to do with how you've ever looked, but I want to read a quote to you because I'm curious about. How you Because you clearly struggled with how to fit in in this business. In the business and in clothes. 1991.
So this is doing publicity for misery. Was Misery in 1990 or 1990? 1990. 1990. So, yeah, so you said.
in a New York Times piece back at that time. I've always had a problem with weight. I'm not a stunning person. I want to give you a hug at this point as I'm reading or that version, you know. I was never an ingenu.
I've always been a character actor. When I was younger, it was a real problem because I was never pretty enough for the roles that other young women were being cast in. The roles I was lucky enough to get, you go on. were real stretches for me. Usually a character who was older or or a little weird, 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.
And you think, well, you know. I'm a real person. Hmm. Oh. You hear that now.
You does that remind you? Do you need any reminder of of the of how not fitting in Felt? Even after winning an Oscar? No, I don't. I still, you know, and it's only recently that I've.
solved that problem in my life and shed a hundred pounds and it's taken years to do it and I did it. with mindfulness on my own and with determination. And and I was able to go to Armani and buy a gorgeous dress for the Emmys and walk out in a size ten and pick out anything I wanted. And yeah, I was with a friend who had been there years ago with me and um I was barely able to fit into their the largest sizes and I came out. And she just.
We both almost burst into tears. And When I saw the photos from the red carpet on the Emmys, I see my face up. And This is my time. And there's still magic moments when I think, oh, it's so much easier to sit on a plane. Oh, it's so much easier to get to the set and walk around and I don't have to sit down every five minutes.
And so I'm just luxuriating in all of those moments. Or the other day, I think I was with Kim and Romy, who are my makeup artists, and I. They came in, and Beth, who's my driver, she said, Isn't this your shirt? And I said, No, that can't be my shirt, it's too small. I think it's other, you know, so there's still some.
Body Stuff going on, but I don't know if that's what you're asking exactly. I don't I felt I fit in the other night. Definitely. But At least I can still identify with that. I do, you know what it is?
I look back at the photos, you know, because they have all these photos, and I look at myself, and it was during some years when I was in a relationship that no way know how I should have been in. And I just really let myself go. It was after I had had breast cancer. And I look back and I think. As I feel now, I think.
How could you have done that? How could you have let yourself go like that? to have no self-esteem.
Well, that's what pains me, is no self-esteem. I mean, you're this magnificent artist. And And you're beating yourself up about so many things. And I got it, actors are. Often.
Right? You're sensitive. You gotta be sensitive to be an actor in the first place. And sometimes that Sensitivity will eat away at your self-esteem. But that's hard for me to read because I don't want you to.
I don't I don't want you to wonder about your worth. Ever. Thank you. Um I think that's why The work was always. They Magic.
The cloak. You mentioned cancer, cancer twice, and one of them at a particularly low point when your legal show you were doing on TV, Harry's Law, I guess, canceled. And then write it after that. you find out that you have cancer for the second time. Um That must have been a particularly low.
Oh, yeah. I thought that I was. I thought that my career was over. Um Did you worry about your life? Did you think you.
Yeah, I worried about my life. And. I knew Iran in my family, Although Both my niece and I tested negative for the BRCA gene. We've both, well, she hasn't had ovarian, but I've had both. And I know that they just haven't discovered all of the genetic.
you know Attribute, and attribute is though, and they haven't discovered all the genetic secrets behind breast cancer, or much less anything else. No, I really thought it was over. It was tremendous disappointment, Harry's Law, and I just. I just thought that was it. And not to get too graphic, but I was in a lot of pain and I didn't realize that And I didn't have so much pain with the ovarian except for having to go through the chemo, which was difficult.
I didn't have chemo with breast cancer, and I decided to have a double mastectomy just because I didn't want to be lopsided and have to go back in every three months and check and all of that stuff. But somehow they put drains in, you have to have drains, and somehow it must have been pressing on a nerve. And because I was in a lot of pain, and I was always fighting with my doctors to have. more pain medication. But now that I'm doing this show about opioids I understand why they were really fighting me on that.
Because those were the years. That's exactly when those were years. You know, and so they took good care of me. And but when those drains came out, especially the one on the left, it was like, Oh God, thank you, Jesus. You know, and um You go ahead with your questions.
I mean, there's so many stories I could tell you about cancer.
So the, but I mean, just psychologically, as a. Two-time cancer survivor, right? That has to inform. A lot of how you go through the day, how you think about yourself. Yeah, it is.
I keep thinking, you know, if you get a twinge here, like I talk to other women who've had cancer and saying, okay, does it hurt here where I'm hurting? Or you get, oh yeah, I get that too. Or do you feel weird here? Does it itch and you can't, oh yeah, I get that too.
So, but I'm always checking, or if I get weird feelings in my stomach, and you know, in fact, that's when when I came back from Europe, I was having weird feelings in my stomach. I thought, oh, maybe it's the ovarian, but in fact, it was. It was the breast.
So you're always, I'm always, not I'm always, that's the wrong thing, a southern hyperbole. But I on occasion, I think, oh, you know, I'm gonna am I gonna get this here, you know, or But Right now I'm just having so much fun. I never million years thought I would have this. Our producer talked to a close friend of yours who said In their estimation, that Kathy Bates has never been happier than she is right now. Yes, that's true.
That's fair? That's fair. More than fair. I'm Jane Pauley. Thank you for listening.
And for more of our extended interviews, follow and listen to Sunday Morning on the free Odyssey app. or wherever you get your podcasts. Mama, Papa, my cupo crease a rino la mante, y la ropa que me compreha me que dora muy pe queña muy pronto. But no tene que suffree for the mode with the classes of Amazon. Amazon, dastamenos, sonriemas.
The first season of CBS's new hit, NCIS Origins. is now streaming. NIS? The hell's that? Naval Investigative Service.
We go where the evidence takes us. We got this. 88% fresh on rotten tomatoes. You don't see folks trying to affect change, but here you are. Got a body waiting for us.
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