Kathy Bates: 'This is my third act' | AP interview

I'm very much aware that this is my third act and maybe my last act and maybe my last role I remember going into studying this craft very seriously and it was almost like a religious feeling to me just this little kid came jumping out of my body running around the room and I hadn't felt that in a long time uh who Are You Mine Matlock yeah like the old TV show working for you po y the show is is teaching me that it's okay to trust again I have had some experiences in the last few years that have left me feeling frustrated with the business and um frustrated with getting older and um uh frustrated with what is my future hold and um is there anything left for me I surviv cancer twice and uh so when this came along I got the script on a Friday and and Caitlyn I literally had one foot out the door I just thought you know I'm not sure that I want to continue doing this and um I got the script that Friday and on Monday I said yes to Jenny uh Snyder IR who created our show based of course on the original and um when I went in to sit down with her I said please don't change a word and and then she said is is there anything you don't like and I said please don't leave me don't abandon me um because that's what so often happens I know producers get really busy they're doing other projects or whatever but one of the great Pleasures I've had doing this show is that she's right there and I know she's incredibly busy and I always say she's the really me she's the real Matt lock because she's got so many plates in the air in terms of I remember when when she was going through the writer strike you I was totally ignorant about it and I said well can't you write it home she said no but I can think and boy she does and I just admire her so I sometimes I think she's in her heads listening to what we've been thinking about or dealing with in our lives and I know other cast members feel the same thing her perception and and uh her wisdom her passion um I didn't watch Jane the Virgin so I don't know that show well but um she's really she's revived my trust in people in people keeping their word and um people with in that have integrity in this business and uh um she's just full of love I remember when I first started directing years ago and it's been years since I've been behind the camera but when I I was first had the opportunity was when I was working with Mike Nichols and I said Mike you know I've always been taught as an actor you never tell another actor what to do so what do I do now and uh he said just love them and that's what she does I mean she there's just so much love and respect coming from her and um so it's restored my faith it's restored my trust and it's made me want to give my very best again um no matter what happens with the show no matter if we are the success we think we're going to be or we hope we're going to be I just want to enjoy every minute because hey I just turned 76 and whereas I keep ragging people I said you know I I just completed my 76th year I've begun my 77th you know and they're like oh my God you know but um I I'm very much aware that this is my third act and might maybe my last act and maybe my last role I don't know so I'm just grateful for every moment that I spend on this project with these kids I'm learning so much from them oops I need my glasses when was the last time you practiced law that was 1991 back back when I tried cases we just paided the horse and buggy got to court on time you know there was a a film that I cared deeply about that um when I saw how it turned out really broke my heart and I'm not going to get into names and all of that but um it it it was a part that I cared deeply about that I prepared for for a long time and and then when I saw what happened it was just absolutely devastating and I think that was uh one big big moment where I felt you know I don't think I can I don't think my heart can take this anymore and as one gets older um I know my friend Jessica Lang and I have talked about this a lot although she's had this wonderful Renaissance which I'm very happy for um is that we often choose roles that maybe aren't very mainstream um and not many people see the films when they come out uh for me it was playing smaller roles supporting roles um it's always more difficult to job in because you're not P part of the original process and with the other actors and you come in late and you don't know anyone and you hit the ground running um I'm always have been from the very beginning of my career frustrated that we're often photographing something that's not ready to be photographed especially in uh television and film um that you know the the economics are such that they don't want to pay for a crew for 12 uh for an extra two weeks for you to go in and so I often feel that I haven't had the opportunity to discover the real depth of the relationships that could be seen on screen and felt on screen in a much more meaningful impath empathic way um when I first started out in studying back at school in the 60s at Southern methodists that that I remember going into studying this craft very seriously and it was almost like a religious feeling to me um that this was something worth doing uh that that we had the power to reach across time and generations to tell stories that are I mean it's seems to me sometimes that we're a planet of storytellers and now more than ever the way that our stories are zooming around the globe with one another and so I think that's that's the gist of what my frustrations have been and also that because of my age and because of my you know I'm not a beauty queen and um uh the the types of role that I'm offered or before now um have been um less interesting to me and um sort of stock characters um when I worked on American Horror Story however I had a fabulous time playing some of those roles and also it was like being at a rep company with playing with the same actors and uh um so it hasn't always been that way but I would say over the last few years it's been um more frustrating because of those you've said Brian Murphy has also been a part of this this third Act of your career tell me a little bit more about what it was like working with him what it's been like to be a part of that that huge franchise well um I Marvel at at his genius he's another Matty Matlock I remember being on set with him and he was directing and he was sitting backstage and he was writing another episode and I mean he was just doing everything at once I don't know how he does it all um but I wish I had gotten to know him better you know because I think he was so incredibly busy and and was between so many projects and working on so many different things and of course his family and um so I wish that we had become closer friends over those years um but I'll always be indebted to him for giving me a job uh when I thought it was the summer of when I had breast cancer and uh I my show Harry's Law had been cancelled and I thought well what's next you know I really felt that many things in my life were over and then I saw my friend Jessica in the first season and I said hey can you get me a meeting with this guy I'd really like to go in and it was very intimidating at first to meet with him he's a very um I don't know how to say he just he's got this bearing about him that's very um I don't know how to describe it um it's I don't know I don't know how to say what it's like but I do know in that very first meeting that I had with him that this little kid that I I have inside me that really loves to play um when he was talking about this character just this little kid came jumping out of my body running around the room and I hadn't felt that in a long time and um I think he has tremendous heart but it's not always easy to see and I think that he puts his heart and soul in the characters that he writes when I first read Matlock um I the complexity of the character and the fact that she's invisible and she uses that to win cases and there's a Twist at the end that you just don't expect at first when I was reading it I thought oh this is just another Network procedural and you know it's is going to really grab me and then I got toward the end and I just everything turned on its head you know and um and then playing with when we did the pilot up in Toronto and working with Sky was just I I was astounded by her and we had one scene in particular across the desk from one another just and I felt her power as an actor and she's had every kind of experience in her life uh just had her wedding at a venue where she was a server uh at different events and um or going up when we were in Toronto she was they shot Good Sam up there so if you talk to her there was just so many things coming full circle in her life and it's been such a treat to see that and I can't wait for people to see her in this part I'm so excited um just to you know I can count on the fingers of one hand how many uh other actresses I've I've loved playing with over the years and she's right up there um we love doing scenes together and it really shows in the work and it really our work has improved as actors because of this connection that we've uh built up uh as these characters and now more in in our personal lives as well and um and the kids are adorable they're just you know I I take such pleasure in uh hanging out with them and Leah's mom visited the set the other day and um I got to meet with her and um it's just been restorative that's really nice it sounds like you've really taken on a bit of a mentorship role for these especially these these female actresses and offered them some advice I'd love to hear throughout the course of your care career co-stars people in the industry who have offered you advice and know what that was like um yes there was uh way back in my theater days there was a man who talked to me about the business and he said you have to have a head like a bullet and a heart like a baby and that's always been good advice it's been hard to accomplish from time to time um and uh the Press hasn't always been kind I tell you one person who really was a bit of a mentor for me was Dustin Hoffman um I met him in New York through Warren batty um who had come to see us in a play and then um I met Dustin he was a casting uh straight time uh in LA and I had moved out to visit my sister and and do a play um here at what became the GE and um and so he actually gave me my first speaking role in a film that ulu grossbard directed and I S I know this happened but maybe it's just in my memory it seems like we were on a completely dark Sound Stage and there was a camera there and I remember hearing in his voice which I can't imitate but he said there's the camera and uh when we did a tell a a a table scene together um I was very nervous when they turned the camera on me and I he was sitting next to me and I said I'm really scared I'll of a sudden this feel I just feel like an apartment building with all the doors and you know Windows closing up and he said can you hear Owen setting up the shot and Owen was the DP Owen royman one of the greats and I said no he said well listen and so I started listening and and and the minute I relaxed he said that's it you know and he was really he is really an actor's actor um you know he just um he I remember when we did Dick Tracy I had a tiny part in it tiny and I think he had one for Rainman was the year they he went for Rainman and he um he had been up all night partying and then he had to go in and make up for I don't know how many hours for bubbles and or I don't know if that's the name of his character but and then he's on set in between shots learning his lines for Merchant of Venice and I'm just looking at this guy I think he just loves it he that's that just feeds him and um I just don't know if I've ever had that complete devotion or just some kind of passion that he has inside for it I think I do when but he's just something else and he really I guess we did we did a movie not long ago together maybe a few years ago it was great to see him again and also feeling working with Jessica Tandy was the same thing to see someone at her age at 84 and we did fried green tomatoes and and and how it was a life force for her and how youthful she looked when we shot in a a nursing home down in Georgia she didn't she looked like she was 16 years old because that you know gave her the Delight always at the you know the aspect of a new character for the last 10 years I've I've been the national spokesperson for the lymphatic Education and Research Network um I had breast cancer in 2012 and I developed a disease called lymphadema uh which affects approximately 10 million Americans every year and um I developed it in both arms and it happens when lymph nodes are damaged through cancer through uh uh trauma wounds anything you name it where the lymph nodes that remove the lymph throughout the hum human body and toxins uh where those lymph nodes no longer exist then the lymph backs up it's called edema which is swelling and um I didn't know anything about it and um met the CEO of the lymphatic Education and Research Network um was astounded at how many people suffer from it and I'd never been a spokesperson before and I found out that doctors in four years of medical school spend 15 to 30 minutes on the entire lymphatic system so very little is known about it and I think a lot of that's changing um but more importantly is that it's Progressive it can't be reversed um I recently met a woman who has it in her legs uh her legs are terribly swollen um she's in the third stage her doctor didn't know what it was she didn't have it diagnosed in time and now she's trying to stay out of a wheelchair um and uh we now have gone from a tiny little organization to being able to have a lymphatic commission at the National Institutes of Health we have a grant from the CDC um we're trying to raise awareness for the military um and I've made made friends with so many Fascinating People like Dr mingu Chang in Taiwan who's the father lymphatic surgery um and dri singal who is at Beth is real Deaconess and who does Micro surgery now in some instances they're able to do a mastectomy and Rec reconnect the lymph um the lymph uh glands and and uh connections uh through microsurgery um and Dr Stan roxen up at uh Stanford and but more than anything is that I've been able to use my intelligence for something in the real world to help real people um by going and speaking to different organizations like the assoc the society for breast cancer surgeons and so on um and and now over the last 10 years we've been able to create around the gro around the globe uh what we call centers of excellence at different University Hospitals and well-known hospitals here and there where we can now say to someone who sent us an email 10 years ago help help help help help me in gigantic letters we can now say to someone oh like this woman I was telling you about oh yes there's someone near you and so and so or you can find a therapist here or because we've lobbied in DC every year and our congresswoman in Connecticut uh Rosa delaro was instrumental in helping us get um awareness raised it's the awareness that we've got to to uh continue because as I said this this woman that I met recently was not able to she went to her own physician who'd never heard of it and um so that's been an unexpected gift for me to be able to help other people uh use my name which I always kind of thought this business was kind of silly from time to time you know what are you doing playing dress up and but so but finally to be able to use my notoriety for something worthwhile in the real world has has been incredibly rewarding