Kathy Bates is in the Emmy conversation this year for her lead role on CBS’ new Matlock. But her name has been synonymous with awards buzz for most of her 50-plus years on stage and screen. The Tennessee native had moved to New York after college and was a well-established theater actress before she broke through in Hollywood with her Oscar-winning performance in 1990’s Misery, the Stephen King adaptation in which she brought Annie Wilkes to life.
Not long after, the Television Academy began to recognize the actress for her small-screen work (she’d been playing minor TV roles since 1978), nominating her for performances in shows like 3rd Rock From the Sun and Six Feet Under. The 10th nom proved to be the charm, when Bates earned her first Emmy as outstanding guest actress in a comedy for playing Charlie Sheen’s character’s ghost on Two and a Half Men in 2012. (She also was a lead actress in a drama nominee that year for Harry’s Law.)
Two years later, Bates won her second Emmy as outstanding supporting actress in a limited series or movie for American Horror Story: Coven. Ryan Murphy’s third iteration of his horror anthology focused on a group of witches in New Orleans; Bates played Madame Delphine LaLaurie, a woman who tortured enslaved people in the 1830s to preserve her youth. In an interview at the time, Murphy described Bates’ character, whom he had based on a real serial killer, as “a bad, bad woman … five times worse than her Misery character.”
Her collaboration with Murphy continued on the fourth, fifth and sixth seasons of AHS. “Ryan Murphy has resurrected my career,” Bates told Vanity Fair in 2016. “This is the third act, and I never dreamed any of this stuff would happen.”
Now, at 76, Bates’ third act continues with Matlock, with which she has a chance to score a lead actress Emmy. “Quite frankly, I was thinking about going into semi-retirement,” Bates told THR in October about her plans pre-Matlock. “So this came as a total surprise to me. … I really can’t believe all this, especially at my age.”
This story first appeared in a May stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.