Kathy Bates Almost Quit Acting Before 'Matlock'

Kathy Bates is revealing what she almost did with her career before landing Matlock.

The 76-year-old Misery actress got candid in conversation with Billy Bob Thornton as part of Variety‘s Actors on Actors series.

“I didn’t watch [the original Matlock.] Everybody always asked me that — did I watch the show?…Well, let’s say it was a conscious choice. I watched a couple to see what I could get out of it, but our show is just so different,” she said of landing her latest hit role.

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“I feel like this part was written with me in mind. Jennie Snyder Urman created it. And I’m lucky because I heard, originally, they wanted to make [my character] Andy Griffith’s great-great-granddaughter. So she’d be 30-something. But Jennie took a walk, and it came to her that she wanted to write something about older women and feeling invisible.”

“When I first read the script, I thought, this is just episodic, and I’m not interested in doing that. And then I finally got to the end, and there’s this twist. I said, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m in. I’m in.’ Because I really had one foot out the door…I just felt that I was getting small roles in films that I loved that people were not seeing,” she admitted.

“I just began to ask myself, ‘Is this what I want to keep doing? Do I want to sell the house and maybe move to France and call it a day?’ And then I got this script. It just fit me like a glove.”

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