Kathy Bates Clarifies Recent Retirement Comments

Kathy Bates isn’t moving on from Hollywood just yet. 

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly at Sunday’s Emmy Awards, Kathy took a moment to clarify recent comments she’d made in reference to her forthcoming role in the reboot of Matlock that led many to believe she was retiring from acting. 

Though the Emmy and Oscar winner didn’t deny that the role of Madeline “Matty” Matlock would be her final one, she said she’d happily play it for years to come if the new series is successful. 

“What I meant was, I had one foot out the door until I read the script for Matlock,” she explained.

“And then I read Matlock and I said, ‘Ooooooookay, close the door. We’re gonna do some more.’ I want it to run for years. It’s that great.”

Kathy shared similar sentiments in a separate interview with Deadline. 

“I was thinking about maybe going into semi-retirement until I got Jennie Urman’s script for Matlock,” she said. “I read it and said, ‘Oh, yeah, baby, I gotta do this. It’s amazing.’ It’s not just an episodic; there’s this over-arching mystery that goes through the series. Big twist at the end of the pilot.”

When pressed about an actual timeline for her retirement, Kathy simply stated: “Never.” 

Rumours that Kathy was planning to call it quits after Matlock began to swirl following a New York Times profile published earlier this month in which she referred to the series as her “last dance”. 

“Everything I’ve prayed for, worked for, clawed my way up for, I am suddenly able to be asked to use all of it,” she told the publication. “And it’s exhausting.”

A representative for Kathy, however, offered a slightly different take when asked by Entertainment Weekly last week about the Misery actor’s comments.  

“Personally I don’t think that is going to be the case,” the rep said. “She wants Matlock to go on for many, many years.”

The new Matlock, which debuts on 22 September, is a gender-flipped reboot of the long-running legal drama starring Andy Griffith that ran from 1986 to 1995. 

As the title character, Kathy finds herself grappling with ageism and adversity when she rejoins the workforce as a senior citizen. Along the way, she finds ways to use her profession as a conduit for personal grief.