Hallmark Alum to Retire From Acting: ‘I Just Want My Life’

Heavy Hallmark alum and Oscar winner Kathy Bates opened up about he retirement plans

After five decades in and out of the limelight, Oscar and Emmy-winning actor Kathy Bates is ready to retire, she told the New York Times in an interview published on September 9, 2024. But first, the Hallmark alum — whose more than 130 acting credits include the Hallmark Hall of Fame movies “Hear My Song” and “My Sister’s Keeper” — has one last thing to do: try her hand at starring in her own network TV series.

Starting September 22, Bates will star in a reimagined version of the crime drama “Matlock,” which originally aired from 1986 – 1995 and still airs in reruns on Hallmark Mystery. In the original “Matlock,” Andy Griffith played folksy Georgia criminal defense attorney Ben Matlock. In the reboot, Bates plays Madeline Matlock, nicknamed Matty, who’s attempting to start practicing law again in her 70s.

In a promo for the CBS show, when Bates’ character barges into a boardroom full of lawyers who ask her who she is, she quips, “Madeline Matlock — yeah, like the old TV show.”

‘Matlock’ Reboot Came to Kathy Bates Weeks After She Decided to Retire

Bates, who won an Oscar for her haunting 1991 role in “Misery,” had no plans to star in a TV series starting at age 76. After an unnamed movie went by the wayside, she informed her agents she was ready to quietly settle into retirement, she told the New York Times.

Lamenting that each role she plays “becomes my life,” she told the outlet she’s struggled to put a lid on her talent for acting, saying, “Sometimes I get jealous of having this talent. Because I can’t hold it back, and I just want my life.”

In January, weeks after deciding to retire, her agents called with a surprise opportunity to do “Matlock,” she told the Times. Enticed by the chance to portray a feisty older woman rooting out injustice inspired Bates to pause her retirement. But this, she swears, is it.

“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 said of the role. “And it’s exhausting. This is my last dance.”

In the new “Matlock,” Bates gets to embrace aging rather than pretend it’s not happening.

“There’s this funny thing that happens when women age,” her character says in promos for the premiere episode (which also features Hallmark star Marcus Rosner). “We become damn near invisible. It’s useful, because nobody sees us coming.”

Kathy Bates Says New Show Has Her Wanting to Give Her ‘Very Best’ Again

GettyKathy Bates attends a celebration of the announcement of CBS’s new Fall schedule at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, May 2, 2024.

After graduating from Southern Methodist University with a theater degree, Bates pursued acting in New York, the New York Times reported, and was a successful off-Broadway performer by the late 70s. A decade later, she was fielding offers in Hollywood, including her Oscar-winning turn as Annie Wilkes in “Misery,” but she told the Times she never felt like a star.

“I never felt dressed right or well,” she recalled. “I felt like a misfit. It’s that line in ‘Misery’ when Annie says, ‘I’m not a movie star.’ I’m not.”

Her propensity for playing characters who are strong and assertive, she joked on Hallmark’s “Home & Family” talk show in 2017, made it “hard to get dates.”

On the show to promote her Hallmark Hall of Fame movie “Hear My Song,” Bates said she got to work for a second time with Dustin Hoffman in the movie. The first time, she revealed, was when she landed her first speaking role with him in the 1976 movie “Straight Time.”

Though Bates insisted to the Times that she’s retiring, she left the door slightly more ajar when she spoke with the Associated Press on September 9.

“I’m very much aware this is my third act, maybe my last act,” she told the outlet. “Maybe my last role.”

“This show is teaching me that it’s okay to trust again,” Bates continued. “I have had some experiences in the last few years that have left me feeling frustrated with the business, frustrated with getting older, and frustrated with, ‘What does my future hold and is there anything left for me?'”

Bates told the AP she got the script on Friday and by the following Monday, she had agreed to sign on. Working with showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman, who had her back throughout shooting the first season, has not only restored her faith in the business, Bates said, but “it’s made me want to give my very best again.”