Bates enjoyed a third career incarnation as a director, beginning with network police dramas, before earning acclaim both behind and in front of the camera on HBO's darkly comic "Six Feet Under" (HBO, 2001-05). But this challenge gave the honest, unflinching actress opportunities to sink her teeth into eccentric character roles like her revered turn in "About Schmidt" (2002), as well as charismatic supporting roles in "Titanic" (1997) and "Primary Colors" (1998). Even more impressive, she was over 40 when she first made a dent in Hollywood a town with a poor track record for accepting anyone who is past society's idea of "a woman's prime" - never mind if she was also plus-sized. Unbeknownst to those outside theater circles, Bates had already enjoyed an over 20-year career as a Tony Award-winning actress on Broadway. To the general moviegoer, Kathy Bates seemed to materialize from nowhere, giving an Academy Award-winning performance as a psychotic literary fan-turned-kidnapper in the screen adaptation of Stephen King's "Misery" in 1990. And you think, 'Well, y'know, I'm a real person.'"-Kathy Bates quoted in 'I Was Never an Ingenue' by David Sacks, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, January 27, 1991. And it was hard, not just for the lack of work but because you have to face up to how people are looking at you. The roles I was lucky enought to get were real stretches for me usually a character who was older, or a little weird, or whatever. When I was younger it was a real problem, because I was never pretty enough for the roles that other young women were being cast in. I never was an ingenue I've always just been a character actor. "I have always had a problem with my weight. And vice-versa: a character can have power, but not femininity."-Kathy Bates, quoted in INTERVIEW, 1990.
But the one who gets to play the young, pretty, gets-the-boy-at-the-end role doesn't have any power. "You're either young and glamorous and you're going to get the lead and get the man at the end of the picture, or it's the opposite: you're a character actress, you're not attractive enough for the other role, and so you're playing the friend or the killer or the lesbian or the doctor or whatever.
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