The actor Kathy Bates described as like “dancing with Fred Astaire’
Comparing a co-star to cinema’s greatest-ever dancer makes complete sense, provided the project in question was a musical, but Kathy Bates had no issues invoking the name of Fred Astaire when reflecting on a nude scene instead.
Alexander Payne’s 2002 dramatic comedy About Schmidt earned Bates a nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actress’ at the Academy Awards, with Jack Nicholson making the ‘Best Actor’ shortlist for his role as the unhappy, freshly retired insurance salesman who finds himself trying to prevent his daughter’s wedding out of spite after discovering that his deceased wife had an affair with his friend a long time ago.
Bates appears as the prospective mother-in-law who ultimately plays a significant part in altering the curmudgeonly Warren Schmidt’s relentlessly negative worldview, with the actor finding the scene where she strips down in a hot tub alongside Nicholson generating plenty of headlines for a variety of reasons.
In an interview with The Guardian, Bates shared her thoughts on why the moment – stripped down in both a figurative and literal manner – resonated so much with audiences: “I think a lot of women in that audience were thrilled to see a real woman up there on the screen in all her glory,” she said. “If I’m proud of anything, it’s leaving behind me such a wide range of interesting, real women.”
As for the movie itself, Bates had nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for Nicholson, comparing the experience of working with him as “like dancing with Fred Astaire” to Herald Tribune, although it wasn’t without its trepidations: “I was a little nervous before we met, but he was just so professional, on time, he cared so much and was so committed.”
Of course, the elephant in the room came when they were both naked and submerged in water, with Bates making a point of calling Nicholson “a real gentleman”. She said: “He never let his eyes stray from mine as I was getting in, and when it was all over, he said, ‘Beautiful work, honey,'” with the three-time Oscar winner having long since cultivated his reputation as a hard-partying Hollywood hellraiser during the peak of his career.
When questioned on whether or not they formed a bond, Bates was quick to crack wise and exclaim that “when you spend half a day naked in a hot tub with a man, I certainly hope there’s a personal rapport.”
Despite having amassed such an esteemed, eclectic, and acclaimed body of work over the course of her decades in the spotlight, getting into a hot tub naked with Nicholson remains one of the most famous moments from her entire career, even if it’s hardly the sort of sequence Astaire would have considered during his all-singing and all-dancing heyday.
