The books that shaped Kathy Bates’ career
Having been theatrically trained, Kathy Bates has spent a lot of time absorbing scripts, teasing out the essence of a character in the way you would in a novel or a play. Her Broadway stints speak to her love of storytelling, having starred in productions of Vanities, Goodbye Fidel, and ‘Night, Mother. A gifted actor in her own right, rich narratives and well-constructed stories have provided fertile ground to develop her character work.
With Stephen King’s novel Misery effectively launching her silver screen career, it’s clear the written word has often had a profound impact on Bates, who took to One Grand Books to reveal which works have inspired her most throughout her career. It’s Tennessee Williams whom she credits with writing her favourite quote in all of literature: “Sometimes – there’s God – so quickly.” Bates explained that her interpretation was that moments of grace often come “when we least expect it” in the times we need it the most.
Williams’ most tragic character in A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche Dubois, says in the play: “I don’t want realism, I want magic.” For Bates, that quote spoke to why she became an actor, to briefly leave her “human shell” for respite on stage. Another play that greatly touched Bates was Marsha Norman’s ‘Night, Mother, which she tackled on Broadway.
“Although technically not a book, the journey I made with this Pulitzer Prize-winning play affected my life on a deeply personal level,” she said, going on to explain that its plot, which follows one night where a mother and daughter grapple with suicidal ideation, had parallels to her own life. “When my 83-year-old father was facing a leg amputation due to diabetes, he attempted suicide,” she explained. “Naively, I tried to encourage him to hang on to life. He replied, ‘You know how I feel. You’re doing that play.'”
Her tastes are extensive, ranging from the poems of Yeats – “magical, mournful and evocative of a faraway time” – to George Saunders’ 2017 Man Booker Prize-winning Lincoln in the Bardo. While she has a deep connection to each book she listed as significant, it was Harper Lee’s seminal work, To Kill A Mockingbird, that takes the top spot as the “most magnificent” work she has ever read. “This book,” she advises, “more than any other on my list, should be read by every American.”
But it was Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that was the first she ever read, the one crucial text that made Bates realise her brain was the “best toy” in the world. “[The book] introduced me to the brilliant insanity of a topsy-turvy world that shaped my imagination for life,” she said. “Reading is like Alice falling into a hole, where anything can happen,” she mused.
“If you’re lucky, you can get lost in the right direction.”
Check out the full list below.
The books that shaped Kathy Bates’ career
- A Child’s Garden of Verses – R.L. Stevenson
- Eloise at the Plaza – Kay Thompson
- The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
- The Collected Poems – W.B. Yeats
- A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams
- To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
- Lincoln in the Bardo – George Saunders
- ‘Night, Mother – Marsha Norman
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
