How Kathy Bates proved that the director of misery was the bad with his role Stephen King
If there is one thing we know about the Oscars, it is because they have a bias against horror. Although we here in / film love horror for subversion and pleasure of the genre – and how it is one of the only genres that seem to constantly achieve a profit – the voters of the Oscars seem to see it as too “unrefined” to take seriously. There are too many memorable horror performances which have never obtained a nomination, just as there are too many horror directors and talented writers who have never obtained their due.
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This is why nobody expected Kathy Bates to win an Oscar for his performance in the 1990 “Misery” film. Although his representation of the obsessive vindictive and vindictive Annie Wilkes is still loved even 35 years later, his context of horror film has always made a long time when it comes to the Academy. This is why the director of the film, Rob Reiner, had no confidence in Bates winning the best actress for the role.
At 2025 TCM Classic Film Festival, Bates and Reiner remembered his surprise victory of Oscar. Bates said Reiner: “You said,” You can campaign, but you won’t get it. “You said because it is a horror and unlikely film … So that night, I just remember you standing there and you were like [fist bumps] ‘Yeah, yeah.’ “”
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“Because you deserved it,” said Reiner. “It’s an incredible performance.” Later in the panel, Reiner remembered that Bates was a great actress from the moment she auditioned, and how he was worried about Bates to leave her performance Wilkes bleeding in the rest of his life:
“Kathy is such a dedicated actress, and she was so focused on wanting to do this work, she would bring the character home with her a lot. […] I said to him, “You must have confidence that you have one of the greatest actor instruments of all time and that you can leave this character here in the studio and go home and be yourself, and don’t worry that you can’t get it back.” »»
Bates’ victory was unique in more ways than one
For the price of the best actress, Kathy Bates was running against Anjelica Huston for “The Grifters”, Julia Roberts for “Pretty Woman”, Meryl Streep for “Postcards from the edge” and Joanne Woodward for “Mr. and Mrs. Bridge”. Like the Herald and review At the time, “Kathy Bates, the recluse denied in” Misery “was perhaps the biggest surprise of the night. Most observers had predicted that Anjelica Huston or Joanne Woodward would travel with the price of the best actress.”
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People have underestimated Bates not only because it acts with horror, but because it did not have the type of conventional body associated with the most popular Hollywood actresses. This is something that Olympian noticed in their coverage of his victory, noting: “In another tacit recognition that Hollywood often neglects the unconventional price, the prize for the best actress was awarded to Kathy Bates, a veteran stage actress who was regularly transmitted for a woman.”
But although widely considered an outsider, Bates’ victory was not laughed in the same way as other controversial victories of the best actress over the years. Where Marissa Tomei was sorely treated by the press when she (correctly!) Wait for “My Cousin Vinny” a few years later, most of the criticisms of the time understood that Bates was a reasonable choice. As the daily feeling wrote on the ceremony the next day, “the surprises? Kathy Bates seems the only one, although retrospective, the choice is a natural. Its part as a crazy literary fan in the` `misery ” was so much more flamboyant than the discreet performance of the main pretenders Anjelica Huston and Joanne Woodward.”
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If there is an advantage that horror has during the award ceremonies, it is that the genre gives its actors more likely to go big with their performance. There are few roles more attracting attention than a disturbed woman with a hammer, and Bates nailed her from start to finish. “Misery” is not the only horror film to win an Oscar, but it is perhaps the one that won it the most.
