Kathy Bates Quotes

In Hollywood, you play a mom, and the next thing you know, you're on 'The Golden Girls.' They age you so fast.

I think that Hollywood misconstrues actresses saying, 'Oh I wanna play a strong female character,' like we all want to play, like, superheroes or something.

Of course, I would like to play the guy next door, but nobody's going to hire me for that kind of role.

I took the role of Rochelle in 'Everybody Hates Chris,' and that was it. I was going to play mother roles all the time. Once you do one mother role, it's always a trickle down effect.

I know that people get cast based on how they look in Hollywood.

What makes it frustrating is when a director or a studio head doesn't see me for the same part that they'll see, let's say, Drew Barrymore for. Drew's a great friend of mine. But it's like, "No, we want more of an American type of girl."

I was always a character actress and never a sex symbol. Even when I was the leading lady, I was a character actor.

In the beginning, I was always playing some kind of gangbanger and the token Mexican dude who didn't have a lot of lines but was in the entire movie. At the same time, everyone gets typecast, and I decided that if I was going to play a stereotypical role, I was going to play it like a three-dimensional character.

Because I'm a woman, because I'm a character actress, because I'm over 40, I'll be very interested to see, not just for me but for other actresses, how Hollywood treats us in the next ten, fifteen years. I'm hoping that it's not going to be so easy to shove people under the rug, as they have in the past.

Suddenly you're the mom, or you go from ... You're not an ingénue, you don't want to play an ingénue, but it's like that line in The First Wives Club [1996]: "There are only three ages for women in Hollywood: babe, district attorney, and Driving Miss Daisy."

If you're the handsome white guy, you tend to get cast as guys who are meant to be convincing in their jobs. What I've been fortunate enough to do, whether it's playing a certified idiot on '30 Rock' or a weirdo in 'Bridesmaids,' is play against that in a lot of ways.

I get the gold-digger part six times weekly. I can play those women into the ground, but I don't want someone telling me that's all I can do.

It's amazing how uncreative some people can be in this industry. They look at you and go, 'She's not right for the role'... but you've got to give someone a chance to show they're an actress. It's very frustrating.

I played several maids in my career. I was tired of the maid after 'Far From Heaven.' I said, no more maids. Until I realized how difficult it was to get a role other than a maid, sometimes, in Hollywood, and sometimes you have to choose your battles, for lack of a better term.

My family was always wondering why I ended up playing people who were mentally ill, insane, downtrodden, and a little crazy. I think what they don't understand is that most female parts are written basically as hysterical women.

There is so much incredible talent in Hollywood, and it's crazy to me that we see the same people over and over again in projects.

We started by playing girls who only married at the end of the picture. We didn't play wives. That came later. But the most dreadful thing was when a star had to play a mother. That was the beginning of her professional end.

If your film and character are a hit, chances are you'll get typecast in that space.

People always say, 'Oh, you've played a lot of waifs... ' but they were just girls. It's just that a lot of those everyday characters had never been on the screen before. I do hope I didn't get typed. I feel myself that I tried to do different things with those women.

For years, they cast me in these dumb straight roles of businessmen in three-piece suits.

There's not a ton of roles out there for the insecure, loud Britney Spears type.

Typecasting is a thing, but when it involves race, it narrows the roles available to an almost comically small amount.

If I had taken 'Gilligan's Island,' I would never have gotten 'Coach' because I would have been established as Gilligan.

I play the Wicked Queen in 'Snow White.' I'm not typecast. It's terrible. I should be Prince Charming.

I would love to experiment with roles. But when people say that we are not doing anything different, it is because directors do not approach us with diverse roles.