As many an adversary has learned, underestimate Madeline “Matty” Matlock at your own peril. The same can be said for the woman who plays her — Oscar winner, Tony nominee, and Emmy nominee Kathy Bates.
Her on-screen alter ego finally got her vengeance in Season 2 of the legal drama, wrapping up her long-gestating plan to expose the law firm’s complicity in covering up the opioid abuse responsibility for the death of so many, including her daughter, Ellie.
The immensely satisfying season finale saw the senior partners led away in handcuffs — with Matty and Olympia (Skye Marshall) good-naturedly bantering about the name of their future law firm together, and which of them will get top billing.
“It’s going to be a whole different world,” Bates tells Gold Derby of the show’s third season. “So it’ll be interesting to see what [showrunner] Jennie [Snyder Urman] is going to come up with.”
Gold Derby: How did Matty change for you fromSeason 1 to Season 2?
Kathy Bates: For me, Matty was more introverted in Season 2, and I worried because it’s like Batman, you know? Now we know who Batman is. So I want to make sure that there were opportunities for her to put a mask on again for people. And I missed Cindy Shapiro. She talked about Cindy Shapiro a lot in the first season. So I hope that there is an opportunity in Season 3 to put the mask back on a little bit, because I think that’s what was so fun for everybody in Season 1.
What are the things that trigger for you the difference between Matty at work and Madeline at home?
Matty at work, to me, is more fun. I love Sam Anderson, who plays my husband, Edwin. We just we both feel just so friggin’ lucky to be playing such wonderful parts. But Madeline at home is more matter of fact. She’s more emotional. She’s more raw and exposed. And we see her make that transition in Season 2 from somebody who’s been going in and infiltrating to a woman who is a bit lost. She’s starting to enjoy the people that she’s working with and enjoy the firm, enjoy the challenge of being a lawyer again. And so I think that’s pulling on her a lot, and she’s trying to make peace with all of that. So it was a very different feel, I think. I think in the finale she says, I like her because she laughs more. She knows she’s going to miss Matty. She’s smarter. She’s not a bull in a china shop. All of those things. So, it will be interesting to see where Jennie goes with her this year.
She’s been motivated for so long by her search for justice. Now that Senior [Beau Bridges] has been brought to justice, can she find peace again? Can she find more joy? What’s going to motivate her now?
Well, I wish I had said just what you just said! [Laughs.] I don’t know what’s going to motivate her now. That’s the big question. What’s going to drive her? Because the engine that was driving her so much the first year was guilt. And so I don’t know what what’s going to get in there and still be as powerful for her.
Jennie has called your relationship with Olympia the true love story of the show. Do you feel that same way?
I think they never expected to find each other, I really don’t. There’s that wonderful line at the end of the show where she said, I’ve been thinking about this all wrong. I think Ellie led me to you. I don’t know if you’ve experienced it in your life. I have. I’ve been fortunate to experience it where you go along, sometimes for years, feeling like life is fraught with things, regrets, entanglements, all that kind of stuff. And then you meet someone who lives with so much joy and so much freedom. And it begins to change your own views about life and about what’s possible. And so I think for me, this whole job has been a miracle. It’s been personally transforming because I really couldn’t have envisaged having a role like this in my age. Never in a million years. What she was going through in her life, matched something that was going on with me in my life. I have found that many times in the last 50 years working that you can lose the thread. It’s a spiritual journey for me as an artist to feel that that I’m being led to something because I have to learn something about me in terms of when I go and work on the character. And you never know if it’s going to happen. You don’t know if it’s going to be what you expected to be. And then something like this happens, and I feel a tremendous amount of responsibility. But there’s something about going home at night and washing my makeup off and getting in bed and putting my computer on my lap and pulling up my script. It’s who I am. And I feel now more than ever, we need empathy. And this is the empathy store.
It feels like you’ve got a kindred spirit in Jennie.
Jennie’s created a love story, and I don’t want the real world to come into what we’re doing. I want to protect that chemistry. Because if there’s an outside something that crashes in and affect us the way that we relate to each other, that’s going to affect that chemistry with the characters. It’s the strangest thing. Because I love hanging out with Skye, and I admire how hard she’s worked, and I’m thrilled that she’s getting the attention she deserves. Thrilled. And I want to protect that chemistry.
So where does Matty go from here? What causes should she take on?
I really don’t know. And I think that’s what Jennie’s working on now. I know they’re back in the writers’ room. I think she has to find a new cause celeb. She has to find something that she really cares about. And I think it needs to be different from her daughter.
What did you think of the storyline of her talking to an AI version of her daughter? What did that mean for you?
It’s like Prometheus stealing the fire from the gods. I was talking to a friend of mine, who said that he was thinking of having his face scanned so that he could leave it behind. And I just had my face scanned for this part I’m getting ready to do for American Horror Story. I was stunned that they didn’t have to do a plaster cast anymore. They just put something over your head, and then they just walk around with this laser wand, and it appears on the computer and it’s like holy s–t! I think the stuff that AI is going to do for us in the medical industry is going to be really fruitful. But it’s like anything else, I think there’s people out there that are going to screw with it. Being an actor and seeing myself up there all these years is enough for me.
What have you learned from playing Matty?
I’ve learned that I can do this. It was daunting when I first saw that first script. She has to come in just fully formed, she’s not working off of anybody. She’s by herself. She’s not having a conversation with anybody. It’s a monologue where she comes in, introduces charms everybody in the room. So a lot of work went into that to see who she was and to prepare. So I was really proud of that. And then I was able to find my way into it.
