Kathy Bates Jokes It Was 'Hard' to 'Get a Date' After Her Terrifying Performance in 1990'sMisery

Mar. 15, 2025

Kathy Bates' chilling horror performance scared away potential dates.

At the 2024Emmy Awardson Sunday, Sept. 15, theMatlockactress, 76, appeared alongsideGiancarlo Espositoand Antony Starr to honor screen villains while presenting. During the bit, Bates joked that her 1990 movieMiseryimpacted her dating life.

“Everybody loves heroes. In drama, they’re called the protagonist,” Bates said onstage. “But without villains, or antagonists, there wouldn’t be much of a story,” added Esposito, known for hisBreaking Badvillain Gus Fring.

Starr, who has playedThe Boys' Homelander since the Prime Video series debuted in 2019, said playing well-known villain roles can create “downsides once you’re back in the real world.”

“Do you know how hard it was to get a date afterMisery?” Bates joked. “And myAmerican Horror Storywas forgetting to thank Ryan Murphy after I won my Emmy.”

Kathy Bates and James Caan in 1990’s Misery.Columbia Pictures/Getty

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Bates won an Oscar for Best Actress in 1991 for portraying Annie Wilkes in the film adaptation ofStephen King’sMisery.She played a villainous nurse who holds her favorite author (James Caan) hostage and “nurses” him back to health after a car accident.

Offscreen, Bates married herlongtime boyfriendTony Campisi in 1991, and the pair divorced in 1997.

The star recently discussed how her career changed afterMisery,tellingVarietyshe “always knew going into this business that it was going to take me a while because I wasn’t a beauty queen.”

Kathy Bates on Sept. 15, 2024.David Fisher/Shutterstock

David Fisher/Shutterstock

“I have to say I give an inner wink when I see friends who have been beauty queens who are no longer working because of ageism, and in my case, I’ve been able to continue working for many years because I don’t look like that,” she added. “I don’t think I would have gotten the role inMiseryif I had been a beauty queen.”

source: people.com