Bates thrives on eccentric characters
Oscar winner Kathy Bates says she loves playing eccentric characters like her latest role as ageing hippy Roberta Hertzel in new movie About Schmidt.
The drama, which opens in Ireland tomorrow, is the tale of pensioner Warren Schmidt (played by Jack Nicholson) – a newly retired insurance man who sets about trying to stop his daughter’s forthcoming marriage to a dim-witted waterbed salesman named Randall.
Bates, who is being tipped for a best supporting actress Oscar for the role, is Randall’s open-minded mother.
The actress says she always looks for this kind of character and hates to play bland people.
She says: “I’d rather play somebody who’s psychotic than somebody who’s just bland, who doesn’t have something interesting about them because we all have some kind of angst, some kind of something we’re grading our soul against on a daily basis and getting down to what that is is always what’s interested me.
“Not only in my professional work but in my relationships with people. I’d rather have an intense understanding of who somebody really is.”
