Hypable had the opportunity to speak with AHS: Freak Show star Kathy Bates! Find out what she had to say about how AHS rejuvenated her career and spirit.
Kathy Bates quickly became a fan-favorite on AHS after her role as Madame LaLaurie in Coven brought her the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie Emmy Award. Bates returns for Freak Show, where she plays Ethel Darling. Hypable was able to attend a conference call with Bates where she answers all your burning questions about Freak Show and beyond!
Picking up the role that finds a woman struggling in the later stages of her life, Bates says what she identifies most with is her authenticity: “[Ethel’s] strength and her struggle, as a cancer survivor I identified with the scene in the doctor’s office.” The scene she references is the one in which Ethel is diagnosed with liver cancer.
Her change from Delphine LaLaurie to Ethel Darling came with the addition of a beard. She describes the feeling not as scratchy but more like, “A hummingbird’s nest!” Their wig designer, Victoria Wood, whom Bates came to know on the set of Tammy, not only perfected the beard application, but also designed her red performance wig. There was a bit of trial and error, Bates says, as “different pieces were used on the face to keep it as mobile as possible and make it so that the makeup team wouldn’t have to mess with me too much during the day.”
The beard also sparked another way for Bates to play with the gender roles of her character. She speculates what Ethel might have done, “In order for her to break out and see the world that Ethel would have gone out as a man in a suit and fedora. Just to see what it was like out there.”
Ryan Murphy, the man responsible for bringing Angela Bassett, Jessica Lange, and Kathy Bates together in Coven, is held in the highest esteem by Bates. After chatting with her pal, Jessica Lange, Murphy called Bates in for a meeting in January of 2013. After reliving some of the tension she still holds over the cancellation of Harry’s Law, Bates went on to say of their meeting, “My inner child woke up and I got so excited about Delphine LaLaurie. It rejuvenated my carrier and spirit.”
Two seasons down, Ethel’s character took her final bow in this week’s episode, “Blood Bath.” Or did she? According the interview moderator, Bates joined our call from location, but she was tight lipped on whether or not she would be back before Freak Show ends in January. But even if her time with Ethel is done, Bates says, “I trust Ryan Murphy. It’s like the old saying goes, leave them while they love you.”
As for the actual shooting of the scene, Bates says, “Oh my lord! It got scheduled on the last day of the week at 11 p.m. Jessica was dragging, she had been working all day and all week. But when she went right into it. She threw everything into it. The blocking was good. Director Bradley Buecker blocked it in her huge tent, and had us circling each other. We tried to accomplish making the monologues effective and real, reflecting what they had been through. It was written as the final battle between two titans. When we finally finished it, it was a relief when we were done!”
This is her second go around working with Bassett and Lange, but her screen time with the former has been cut down quite significantly this season. “I love working with [Angela],” she says. “She’s a powerhouse. I loved her friendship with Ethel and I wish we had more to do together. That would have been an interesting arc to explore.” But she is looking forward to catching Bassett’s other project, Waiting to Exhale a film about Whitney Houston: “Angela rocks it. I watched the trailer last night and again this morning. I got chills watching it. It looks amazing!”
There are other characters on set who captured her attention this season: “Wes Bentely (Mordrake) did a lovely job with that. Creating a character who was not really real, but used to be alive. He has an aura of elegance and did a great job.”
Bates also spent a lot of time with Evan Peters and admits she had a hard time remembering her lines for scenes with him! “I just get lost in his eyes! He is so cute, I always forget my lines. When you look into them he is so real, it knocks me for a loop,” she says.
Hypable had the chance to ask her about what the work was like to prepare the accent that has caused quite the stir. “You know that accent has been so controversial! I had no dialect coach. When I got into it, actually, I had a speech coach friend of mine spell a few things out for me.” When all else fails, she says, “Online I found how to speak Baltimorese. There is a video of a guy saying the Star Spangled Banner and that helped me prepare for the day. I spoke that way every day.” She touches on her the backlash saying, “I would see things online, it getting the attention of two scholars! I couldn’t believe it! Am I not doing this right? I did realize I can’t do it lightly. I wanted it to be old fashioned, working class, which calls for an even heavier accent. It wasn’t until Ryan had friends from the area who said what they thought of it, and they said, ‘What accent?’ I felt like that was it. Case closed, moving on.”
As for the most pressing question, will she return for season 6, Bates has this to say, “I really hope so! It is such a unique situation to be in as an actor. There is a new character each year and Ryan really appreciates the older actress. As I said earlier, it rejuvenated my career, put us back in front of the public at our best. We have this younger fan base now, it’s why we come back!”
But don’t ask her what it will be like without her buddy Jessica wandering around set. “I won’t think about it! We’ve become such close friends over the lat few years and I love her dearly. Our relationship is a mystery I never want to solve.”
If she does come back for season 5, Bates pitched her own idea of what a dream role would look like. “I would love to be dressed in all St. John, sitting in a carved chair, with cloudy eyes, ones I couldn’t see out of, and be a modern day Delphi oracle.” She adds, “And she gets to sit down all the time! I am so damn lazy. She’d appear now and again to advise the other people. I’d be the crone.” We’re sure Ryan Murphy can make that happen!
Watch AHS: Freak Show episode 9, “Tupperware Party Massacre,” Wednesday, December 10 at 10:00 p.m. ET on FX.