Kathy Bates

Kathy: I was sick with cancer a couple of years ago. I'd have to say that the most important thing I've ever experienced is going through [treatment] and realizing how I really feel about life ... how I feel about the people in my family, my friends and the people who stood by me.

Kathy:I look for a role that hopefully I feel empathy with and that I can understand and love, but also that has that challenge for me to play - a different kind of role, a different type of character, a different time period. But in general, if I get the same kind of visceral reaction with a script like you do when you see a finished movie, that kind of thing of knowing what its possibilities are and you get excited and you think, 'Yeah, I need to do this. I want to do that.' It's a very kind of primitive visceral response that's hard to be more specific about.

Kathy: I am a very private person, ... Not shy exactly, but it takes me a very long time to make friends. I still have such a hard time navigating the waters out here