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

Kathy: The Oscar changed everything. Better salary, working with better people, better projects, more exposure, less privacy.

Kathy: Just purely from the craft point of view, I'm very proud of Dolores Claiborne. In terms of the acting craft and having to play a character at different ages and the movements and make-up-I'm really proud of that one.

Kathy: I try to always stretch myself to fit the characters that have been presented.

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.

Kathy: I always have to sort of fall in love with my characters. When I work on these characters, I just try to make them very real and grounded in the world. It's just the regular work that I do on a character with the director, trying to find out who this woman is and what's her back-story.

Kathy: Every time an Oscar is given out, an agent gets his wings.

Kathy: I had never worked with Jack Nicholson before About Schmidt, and I have to say that he made me feel completely at ease during our hot tub scene, where I dropped my clothes. He was a total professional about the whole situation.

Kathy: I was approached by a woman and her son the other day in the street, they ran up and asked for a moment of my time. The woman thanked me for inspiring her to get the courage to leave her abusive marriage with her son. She watched Delores Claiborne and Fried Green Tomatoes, and decided that if my character could make it out, so could she. I thanked HER for inspiring me.