Kathy Bates on Harry's Law: "As You Get Older You Want to Remove the Masks and Play Closer to Your Own Self"

Academy Award-winning actress Kathy Bates — star of Misery and About Schmidt — plays Harriet "Harry" Korn, a curmudgeonly ex-patent lawyer fired from her blue-chip firm and forced to start over, in NBC's new legal dramedy Harry's Law, premiering Monday, January 17 at 10 p.m. Premier Guide Miami sat down to find out what that means — and what comes next.

Academy Award-winning actress Kathy Bates plays Harriet "Harry" Korn — a curmudgeonly ex-patent lawyer abruptly fired from her blue-chip law firm and forced to search for a fresh start — in NBC's new legal dramedy Harry's Law, premiering Monday, January 17 at 10 p.m. The show was created by Emmy Award-winning writer/producer David E. Kelley (Boston Legal, The Practice, Ally McBeal). The role was originally written for a man.

On what attracted her to the role: "I got the script from my manager sometime last spring and was immediately attracted to this wonderful character who's rumpled and disillusioned and confused about her life and dissatisfied with things. I understand the role was originally written for a man. And at one point they changed the name to Harriet. And I said no, no, no, you can't change it to Harriet. It has to be Harry. I wanted it to be still this woman who's very forceful and eccentric and loveable at the same time. She has a hard time showing her love to people."

On what she likes about David Kelley's writing: "What I like about David's writing is that it's what I call contra puddle. In the middle of a gang scene where the tension is running high and Harry's trying to get them to calm down, there's a moment where one of the guys — they've been given name tags by the little girl in the office so they can keep everybody straight — and in the middle of the fight one of the gang members looks over and sees his friend actually wearing one of the name tags and glares at him and gets him to take it off. To me that was really quintessential David — this kind of ironic look at life and people."

On how she is like Harry in real life: "In my private life I'm probably just as curmudgeonly as Harry, that's for sure. And I share her disillusionment at times with this crazy business I've had a career in for so many years. And her upfront honesty with people — she doesn't suffer fools gladly. She has a very irreverent sense of humor which I do also. Sometimes I think David's been doing some kind of background research on me because I'll read a new script and I'll say, well how does he know that?"

On removing the masks as an actor: "I worked with Marcello Mastroianni many, many years ago. And he said as a young man you want to pile on the masks. You want to put on a lot of masks and play a lot of different characters. And as you get older you want to remove those masks and just play yourself, play closer to your own self. And I found that to be true, especially in this case."

On a possible romantic storyline: "There is actually a show where we get to meet one of Harriet's old boyfriends played by Richard Kind, who's a wonderful actor. And I've been sort of dreading the day when David starts to come in with some kind of romantic relationship. That's never been my bailiwick as an actress. So I would really be a fish out of water."

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