U n a b at e d A r t i s t r y
Kathy Bates is a versatile actress who shares all about her career, surviving breast cancer and how cannabis has brought her life full circle
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By Benjamin M. Adams
ou probably recognize her enduring performances from Misery, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Blind Side or one of the highest-grossing films of all time—Titanic. In television, her unparalleled career includes
American Horror Story, Six Feet Under, Two and a Half Men, The Stand, The Office and many more.
Kathy Bates’ incredible career in theater, film and television spans decades, recently earning her a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame—and fulfilling a childhood dream. The Academy Award, Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actress, director and activist is currently starring as the lead character of Netflix’s Disjointed, a sitcom set inside a dispensary. Only now has Bates opened up about her own odyssey with medical cannabis to CULTURE—a journey that would lead her to portray Ruth Whitefeather Feldman, a seasoned cannabis activist who runs the fictional dispensary Ruth’s Alternative Caring. It was truly an honor for CULTURE to discuss cannabis, film and PostTraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) with Bates.
What made you want to work on Disjointed? You know, it’s amazing how when our next 10 episodes dropped on Jan. 12, the timing couldn’t have been more prescient. We knew that things were coming, that [Prop. 64] had passed, and we were all really excited about it. Our show was just starting to begin shooting. We were thrilled. But now considering the fact that we’re getting pushed back, from the Attorney General specifically, it’s going to be a really fascinating journey between state and federal [laws]. What’s going on is the growers who have been there doing it for 60 years don’t want to suddenly be legislated. That’s what I’ve heard. You know, I think we’ll be okay, but I just don’t know if the government is going to start really playing dirty tricks, like muscling in on landlords. So it concerns me—and if there’s a fight, I’ll be right there on the frontline, because the more I’ve experimented, the more
I learn about it, even through the show, it has been a blast. I just really got interested in it as a two-time cancer survivor. I’ve used it to help with nausea and pain, so for me, it’s a real relief. I look at it like Prohibition from the ’20s, which didn’t work. I’m hoping that people will leave it alone. The other thing that bothers me is that they want to reinstate these draconian sentences for people in possession of a small amount of marijuana and send them away. It’s the close-mindedness, the lack of intelligence about marijuana. [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions was quoted as saying that they were, “OK, until I found out they smoked pot,”—but he was talking about the Ku Klux Klan for God’s sake! And that was the only reason he turned away from the Ku Klux Klan is because he learned they were smoking dope! I don’t fuckin’ get it. The bottom line? As you can see, I’ve grown a lot more passionate about the issue.
CultureMagazine.com
FEBRUARY 2018
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