The best DEFENCE

KATHY BATES on how playing a wily lawyer in a reboot of a courtroom classic has given her a new lease of life

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MATLOCK TUESDAY, 9PM, SKY WITNESS DRAMA

At first, Madeline ‘Matty’ Matlock seems to be a sweet old lady, slightly at a loss with the fast-moving world around her. But that is exactly what the sly septuagenarian, played by Kathy Bates in a reimagining of 1980s US legal drama Matlock, wants people to think.

In fact, the brilliant former defence lawyer has a razor- sharp mind and bags of cunning, which she uses to her own end – beginning by gatecrashing a senior partners’ meeting of a prestigious New York law firm and persuading them to give her a job.

Matty has an ulterior motive for coming out of retirement that unfolds over the course of the 10-part Sky Witness series, while in each episode she takes on a new case, doggedly intent on proving her client’s innocence.

Here, Memphis-born Kathy, 76, who won a Best Actress Oscar for her terrifying turn in the 1991 psychological thriller Misery and whose career spanning over 50 years includes films Fried Green Tomatoes (1992) and Titanic (1998), reveals why the part of Matty convinced her not to call time on her acting career...

What drew you to Matlock?

Rarely does a woman my age get a part like this. It was that simple! I loved the multilayered quality of the writing by Jennie Snyder Urman [who created hit American comedy drama Jane the Virgin], and I also loved the idea of playing a woman who uses her invisibility [of old age]