Kathy Bates Is Still ‘Crushed’ That Her 1990 Film ‘Misery’ Wasn’t More Violent

While it’s well-known for being among the most diabolical films in recent history, Kathy Bates thinks the 1990 horror film Misery could have gone even further.

In an appearance at the 6th annual TCM Classic Film Festival (which took place April 24 to 27, 2025, in Hollywood), Bates discussed the film with director Rob Reiner and TCM host Dave Karger.

Bates portrayed Annie Wilkes in the film, which focused on a villainous nurse who holds her favorite author (played by James Caan) hostage and “nurses” him back to health after a car accident.

During their talk, Bates, 76, said she was “crushed” that Reiner removed some of the gore from the Stephen King novel on which the film was based — namely, by downgrading a scene in which Caan’s character loses a foot to one in which he injures the foot but can still hobble on it.

“I was crushed that you took that out,” Bates said to Reiner, 78, per IndieWire. “I didn’t agree with that at all.”

Elsewhere in the conversation, the director added that he was surprised by how differently Bates — who won an Oscar for Best Actress in 1991 for the role — and Caan approached their characters, saying, “They come at acting in very different ways. Kathy is a brilliant stage actress and Jimmy didn’t want any rehearsal, he just wanted to be instinctive. So we found a way to rehearse more than Jimmy wanted and less than Kathy wanted, but it works.”

Reiner also touched on the actors who were initially attached to the film but ultimately dropped out. Warren Beaty, for instance, left the project — but not before making changes to the script during rewrites.

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“He said, ‘This is not a horror movie. This is not a thriller,’ ” Reiner said of Beatty’s contributions. “ ‘This is a prison movie. This man is in jail and he has to be as smart as you in trying to figure out how to get out of jail.’ ”

When Beatty left the film, Reiner said he offered the part to Richard Dreyfuss, who turned it down, as well.

Caan, however, brought something new to the role: an athlete’s mindset and a physicality that helped in the film’s fight scene.

“I think he played every sport known to man,” Bates said of Caan. “He was built like a brick s—house.”

The fight scene was so realistic, she added, because of how well it was choreographed.

Telling the audience that a soft piece was installed in the floor so her head “wouldn’t get hurt too bad,” Bates added that Caan “really had to slam my head into the floor, and it was upsetting to be on the other side of that.”

“Thank God I’ve never been in a relationship like that,” she said, adding jokingly, “I guess there’s still time.”