Misery: Kathy Bates was disappointed Rob Reiner toned down the violence

In the 1990 Stephen King adaptation Misery (watch it HERE), Kathy Bates’ character Annie Wilkes breaks author Paul Sheldon’s ankle with a sledgehammer and shoots another man in the back with a shotgun – but in King’s book, Annie cut off Sheldon’s foot with an axe instead of breaking his ankle, and stabbed the other man before running him over with her lawnmower. While appearing alongside director Rob Reiner at a special TCM Classic Film Festival 35th anniversary screening of the film, Bates revealed that she was disappointed Reiner toned down the violence for the film version.

Directed by Reiner from a screenplay by William Goldman (which received rewrites from Reiner and and producer Andrew Scheinman), Misery has the following synopsis: After a serious car crash, novelist Paul Sheldon is rescued by former nurse Annie Wilkes, who claims to be his biggest fan. Annie brings him to her remote cabin to recover, where her obsession takes a dark turn when she discovers Sheldon is killing off her favorite character from his novels. As Sheldon devises plans for escape, Annie grows increasingly controlling, even violent, as she forces the author to shape his writing to suit her twisted fantasies. As mentioned, Bates plays Annie Wilkes and is joined in the cast by James Caan (as Paul Sheldon), Frances Sternhagen, Richard Farnsworth, and Lauren Bacall.

Referring to the enhanced violence in the book, Bates said (with thanks to IndieWire for the transcription), “I was crushed that you took that out.” When Reiner defended his choice by saying that Paul Sheldon shouldn’t lose something (in this case, his foot) while learning something from his experience, Bates replied, “I didn’t agree with that at all.“

During their conversation, Reiner revealed that Richard Dreyfuss, William Hurt, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Harrison Ford, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Kline, Michael Douglas, Robert Redford, and Gene Hackman had all turned down the offer to play Paul Sheldon. Warren Beatty was attached to the project at one point, and his notes helped Reiner get the Misery script into shape. “He said, ‘This is not a horror movie. This is not a thriller. 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.’” Reiner and Scheinman spent months polishing the script, then “We had a script that I thought was air-tight. And then Beatty said, ‘I don’t know if I want to do it.’” When James Caan and Kathy Bates signed on, Reiner had to find a way to balance out their different approaches to acting. “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.” It worked so well, Bates won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. An unexpectedly happy ending, especially since Bates had a negative reaction to her first viewing of the film: “I thought it was the end of my career. I was horrified.“

Reiner was pleased to see how well the 35-year-old film held up at the screening. Bates confessed, “I had an interview recently where someone asked, ‘What character are you most like,’ and I said Annie Wilkes. I get manic and I can get down, and sometimes I could get obsessed about someone really talented.“

Are you a fan of Misery? And do you agree with Kathy Bates that the violence shouldn’t have been toned down? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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