Kathy Bates confirms retirement from acting: “This is my last dance”

Kathy Bates has announced that she is retiring from acting.

It comes just two weeks before she is set to star in the forthcoming CBS series Matlock.

The star, who made her breakthrough in the 1990s movie Misery, confirmed she plans to retire in an interview with the New York Times.

“This is my last dance,” she said of the new show which is a reboot of the eighties drama.

“Everything I’ve prayed for, worked for, clawed my way up for, I am suddenly able to be asked to use all of it,” she added. “And it’s exhausting.”

Over the years she appeared in American Horror Story, Two And A Half Men, Six Feet Under, The Office and Netflix’s two-season-long 2017 sitcom Disjointed.

Playing nurse Annie Wilkes in Misery won her a Golden Globe award as well as the Oscar for Best Actress, and she won a second Golden Globe for playing Jay Leno’s manager Helen Kushnick in The Late Shift.

“I never felt dressed right or well,” she said reflecting on breakthrough role in Misery. “I felt like a misfit. It’s that line in Misery when Annie says, ‘I’m not a movie star.’ I’m not.”

But, she added that acting “was the only thing I’ve had, ever.”

She went on: “It becomes my life. Sometimes I get jealous of having this talent. Because I can’t hold it back, and I just want my life.”

Matlock is set to premiere on CBS in the US on September 22 before it lands on Paramount+.