What To Know
- Kathy Bates initially dismissed the Matlock script as just another procedural until her best friend encouraged her to finish reading it.
- The show’s premise evolved from an early idea of making Matlock the original character’s granddaughter.
- Matlock has become a major hit for CBS, being renewed for a third season.
Kathy Bates didn’t finish the Matlock script when she first read it. She wrote it off as just another procedural, one that she wasn’t interested in starring in, but then her best friend changed her mind about giving the story a second chance. Bates shared this story in a new interview about Matlock and her career at large, revealing that before she even signed on for the series inspired by, but not a reboot of, Andy Griffith‘s Matlock, there was an idea to make the main character much, much different.
“I think, originally, they wanted to see if they could make this character, Matlock, be the granddaughter of the original Matlock,” Bates told Deadline.
She said it was a terrible idea, but one that didn’t last long before a Matlock producer put their foot down about the show’s premise, which centers on a brilliant septuagenarian who decides to rejoin the workforce at a prestigious law firm. The twist at the end of the pilot reveals that Madeline “Matty” Matlock is actually Madeline Kingston, and she’s under cover investigating this law firm for its involvement in the opioid crisis that killed her daughter.
“Eric Christian Olsen, one of our producers, said, ‘No, no, no, we’re going to do it this way,’” Bates told Deadline. “And at first, [Matlock creator] Jennie Snyder Urman turned it down, and then she thought, ‘No, let me think about this.’ And she always walks. She walks, walks, walks, walks, walks, and that’s how these ideas come to her head. And then she had this idea, I think, because she was turning 50, and so it was on her mind about being invisible.”
Bates is proud of where Matlock wound up because “it’s about something,” she said. But even she admitted that she didn’t think the show had much depth to it on her first read. That’s when her best friend stepped in.
“You know, when I was first reading the script, I didn’t even finish it,” Bates revealed. “I was thinking, ‘Oh, this is just procedural.’ My best friend in New York, who always reads everything, he said, ‘Did you finish it?’ And I said, ‘No, I didn’t…’ He said, ‘Finish it.’ So, I finished it, and I went, ‘Oh, holy crap!’ It’s such a great twist at the end, and so unexpected, but about something.”
Matlock was an instant hit at CBS. It’s one of the most-watched broadcast TV shows for the second season in a row, and it’s been renewed for Season 3, set to premiere in 2027 on the network.
Bates has repeatedly expressed her gratitude for the role that allows women her age (she turns 78) this month to be the main character of an impactful story, an opportunity that is, sadly, still scarce for many women of her generation.
Matlock, Season 3 Premiere, 2027, CBS