Kathy Bates has opened up about how she and Meryl Streep commiserated with one another after losing out at the Oscars.
In 2003, both Oscar winners were nominated for another Academy Award in the Best Supporting Actress category, for their performances in About Schmidt and Adaptation, respectively.
However, the award ended up going to Catherine Zeta-Jones for Chicago, who won her award early on in the ceremony.
As a result, Kathy and Meryl both had a long night ahead of them, so they decided to take the opportunity to have some fun.
“[Meryl] sailed by during the commercial break, said, ‘Come on, we’re going to the bar’. So we went to the bar,” the Misery star told Jesse Tyler Ferguson on his podcast Dinner’s On Me.
She quipped: “It was a very Joan Crawford, Bette Davis moment.”
Revealing exactly what happened then, Kathy recalled: “She slammed her evening bag down on the bar and said, ‘I’m having a vodka, straight, neat’, or whatever. And I slammed my evening bag down, and I said, ‘I’m having what she’s having’.”
“We tossed it. It was a moment,” Kathy continued. “It really was a moment when I could see – we turned and toasted each other and I could see in her eyes, and I’m sure she could see in mine, how we wanted it so badly, you know? That we thought, ‘Oh, we’re so close’.”
Kathy added: “I’ve just admired her so much in the trajectory that her career has had and the amazing roles that she’s done.”
Of course, neither actor really has any reason to grumble.
Meryl won her first Oscar in 1980 for Kramer vs. Kramer, and subsequently won two more for Sophie’s Choice and The Iron Lady. The Mamma Mia! star is also the most-nominated actor in the ceremony’s history, with 21 nods to her name at present.
Kathy, meanwhile, won the Oscar for Best Actress in 1990 for Misery, beating stiff competition from Julia Roberts, Anjelica Huston, Joanne Woodward and – you guessed it! – Meryl Streep.