"So, how are my kids?" Kathy Bates asks, referring to her on-screen family in "A Home of Our Own." Four of the six children raised by her movie character are played by young Salt Lake actors; the film was shot in the Heber Valley area.
"You've got to give my love to those kids there," Bates said in a satellite interview. "I'm so thrilled that I was able to work with Claris-sa Lassig and Sarah Shaub and T.J. Lowther and Miles Feulner."They're all from Salt Lake City and I'll tell you, I was worried when I started to think about doing this part, about getting in a car with six kids.
"I'm an actress. I don't have six kids. I don't have any kids at all. I have one dog. But I was pleasantly, very pleasantly surprised. The kids really stole their way into my heart."
Bates, a noted New York stage actress, made a successful transition to film some years ago but consistently saw her stage successes go to other actresses as they were adapted for film - "Frankie and Johnny" went to Michelle Pfeiffer and " 'night, Mother" became a vehicle for Sissy Spacek.
Then Bates hit the big time with Rob Reiner's adaptation of Stephen King's "Misery," winning the best actress Oscar and landing prominent roles in "Fried Green Tomatoes" and "Used People," among others.
And for her next film, she finally gets to re-create a stage role she played in New York, in Sam Shep-ard's "Curse of the Starving Class," which begins shooting soon in Dallas.
Bates acknowledged that she does get quite a few big-studio film offers these days - but she accepted the low-budget, independent "A Home of Our Own" be-cause she liked the script. "I liked it because it was a good old-fashioned picture and I was very attracted to the character of Frances Lacey. I admired the fact that she was determined and resilient and resourceful and she doesn't want anybody's help and she wants to shoulder these responsibilities. She has ferocious love for her kids and I liked the fact that she wasn't perfect, that she makes a lot of mistakes. She's really stubborn and I just liked her an awful lot.
"And also, for me, she was a normal human being. I tend to play characters who have, as my mother would say, `Some kind of affliction.' It was a relief for me to play a mom whose only problem is her six kids."
Bates credits the film's director, Tony Bill, with choosing the Utah youngsters in the film. "He's always had a talent for finding wonderful children around the United States. For his first film (as a director), `My Bodyguard,' he discovered Matt Dillon. He just has a real knack for that. And it's wonderful. The kids were just a marvel. They were just themselves, their own selves - they were real individuals. And I was just proud to work with them every day. They really made me feel good."
Bill, in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home, said that though he looked at tapes of children from all over the country, the auditions were kept to local talent, with local casting director Cate Praggastis acting as a vital link in the process.
The kids, says Bill, were "natural, unspoiled - they didn't have any bad habits. They hadn't picked up all the phony habits of bad actors and commercial actors.
He added that, "A lot of the chaos (with the children playing or squabbling) wasn't organized. There were times when I'd just let them go.
"These kids were very smart, they had very cooperative parents and we didn't have to use anyextraordinary methods to get what we wanted from them. It was really a pleasure. I enjoyed their company and their talents and I'd do it all over again."
He also pointed out that two of the kids have gone on to do other major films, 6-year-old T.J. Lowther is co-starring with Kevin Costner and Clint Eastwood in "A Perfect World" and Sarah Schaub, 9, has a prominent role in the TV miniseries of Stephen King's "The Stand."
Bill said he chose Utah for filming, despite the fact that the film is set in Idaho, because, "It looks better and it's closer. It's not important that it be Idaho."
And he said Bates was his first choice to play the mother in "A Home of Our Own."
Bates said most of the kids didn't have very much acting experience but it was not noticeable. "That's what was so magnificent about it. You know how tough the winter was there last year and we were working outdoors for most of the time and the kids were just . . . they never complained, they were always excited to come to work. But there was an ease and a grace about them, too. They were just comfortable and they made me comfortable."
The film also marks Bates' first on-screen appearance with her husband, Tony Campisi, who plays the manager of the bowling alley where her screen character gets a job. "We've done plays back east with each other and this was our first chance to do a film together. He plays Norm, the manager in the bowling alley. He sort of pursues Frances and, unfortunately, she accepts his invitation. I enjoyed working with my husband, I always do. It's another comfortable experience for me."
Bates says that though she gets some good film offers these days, she still feels there is a dearth of real quality among film scripts. "It's the same hue and cry that we've heard for years and years, which is, `Where are the good scripts, where are the good scripts?'
"Especially for women - for women over 40. And I'm hoping that will change. I think the fact that there are now so many wonderful actresses in Hollywood who are over 40 or in their 40s, they're going to have to find more. They're going to have write screenplays for them, I mean there's just no way around it. And I think there's an audience for it. There are so many baby boomers that have grown up now, we're all in our 40s and we want to see ourselves on the screen." - Chris Hicks