James Caan's Relationship With Misery Co-Star Kathy Bates Explained

Stephen King came up with the idea for his 1987 novel "Misery" while on a flight from New York to London aboard the Concorde. According to King's website, he was thinking about writer Evelyn Waugh's short story "The Man Who Loved Dickens." That particular story is about a man held captive in South America who

Stephen King came up with the idea for his 1987 novel "Misery" while on a flight from New York to London aboard the Concorde. According to King's website, he was thinking about writer Evelyn Waugh's short story "The Man Who Loved Dickens." That particular story is about a man held captive in South America who is forced to read Dickens' classics to his captor. King asked a question about Waugh's story, which in turn became the basis for "Misery": What would it be like if Dickens were the one who was being held captive?

In the book, Kathy Bates' character, Anne Marie "Annie" Wilkes, does something much worse than smash the legs of Paul Sheldon, played by James Caan in the movie. As Bates revealed in her 2015 reunion with Caan (via "Today"), she was disappointed with one particular change film makers made in their adaptation. At the time, Bates said (via "Today"), "I had read the book ... and in the book, she chops his feet off."

Rob Reiner was the director at the helm of "Misery." Another well-known sequence from the film was a fight scene, which the actors performed without stunt doubles. One way that Bates, Reiner, and Caan diverged in their approaches to their craft was in how they preferred to prepare for their parts. Caan hated rehearsal, while Bates and Reiner liked to rehearse, as Bates revealed in a 2019 interview with Yahoo! Entertainment. For this reason, Bates also said (via Yahoo!) "I got so frustrated working with" Caan.

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