Like a number of actors on this list, Kathy Bates was not a particularly well known name when she starred in her most disturbing of roles, but no doubts about it, her appearance as Annie Wilkes in Misery will be the role that she is most remembered for. But the added factor to this particular role is simple: she is female. Bates takes the role of what is essentially a groupie of an author, and combines it with a sociopath. Bates is a homely and gentle looking character, which is immediately disarming, and this is translated in the film as she at first appears attentive and caring for her guest. But all that is flipped when it is revealed that she is in fact holding Paul Sheldon hostage, with no scene standing out so infamously as the sledgehammer-to-the-ankles one. The very fact that Bates is female, partnered with her victim being played by a man with a reputation of playing tough guys, in James Caan, adds a particularly disturbing finish to the performance. It is a total shift of traditional power roles in film, and almost single-handed opened the door for female characters to be just as unhinged and unsettling as their male counterparts.
