Oscar-winner Kathy Bates puts her own spin on a TV classic in Matlock

When Jane The Virgin creator Jennie Snyder Urman first envisioned an updated version of Matlock — the legendary criminal defense attorney from the 1980s originated by Andy Griffith — she had one actor in mind. “Imagine Kathy Bates,” she told execs.

“I wanted our heroine to be constantly telling the audience that she’s being underestimated, and then I wanted the audience to enjoy watching her take advantage of that underestimation,” the creator continues. “By the end, even though she said it constantly and we watched it happen over and over again, I wanted to still be able to shock the audience when they realize that they, too, have underestimated Madeline Matlock.”

Having written the part with Bates as her guiding light, it came as a delightful surprise to Urman that the formidable Emmy- and Academy Award-winner could also picture herself in this subversive role — with the added responsibilities of an executive producer, to boot. “I read [the script] on a Friday and went in to meet with Jennie on a Monday. The first thing I said to her was, ‘Don’t change a word,’” recalls Bates, who immediately fell in love with this vision of the character.

From the opening minutes of the pilot, Madeline “Matty” Matlock establishes herself as a resourceful asset to prestigious law firm Jacobson & Moore, convincing them to take her on as a new associate attorney despite not having practised law for three decades. What they don’t know — but the audience quickly discovers — is that Matty is far more shrewd than she comes across. Matlock has an agenda, and the road there involves becoming indispensable to her colleagues — her immediate boss Olympia (Skye P. Marshall), in particular.

For the 76-year-old actress, rising to the unique challenges of the role feels like the zenith of a long career. “I get to play all of those levels with everything I’ve learned in the last 50 years,” says Bates. “I love playing all those facets of this character, and I just feel so lucky to be able to do all of that in one person and in the same episode.”

In fact, the new Matlock, according to its creator, is a show defined by contradictions. “It’s something new, but it’s based on something old. I wanted it to feel folksy, yet sophisticated; nostalgic, yet modern; comforting, yet unsettling,” says Urman. “Just when you think you know what’s happening, the show is going to twist again, forcing you to look at the story another way.”

Bates describes acting out these twists and turns as forming beads on a necklace. “When you’re making television or film, you’re breaking everything up, so we really have to be careful about where we are in the show and where we are in this character’s development,” she says. “It all shifts and changes and that’s part of what makes it exciting because Matty is never sure what’s happening in front of her own eyes, and she has to shift with all of it. Each scene is its own little pearl and I just have to focus on moment to moment.”

The structure of the procedural remains the same from episode to episode, with cases handled by the law firm forming the framework for whatever Matlock’s agenda is outside of her case load. For Urman, sticking to a tried-and-true formula has been a welcome challenge. “There’s something about it that makes it a little bit . . . not easier, but it has its own rhythm, you know?” she muses. “I really like having that structure. So then, the challenge becomes, within that structure, to keep so many character moments going all the time, so that we’re not watching just a case beat, but we’re watching a case beat where somebody is also sorry for something that they said earlier and trying to make it up to somebody else while hiding maybe some other ulterior motive.”

Legal quandaries aside, Urman says the show is also a unique love story between two exceptionally intelligent women, and their growing support for each other as Matlock marks her return to a work landscape far different from the one she left behind. “The centre of the show, the relationship that everybody is watching and tracking, is the relationship between Kathy’s character and Skye’s character,” she says. “Their dynamic is really the love story that I am interested in exploring, and it’s exciting.”

Fellow cast member David Del Rio — who portrays Billy, one of Matlock’s younger colleagues — believes that in these co-worker dynamics there is a powerful message that courses throughout the series. “I think what this show does well is [demonstrate that] you never stop being a student, ever — even when you’re 75,” the actor says. “These characters continue to learn things about each other. And [art] also imitates life, because we’re all learning from each other constantly.”

As for that tired adage about female invisibility, well, one can fully expect both Bates and her character to have their moment in the sun. “Above all,” says Urman. “We want you to sit firmly in the knowledge that just because you’re older doesn’t mean you still can’t be a bad b****.”

Matlock premieres Sunday, September 22 on Global & CBS