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Interview: ‘Haves and Have Nots’ Star Renee Lawless On Katheryn’s Reckoning

By Brittany Frederick

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‘The Haves and the Have Nots’ has returned to OWN with Katheryn Cryer on the warpath, and Renee Lawless told Hidden Remote what’s got her character going.

Don’t get in Katheryn Cryer’s way. That seems to be the message right now on OWN’s The Haves and the Have Nots, which returned for Season 5 last Tuesday. Katheryn’s got an axe to grind (or is that a knife to sharpen?) and she’s taken things up a whole other level in the new season.

To find out what prompted her and where she might be going next, Hidden Remote sat down with actress Renee Lawless and got more insight into everything Katheryn’s carrying on her shoulders and how Renee has built such a dynamic and fun character.

Check out what she had to tell us below, and don’t miss an all-new episode of The Haves and the Have Nots tonight at 9/8c on OWN.

Hidden Remote: Katheryn ended Season 4 shooting people and in Season 5 she’s still got a chip on her shoulder. What’s happened to her?

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Renee Lawless: Katheryn has been saying for years, don’t mess with me. We’ve always known her power but she’s gotten a lot of things taken care of. Jim [John Schneider] has always been [saying] “I’ll handle it,” and being the wife she is, she said okay fine, even though they lost their daughter and all this. She deferred.

She don’t play. She’s slow to anger, but when you get her she will come after you, and I think people finally figured out…this is not the first person Katheryn killed and it will sure not be the last.

Someone said she snapped, and I said no she did not snap, you just broke the camel’s back. She doesn’t exercise that right all the time and people finally got to see who really rules the roost. There’s still going to be moments where she has to back down a little bit. Katheryn knows when to play her cards.

Hidden Remote: How much fun has that more vicious side of her been to play?

Lawless: I loved it when I got it. When I first got it [series creator] Tyler [Perry] was a little kid in a candy shop; [he] could not keep a secret. He told me like a week before we got the last several scripts what was going to happen. He could not hold it in. I was like let me be surprised and he was like no I got to tell you. I was ecstatic.

When I saw the beginning of Season 5, I was even more ecstatic. We picked up very quickly after where we left off. Mr. Perry never writes one week later, five days later, three months later, he goes right into where we leave off. It’s going to be interesting to see how that whole dance plays out in the mansion. Katheryn is having a blast this season, that’s all I can tell you.

Hidden Remote: What would you consider to be her greatest hits so far?

Lawless: Some of my favorite moments from last season were the two times she’s confronting Jennifer Sallison [Shari Headley]. One was in the jail and one was in the office where she said, “B-tch, I’ll have you murdered in the street.” That was one of my favorite moments to act let alone one of my favorite moments.

I think the “Nine” speech will always go down; people will love the “Nine” speech until The Haves and Have Nots goes off. That will always be one of her greatest moments. The “April 7th, 1979” speech, when Amanda has died and she goes after Jim and drags Celine across the floor by the hair, I think that was a greatest moment. Hitting Candace over the head with a bottle.

Hidden Remote: The show will be reaching its 100th episode by the end of Season 5. What’s it like to realize you’ve played Katheryn for that long?

Lawless: We shoot so fast, it doesn’t feel like I’ve been playing her for four years. It only feels like I’ve been playing her a year and a half because I shoot so quickly. I’m not on set for six months; I’m on set for three to four weeks and by the time we’re done it’s like we just got here! (laughs) It’s been nice.

She’s a part of me to the point I can look at Mr. Perry when something’s written and go, do you really think? Sometimes I sit there and I’m only commenting on what I know and he is the creator and writer who might say you’re absolutely right but, and then I see his vision and where he’s going and why she’s doing things.

Hidden Remote: How does that faster shooting schedule work for you as an actress? Does it give you more flexibility to pursue other projects?

Lawless: While we’re shooting, absolutely not. But because we shoot so quickly, the rest of the year I can, yes…That’s only a month, month and a half of my life that I can’t do something. Usually about two months that I’m not available and that’s fine. Even when there are events [during shooting], the events can only be in Atlanta and depending on when the event is, is whether I can make it or not, because if I’m cramming something I don’t go on a carpet. It’s really intense.

Hidden Remote: One of the things fans may not know is that you have an extensive theatre background. Has that helped you in approaching this role, especially on such a fast-paced production?

Lawless: Tremendously. That’s why Mr. Perry hired a lot of theatre actors. He loves theatre actors. Not taking anything at all away from strictly television and film actors who don’t have a theater background, there’s just a different kind of work ethic. We’re also a little more committed to our lines [because] we have to memorize so many, so quickly, we’re kind of used to that. The only downside is in theater, I’m used to having weeks and weeks of rehearsal, we don’t get that in television.

Speaking of Tyler Perry specifically, he is not one hundred percent married to the script. If I change an if, they, then, but, to what, he doesn’t care. There’s certain lines he wants exactly as written and some things he doesn’t care if it’s exactly as written, but also he’ll sometimes throw out a scenario and he lets us run with it.

Theatre actors have that “you have to act on your feet” sort of thing. If something goes wrong they have to be able to cover themselves in the middle of a stage, and that’s what he relies on, so I definitely think my theatre skills have helped me tremendously in a Tyler Perry production.

Hidden Remote: So ultimately, how do you think of Katheryn Cryer now compared to how you saw her in the earlier seasons?

Lawless: I think it’s been interesting how our characters, how we’ve peeled those layers back of the onion. Season 1 with Katheryn, I’ve compared her to an oak tree, in that she’s this strong pillaring oak tree that was hundreds of years old that’s strong on the outside but is rotting away and hollow on the inside.

I think she’s had some new growth. I think this interest and friendship with Hanna, even with all the drama it’s brought into her life, and now the death of her daughter and the potential death of her son and all that she has gone through, I don’t want to say Katheryn never lost her way, but I think she lost who she was. She got wrapped up in being Jim Cryer’s wife, being the wife and mother, and I think now she’s already said a couple of times she wants to walk away from this and she’s been revitalized sadly through tragedy.

I think Katheryn in Season 5 will be coming back into her own. We saw the evolution of everyone’s characters and the introduction of new characters, but I think there’s going to be a lot of newness coming up just because of the storyline, and I think we’ve really turned a lot of corners.

Next: 'The Librarians' Star Lindy Booth On Cassandra's Crisis

If you haven’t seen it yet, Renee Lawless’s performance as Katheryn Cryer is one of the most fun and dynamic female performances on cable television. She so clearly goes for it with panache, poise and a certain predatory instinct – and she’s getting even better in Season 5. Watch her rise in Season 5 of The Haves and the Have Nots.

The Haves and the Have Nots airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on OWN.

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