Medium star Patricia Arquette once played the baddest outlaw in the west

By: Start TV Staff     Posted: July 15, 2019, 2:18PM

Allison DuBois is definitely our favorite psychic around, but do you remember her being the most feared outlaw in all of Texas?

Before her role on Medium, Patricia Arquette had a long list of work on her resume. One of the roles was Ms. Kathryn Barlow, a.k.a Kissin’ Kate Barlow in the film adaptation of the book Holes. Written by Louis Sachar in 1998, the book tells the story of a teenager named Stanley Yelnats, who has been falsely accused of stealing a pair of priceless shoes. He’s sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile correctional facility that sits in the heart of barren Texas. Once he arrives at the camp, the story weaves the plights of poor Stanley with the history of the barren lake surrounding the camp.

Ms. Kathryn Barlow is the school teacher of Green Lake from 1888. Sweet and unassuming, her entire world shatters when Sam, the man that she loves, is murdered in cold bold during a night of rioting in the town. The next day, Barlow heads over the sheriff’s station and takes the sheriff’s life point blank the way he took Sam’s.

She lays a final, red-lipped kiss on his cheek, sealing her fate as the new Kissin’ Kate Barlow. From there, Barlow roams the country and leads a band of bandits across the plains, robbing caravans and leaving her victims with a bold kiss goodbye. 

Barlow turns out to be a tragic antihero for one the story’s subplots, but it wasn’t originally planned that way. In an interview on his website, Sachar even confessed, “I had expected to make Kissin' Kate a complete villain, but when I started writing about her I ended up making her someone else entirely; it surprised me.”

Pair a role like this with an actress like Arquette, and it’s no surprise that the film adaption was so well received by audiences across the country. The movie still holds a 77% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, and a 76% audience rating from the same site.

You never know what you’ll find when you do a little deep digging on your favorite Start TV stars.

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