At about 40, the roles started slowing down. I started getting offers to play mothers and grandmothers.

She played a defense attorney on Law & Order. Douglas and Ms. The first two Deadlock and Killing Orders featured Turner reprising her 1991 movie role which had been based on Paretsky's novel Deadlock; however the third Bitter Medicine saw Sharon Gless take over the part.

More recently Kathleen Turner guest starred on the NBC sitcom Friends as Chandler Bing's cross-dressing father Charles Bing and in the third season of Showtime's Californication as Sue Collini the jaded sex-crazed owner of a public relations company. Turner also works actively in the theatre and has been nominated for the Tony Award twice for her roles as Maggie in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof and as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. She came to fame during the 1980s after roles in the Hollywood films Body Heat Romancing the Stone Prizzi's Honor Who Framed Roger Rabbit The War of the Roses Serial Mom and Peggy Sue Got Married for which Kathleen Turner was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.