During Powerhouse Performances: An Evening with Joey King & Riley Keough, King spoke candidly with Patricia Arquette, who played Gypsy’s mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, in the show.
Welcoming King on stage, Arquette said, “I’m very happy to be here tonight. And I’m going to bring out an actress who I have an incredible amount of respect for. I worked with her on a show called The Act. And she’s one of the most talented and generous actors that anyone could ever hope to work with.”
Arquette continued, “…In The Act, you played Gypsy-Rose, and… now she’s out of jail. But this is also based on a real person. And does it feel different when you’re acting? Like, somebody who actually… existed?”
“Yeah, it does,” King responded, adding, “The least we can do as actors is feel overwhelmed by the emotion that we are given in a scene. That’s the least we can do when playing someone who went through something so horrible. It’s a real person.”
King then referred to her character in her new movie, We Were the Lucky Ones, saying, “Halina Kurc is a real human being who lived through this, and I met her children, I hugged her children. It’s a different kind of responsibility. It’s also different than when I did The Act with you.”
“Gypsy is a person who is alive, and people can see her and hear her and experience her in the world. And there’s a responsibility to that in a different way. Because it’s like, ‘Oh, some people can draw direct comparison to… what I did,” King said of her portrayal of Gypsy, who was a victim of Munchausen by proxy syndrome via her mom.
