Joey King Transforms Into Gypsy Rose Blanchard in First Trailer for The Act: 'I'm So Trapped'
Sometimes the truth is more frightening than fiction.
Joey King transformed herself for the role of Gypsy Rose Blanchard for Hulu’s true crime anthology series The Act — and PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at the trailer.
Season 1 of The Act tells the real life story of Gypsy Rose, the young Missouri woman who murdered her abusive mother Dee Dee Blanchard (Patricia Arquette) after her mom manipulated her into portraying herself as terminally ill for almost her whole life.
“She’s got paraplegia, epilepsy, heart murmur and she’s allergic to sugar,” Dee Dee tells a doctor as Gypsy Rose sits silently. “Everything I do, I do for her.”
But as Gypsy grows older (and yet somehow her birth year keeps moving up), the people around them begin to question the validity of her medical history — including Gypsy Rose herself.
In one scene, Gypsy Rose, who is supposed to be paralyzed, gets out of bed and walks down the hall.
“I’m so trapped, and I can’t tell anyone,” she says.
RELATED: Joey King Looks Unrecognizable as Gypsy Rose Blanchard, Girl Who Murdered Her Munchausen Mom
Dee Dee, played by Patricia Arquette, allegedly began to abuse Gypsy soon after she was born up until her 2015 death. In an attempt to escape her mother’s harmful hold, Gypsy ultimately murdered her in 2015 at the age of 23 and is serving 10 years in prison for second-degree murder.
Experts have said that Gypsy was the victim of Munchausen by proxy, a rare form of abuse in which a guardian — in this case Gypsy’s mother — exaggerates or induces illness in a child for attention and sympathy.
RELATED: Munchausen by Proxy Moms: These Mothers Harmed Their Children to Gain Sympathy for Themselves
To make herself loo like Gypsy, King shaved her head, and she wears wide-framed glasses and false teeth.
“Getting into the emotion and getting into the character of Gypsy was something I was so excited to tackle, but I was also admittedly super-nervous for,” King told Entertainment Weekly of taking on the role. “Transforming into Gypsy was one of the most challenging but most rewarding things I’ve ever done.”
The Act premieres March 20 on Hulu.
