How actors in ‘The Act,’ the Hulu show based on Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s life, compare to the real people

When Arquette made her on-screen debut as Dee Dee, she was fresh from her win at the Golden Globes for her role in Showtime’s limited series “Escape at Dannemora.”

Dee Dee was found dead in her bed on June 14, 2015. She had been stabbed several times in her sleep.

To the public’s knowledge, Dee Dee was never evaluated by a mental health professional during her life, and she cannot be posthumously diagnosed. However, multiple doctors and therapists who have studied this case say her symptoms are consistent with a rare mental illness called Munchausen by proxy, which is a form of abuse.

Caretakers who have Munchausen by proxy will pretend the person in their care is ill or unable to function independently, and will usually inflict illness or pain on purpose.

According to MedlinePlus, most people with this problem are mothers with small children. It’s very uncommon for the abuse to continue for as long as it did for Gypsy, who was under her mother’s thumb well into adulthood.

According to Gypsy, the abuse she suffered was both psychological and physical. In HBO’s documentary, clinical psychologist Dr. Marc Feldman compared Gypsy’s situation to that of a hostage.

Gypsy was born in 1991. She was 23 when she conspired to kill her mother.

But Dee Dee would claim that Gypsy had the mental capacity of a 7-year-old girl. Dee Dee also told Gypsy she was much younger, sometimes citing different birth years.

The Blanchards’ friends and family, including Gypsy’s father, believed that Gypsy was confined to a wheelchair due to muscular dystrophy. According to BuzzFeed, tests for muscular dystrophy repeatedly came back negative, and Gypsy was aware she could walk by the time she was arrested.

Dee Dee also falsely claimed that Gypsy had been diagnosed with other diseases and mental illnesses, including leukemia, asthma, and infections that required multiple surgeries on her eyes, ears, and throat.

The day after the murder, Gypsy and her boyfriend took a bus to Wisconsin, but they were apprehended shortly after.

Gypsy was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2016 after pleading guilty to second-degree murder. Texts and online communication revealed that she had asked her boyfriend to carry out the crime.

Gypsy’s attorney, Michael Stanfield, told BuzzFeed that she gained 14 pounds in the 12 months she spent in Greene County Jail before her plea; most inmates lose weight due to the poor food quality, which seems to indicate that Gypsy had been malnourished when living with her mother.

At the time, Gypsy’s stepmother Kristy Blanchard told the Springfield News-Leader that her stepdaughter was “thriving” in prison.

“Despite everything, she still tells me that she’s happier now than with her mom,” Kristy said. “And that if she had a choice to either be in jail, or back with her mom, she would rather be in jail.”

Gypsy asked Godejohn to kill her mother.

“Honey, you forget I am ruthless, and my hatred of her will force her to die,” Godejohn texted Gypsy before the murder. “It’s my evil side doing it. He won’t mess up, because he enjoys killing.”

Godejohn was sentenced by a judge in Greene County, Missouri in 2019.

In the trailer for “The Act,” Gypsy tells Lacey that she met her “Prince Charming” when she begins talking to Godejohn online.

“She would show interest in different boys and try to ask me advice on like, you know, ‘How do you approach them? How do you, like, kiss a boy?’ Gypsy just wanted to be a regular teen,” Woodmansee said during an appearance on ABC’s “20/20.”

Chloë Sevigny plays Mel, the mother of Robb’s character Lacey.

“We found it challenging,” Sevigny told Collider. “Gypsy and Dee Dee are based on real people, and there’s so much there. There’s so much of that story they need to tell. We were obviously supposed to be a device for the storytelling.”

“We were supposed to be the normal family,” she continued. “We’re also the observers and the audience. How do we help propel the story? What can we do, as actors and as characters, to show the opposite of what’s going on, in this house across the street?”