“The bottom line is, she and her mom both had the same desire: to love and be loved,” King said. It chronicles how Gypsy comes of age - or at least tries to in secret - and slowly realizes the deception at play. “The Act,” which is nearing the end of its first season, spends most of its time exploring the mother-daughter dynamic over a seven-year stretch, after the two moved to a home built by Habitat for Humanity in Springfield, Mo., in 2008. She also wore prosthetic teeth and shaved her head to better resemble Gypsy. The case gained national attention following the release of a 2016 Buzzfeed article and an HBO documentary, “Mommy Dead and Dearest.” King, 19, relied on interview footage to help capture Gypsy’s demeanor and childlike voice.

(Gypsy is currently serving a 10-year sentence after pleading guilty to her role in her mother’s killing.) After figuring out she hadn’t really been sick, Gypsy helped to plot her mother’s death in 2015. Experts would later deem it to be a case of Munchausen by proxy syndrome, a mental disorder in which a caregiver makes up or induces illnesses for sympathy or attention. For years, Dee Dee made her daughter believe that she suffered from a number of serious health maladies, earning the pair public sympathy and help from charity organizations. Hulu’s “The Act” is a dramatization of the real-life horror story of Blanchard and her mother, Dee Dee. Joey King will tell you that when it came to preparing for her role as Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the young woman whose twisted upbringing would make headlines after her involvement in the death of her mother, that it was as much a mental journey as it was a physical transformation.

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