Mother Gothel Mother Gothel Mother Gothel is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Pictures' 50th animated feature film "Tangled "(2010). The character is voiced by actress and singer Donna Murphy in her voice acting debut; Murphy auditioned for the role spontaneously upon learning from her agent that Disney was auditioning actresses for the film's villainous role. Loosely based on Dame Gothel in the German fairy tale "Rapunzel", Mother Gothel is a vain old woman who hoards the healing powers of a magical flower in order to remain young and beautiful for several years. When the flower is harvested in order
Mother Knows Best (song) work" while "Frollo is a much more sophisticated villain, but easier to understand ... than Mother Gothel", whose relationship with Rapunzel is more manipulative than the Frollo-Quasimodo dynamic. While writing "Mother Knows Best", Menken was briefly concerned that "there [would] be a rash of children trying to kill their parents after they’ve seen the movie." According to directors Byron Howard and Nathan Greno, one of the song's lines, "getting kind of chubby", was lifted from an interview the directors had held with several female Disney employees, in which they asked them to describe their relationships with their mothers. Menken was