Mother Gothel always about ... who’s best for the part". Film critic James Berardinelli of "ReelViews "observed that this decision echoed "Disney's approach during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when big name stars where often bypassed in favor of lesser known talents." An additional asset was that the actor be able to perform well both independently and collaboratively. Mother Gothel is voiced by American actress and singer Donna Murphy, a Tony Award-winning Broadway actress who was informed about the casting call for "Tangled "by her agent. Having never voiced an animated character before, the actress decided to audition for the role
Mother Gothel Howard. However, in the Brothers Grimm's original fairy tale, Gothel is very much depicted as a typical witch-like character, an idea that was modified for the Disney film adaptation in favor of having Gothel's agelessness instead be "derive[d] ... from Rapunzel's hair." Seeking inspiration for Gothel and Rapunzel's "bizarre" relationship, Greno and Howard conducted a series of interviews with several female Disney employees, asking them to list qualities in their mothers that "they found annoying and cloying or restricting", specifically "the things that their ["sic"]" "mothers would do that made them feel trapped or made them feel smothered" in order