Dear Evan Hansen star Rachel Bay Jones — who recently won the Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical for her role — portrays a struggling single mother who finds it difficult to connect with her troubled son. In an interview with The Interval, Jones speaks about finding the character of Heidi Hansen and what influences her portrayal of her.
Jones reveals that since she is also a mother who is faced with challenges, she feels very close to her character and thus more fulfilled by portraying her. She explains, “We always try to find the recognizable thread. The thing that we relate to is always the strongest point to start from. Playing a character that is flawed and who faces a lot of the same challenges as a mother that I do brings all of my questions close to home every day, which makes the exploration of this role that much more rich and fulfilling, and my challenges as a mother are in my face all the time. That’s pretty big.”
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