Katey Sagal on her husband, Kurt Sutter, writing Gemma with her in mind:
His idea came from meeting with our other executive producers who had wanted to do a movie in this arena. And he thought it would be a good television series, and so he wrote this world which sort of had a Hamlet arc about it, and there was definitely the mother of our Hamlet. And so he came to me as he was writing it, and said ‘I think I have a part for you,’ but he didn’t really tell me what it was. And I didn’t really know what it was until I actually read the script. But he did write it with me in mind, and then we were hoping the network would sign off on that. …
If you asked him, what he would tell you probably is when he came into my life, I already had two children, and he’s their stepparent, and I was very protective of my children. … He hadn’t been around that kind of energy quite so much, so I think that’s what was the springboard for Gemma. It was not so much the heinous things she does; it was that at her core, her motivation is her children, is her child. At any cost, she will protect him and her club.”
(Photo credit: Prashant Gupta/FX)
