Catch up with this comedy icon.
Audiences loved Lawrence as Mama, and the actor quickly became a comedy legend. Nevertheless, she said it took a while toto its full potential."I was trying to do an older version of Eunice [at first]. But I would say that Mama matured and got much deeper and more wonderful as a character as she matured … I think she got much better with age," Lawrence said in a 2011 interview with the Television Academy Foundation.
She added that forming the character became a deeply personal process, and that she and Burnett went toe to toe with the show's writers about certain key character elements."They hated that [Burnett] wanted to do it Southern," Lawrence recalled."They hated that I was Mama and she was Eunice—they pretty much hated everything we did with it."
To this day, she says it"takes not but a moment" to slip into character as Mama."Any character you do well is a part of you," she told the Television Academy Foundation.When the series wrapped in 1990, it was difficult for Lawrence to find her career footing, she says. The comedian found this particularly disorienting because of the ease of her early career.