Lady Tremaine 特雷梅恩夫人 トレメイン夫人
- Robin Yong

- 21 hours ago
- 4 min read

Lady Tremaine is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Productions' animated film Cinderella (1950) and its direct-to-video sequels Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (2002) and Cinderella III: A Twist in Time (2007).
Lady Tremaine treats Cinderella, her step-daughter, like a scullery maid and focuses all of her attention on her own two daughters, Anastasia and Drizella. She is based on The Wicked Stepmother character from the original fairytale by Charles Perrault. Lady Tremaine was animated by Frank Thomas.
In the 2015 live-action remake of the 1950 animated film, Tremaine is portrayed by Cate Blanchett and is given a backstory where she hears Ella's father say that he loved his first wife more. This explains her hatred toward Cinderella, because she reminded her of how her late husband gave all of his love to his first wife and Tremaine herself was getting none of it.
In contrast to the broad treatment given to some of the other characters, Lady Tremaine was animated in malevolent and subtle realism. A cruel, cold, and calculating tyrant, Tremaine wants nothing more than her daughters to succeed. Unlike most Disney villains, who sport fiery personalities and desire power and the spotlight, she possesses a more cunning, subtle, passive-aggressive personality with a shrewd intelligence and ability for manipulation, particularly towards her daughters. She rarely yells, speaking in a calm, collected voice, even when angered. She wishes her daughters to succeed so that she may reap the benefits when it best suits her, although she becomes much more physically and emotionally abusive towards not only Cinderella, but also her two genetic daughters, as it becomes clear that she is only using them to gain access to an opulent lifestyle in the Palace.
In the animated film, where she is voiced by Eleanor Audley, Lady Tremaine is introduced in the prologue of the film. Cinderella's father, a widower anxious for his daughter to have a mother figure, married Tremaine, whom the narrator describes as "a woman of good family". She was a widow herself, with two daughters from her first marriage. After an unspecified amount of time living happily together as a family, Cinderella's father tragically died and Tremaine revealed her true colors. She lets the chateau fall into disrepair while pampering her own selfishly spoiled daughters and forcing Cinderella to become a maid in her own home. Tremaine allows Cinderella to attend the Royal Ball, on the condition that Cinderella finishes all her chores and finds a suitable dress. When Cinderella actually finishes her work and appears ready for the Ball in a suitable dress, Tremaine mildly mentions the beads and sash that Jaq and Gus found after Anastasia and Drizella threw them out. Enraged, her daughters cruelly tear apart Cinderella's dress, leaving her unable to attend the ball. When Cinderella, with the help of a Fairy Godmother, nevertheless attends the ball, her stepfamily does not recognize her, but Tremaine notes a familiarity about her appearance as she dances with Prince Charming.
News promptly arrives by way of a Royal Proclamation that the Prince will marry the girl whose foot fits the glass slipper accidentally left behind by Cinderella at the ball. Lady Tremaine overhears Cinderella dreamily humming the song "So This is Love" as she heads to the attic, and realizes that she was the mysterious girl at the ball. Hoping to pass off one of her daughters as the mysterious girl, Tremaine follows Cinderella up to the attic and locks her in her room, putting the key in her pocket. However, two of Cinderella's mice friends, Gus and Jaq, steal the key from the stepmother's pocket, and succeed in returning the key to Cinderella, who rushes downstairs to the Grand Duke just as he and the footman are about to leave. Tremaine attempts to convince the Duke that Cinderella is a lowly scullery maid who did not attend the ball. But the Duke, who is required by the King's Royal Proclamation not to skip a single maiden in the kingdom on his quest for the mysterious girl the Prince danced with, rebuffs Tremaine. The Duke also finds Cinderella strikingly familiar to him. He proceeds to try the glass slipper on Cinderella. In a last-ditch effort to foil Cinderella's dreams, Tremaine trips the footman bearing the glass slipper, causing it to smash. She deviously grins with wicked satisfaction as the Duke wails in despair and fear of the King's reaction when he finds out that the slipper was broken. But Cinderella still manages to come out on top by revealing that she has the other slipper, and that it fits her foot, proving that she is the girl who danced with Prince Charming, much to her stepmother's appalled horror. Beyond a single brief close-up of her appalled face, the movie does not dwell on her defeat, how she and her daughters further reacted or what happened to them; instead there is only a quick resolution where Cinderella is shown as the Prince's happy bride, her stepfamily out of the picture.
The Venice Carnevale is not all about masks. Many local Italians prefer painted faces, historical costumes and even cosplay. Lady Tremaine is played by a friend's mother who enjoys cosplay. The portrait was done against a grey wall and using only natural lighting.





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