FACE-CLAIM: Jodie Comer
CHARACTER NAME: Clara Madden
GENDER & PRONOUNS: She/her
DATE OF BIRTH & AGE: 27 years old, August 15th 1994
PLACE OF BIRTH: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
NEIGHBORHOOD: Ladayette Square
LENGTH OF RESIDENCY: Two years and eight months
OCCUPATION: Bartender at Le Rouge
BIOGRAPHY
TRIGGERS: Eating disorder, alcohol abuse, drug abuse,
BIOGRAPHY:
Clara Madden wasn’t born into a family that had anything particularly special about it, you wouldn’t pick them out from a line up so to speak, but they were comfortably affluent. To the tune of nice holidays when they wanted them, a house with enough bedrooms to go around, and the disposable income to send Clara to a well known private school from as young as three. Her father works as a corporate lawyer at a well known conglomerate and her mother is a stay at home mother who filled her days with lunches, shopping, and a clutch of pointless hobbies that always seemed to be changing with the wind. For part of her childhood there had been another girl around in Clara’s life, Cora, apparently her cousin who was four years older than her and around a lot because Cora’s mother was unwell. Mrs Madden would look after both Clara and Cora together a lot, meaning the girls spent a fair amount of time together. The little girl looked up to the older with wide eyed wonder because she was always one step ahead of her as if showing Clara where she could end up if she just followed in her footsteps. It was a naive way to look at the world perhaps but because she’d been brought up effectively wrapped in cotton wool the girl hadn’t been exposed to anything else. What she didn’t know was the entire family was keeping a monumental secret from her which would provide the basis of what Clara felt was an utter betrayal from those who were meant to love her most in the world.
Cora was Clara’s older sister, half sister to be exact, but blood related none the less and once that had been revealed it was as if all kinds of things started falling into place. Why Ralph had always treated the older girl like he was one of his own, because she literally was. With the new information the girl’s perception of her family started to warp, she started to notice just how much her mother doted on Cora despite her not even being her birth mother, and Clara started to get pushed into the background. Feelings of being inferior started to bubble up in the pit of her stomach until they overwhelmed the girl who had once been a carefree little ball of sunshine. She resented her family all the way through her school years, but not as much as she loathed herself for not being what her parents wanted or needed from her.
She had always held a flair for ballet, that was the one and only remarkable thing about Clara growing up, and it was something her mother chose to nurture in her own…special way. Hearing that her daughter had the talent to take her ballet career to the top level seemed to flip a switch in the woman and all of a sudden the child’s life became all about ballet. Rehearsals five times a week, placed on a special diet to maintain her ‘correct’ figure, and constant pushing from the woman who was meant to love her the most. She would be punished if she didn’t perform up to scratch and god forbid her legs weren’t straight, her mother would use a ruler to correct her. This whole process was overwhelming to Clara but she had little choice in the matter, so once she was old enough and was accepted into a prestigious ballet school she thought her parents might finally feel some pride. Not the case. She was just expected to excel even further.
When Clara was fifteen her older sister came to her with what was framed as a peace offering, a fake ID that meant she could go along to a party with older kids, finally she felt like she was wanted and it was an intoxicating sensation. So she played the role, maybe too well, letting her hair down at the party to the nth degree until she drank herself into a total state. The next thing Clara knew she was in a hospital getting her stomach pumped while her parents looked on with yet more disappointment. In her mind she’d solidified herself as a failure in the eyes of those around her, as well as herself and it ate away at her insides until there was almost nothing left.
Her prospects in ballet dwindled considerably from that day forward.
She’d fallen in with a bad crowed, to put it nicely. She would miss practices, drink excessively before and after shows, and eventually the company she was with, Pennsylvania Ballet, were forced to ‘let her go’ which was their polite way of firing her. However by this point bad habits were too greatly entrenched in Clara’s behaviours. Her drinking was out of control, she was restrictive with what she allowed herself to eat, and exercise had become a compulsion. A way to retain control over herself and her own body, only it was becoming so extreme it was detrimental. Her self esteem had all but disintegrated just leaving a facade she’d created of a girl who was poised and perfect, happy even. Even if that was about as far from the truth as you could get. Moving to Catalina Island was meant to be a fresh start, she was going to pull herself together properly and finally be a grown up, but instead she’s a bartender at Le Rouge who drinks more alcohol than she serves. Bubbly, vivacious, flirty, sarcastic, and outgoing when you meet her you’d have no idea just how broken Clara really feels on the inside. She believes she’s amounted to nothing in both her family’s eyes as well as her own, and has no idea how to get back on track. Engaging in self destructive behaviours in an attempt to find some semblance of control over herself and her life, she just seems to keep falling further. Despite her dodgy history with it, ballet is something that truly brings Clara joy, and she sometimes still dabbles in it just to connect herself to the girl she used to be.
PERSONALITY
POSITIVE: Compelling, quick witted, vivacious
NEGATIVE: Blunt, destructive, insecure
