By Laura Carreno-Müller

Copyright mirror

Secrets, suspicion and simmering class tensions drive Amazon Prime’s new six-part thriller The Girlfriend – but Olivia Cooke struggled to film some scenes. Robin Wright takes centre stage both behind and in front of the camera, serving as executive producer and unexpectedly stepping into the role of Laura, a well-heeled mother forced to grapple with her son’s dangerously intoxicating new partner. But Robin insists she never planned to star in the series. “Everybody was going to be British and we couldn’t get anybody,” she says. Producer Jonathan Cavendish eventually convinced her. “He goes, ‘why don’t you just play her?’”, Robin says, “‘Because you understand her.’” The House of Cards star obliged, going head to head with Olivia Cooke’s Cherry. Fresh from House of the Dragon , Bates Motel and Slow Horses , Olivia was Robin’s first choice. And for Olivia, the combination of script and Robin’s involvement was irresistible. The premise is deceptively simple. Laura has everything: a thriving art gallery, a doting husband and a devoted son, Daniel ( Laurie Davidson ). Then Cherry appears. Bold, magnetic and slightly dangerous, she unsettles Laura’s seemingly perfect world . “Cherry is like fire and Laura, for the longest time, has tried to fan those flames inside herself,” Olivia says. “But when you’re up against someone as combustible as Cherry, Laura can’t help but become that herself.” Cherry has her own secrets, including her modest beginnings. Her mother is a butcher but she refuses to lay the past bare. “She may be duplicitous at times but she also has a huge wealth of humanity,” Olivia says. “I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her but I’d really want to be friends with her.” That butcher background even crept into filming. Olivia endured real-life butchery scenes that left her rattled. “There was a really wonderful butcher on hand who worked in the butcher’s that we filmed in,” she says. “I did not like doing that scene at all. The smell had permeated my nostrils for a couple of days. You become quite dizzy. I came out of it being like, ‘I’m going to faint.’” Laura tries her best to include Cherry in the family but her suspicions eventually spiral into obsession. “They really make a go of it. They try hard to accept one another but nobody’s going to be good enough for Mummy’s little boy. Laura thinks there’s something not quite right about this girl,” Robin says. “Her suspicion increases as you go along and she tries to validate it. Her son is in his own bubble and says this is the woman of his dreams. He’s stuck in the middle of these two women, they’re his favourite women.” She warns: “It just becomes this cat on cat game. Who’s going to convince Daniel they’re right?” For Olivia, Cherry also touched a personal chord. “I can see it from her perspective, coming from a working class background myself,” she says. “It shouldn’t feel like a dirty word.” Robin herself is a mother to daughter Dylan and son Hopper, whom she shares with Sean Penn . She drew on maternal instinct to shape Laura. “It’s a mother’s instinct,” Robin says. “When there’s a white lie, it’s like ‘why would that person say that?’ And then you decide who that person is. These women explode on each other.” Fortunately, the bad energy stayed firmly on-screen. “We had so much fun, we laughed so hard,” Robin says. She even remembers Olivia’s ability to compose herself instantly after a tough scene as a highlight. “I remember Olivia when she was enraged and then they says, ‘Cut,’” Robin recalls, “Olivia starts cracking up and talking about herself like, ‘Who was that? Who did that?’” But The Girlfriend isn’t just about a mother’s suspicion or a girlfriend’s secret past. For Robin, it’s all about perception. “It’s specific to women,” Robin says. “That’s pretty much the global part of the dynamic between Laura and Cherry.” She adds: “I really wanted to show the audience that ‘maybe you saw it that way, but it didn’t actually happen that way.’” Olivia sees something even deeper. “It explores the really pervasive and nuanced class warfare in this country,” she says, “It’s acceptable for someone born with money to abuse their power. There’s still such a power imbalance. Someone who’s born in a lower class and strives for a better life where they have money – it’s still looked down upon.” The tension, she believes, will resonate with audiences, no matter their background. “We can see ourselves in these two characters,” Olivia says. “We can see the things we do when we project our own emotions onto a situation or someone. Hopefully, this will make you look inside yourself and extend some patience and empathy towards people.” Robin, on the other hand, notices how similar Laura and Cherry really are. “In a perfect world, Cherry and Laura would have been friends because they’re so much alike,” she says, “You loathe the things in other people that you are.” The Girlfriend airs on Prime Video on September 10th. Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .