By Laura Carreno-Müller

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Prime Video’s latest six-part thriller, The Girlfriend, is a cauldron of secrets, suspicion, and bubbling class tensions, but Olivia Cooke admits she found some scenes a challenge to shoot.

Robin Wright shines as the driving force on both sides of the camera, taking on the dual role of executive producer and unexpectedly stepping into the shoes of Laura, an affluent mother wrestling with her son’s dangerously alluring new girlfriend.

Yet Robin reveals that starring in the series was never in her plans. “Everybody was going to be British and we couldn’t get anybody,” she shares. It was producer Jonathan Cavendish who nudged her towards the role.

“He goes, ‘why don’t you just play her?'” Robin recalls, “‘Because you understand her.'” The House of Cards actress accepted, facing off against Olivia Cooke’s character, Cherry.

Olivia, fresh from her roles in House of the Dragon, Bates Motel, and Slow Horses, was Robin’s top pick for the part. For Olivia, the allure of the script coupled with Robin’s participation was too tempting to pass up.

The story at its core seems straightforward. Laura has it all: a successful art gallery, a loving husband, and a loyal son named Daniel (Laurie Davidson). Enter Cherry.

She’s bold, charismatic, and a tad perilous, disrupting Laura’s picture-perfect existence. “Cherry is like fire and Laura, for the longest time, has tried to fan those flames inside herself,” Olivia explains.

“But when you’re up against someone as combustible as Cherry, Laura can’t help but become that herself.” Cherry’s got her own skeletons in the closet, including her humble origins. She’s the daughter of a butcher, but she’s not one to spill her history.

“She may be duplicitous at times but she also has a huge wealth of humanity,” Olivia reveals. “I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her but I’d really want to be friends with her.”

Her background even influenced the shoot, with Olivia facing actual butchery scenes that shook her. “There was a really wonderful butcher on hand who worked in the butcher’s that we filmed in,” she recounts.

“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 does her utmost to welcome Cherry into the fold, yet her doubts soon turn to fixation. “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.

“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 caught between these two women, both of whom he adores.”

She cautions: “It just becomes this cat on cat game. Who’s going to convince Daniel they’re right?” For Olivia, Cherry also struck a personal note. “I can see it from her perspective, coming from a working class background myself,” she reflects. “It shouldn’t feel like a dirty word.”

Robin, who is a mum to daughter Dylan and son Hopper with Sean Penn, tapped into her maternal instincts for the role of Laura. “It’s a mother’s instinct,” Robin explains.

“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.”

Thankfully, any tension was left behind the camera. “We had so much fun, we laughed so hard,” Robin shares. She fondly recalls Olivia’s ability to snap back to normal after intense scenes as a standout moment.

“I remember Olivia when she was enraged and then they says, ‘Cut,'” Robin reminisces, “Olivia starts cracking up and talking about herself like, ‘Who was that? Who did that?'”.

Yet The Girlfriend isn’t solely focused on maternal doubts or hidden histories. For Robin, it’s fundamentally about perception. “It’s specific to women,” she notes.

“That’s pretty much the global part of the dynamic between Laura and Cherry.” She continues: “I really wanted to show the audience that ‘maybe you saw it that way, but it didn’t actually happen that way.'”.

Olivia delves even deeper. “It explores the really pervasive and nuanced class warfare in this country,” she observes, “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.

“Olivia believes the tension will strike a chord with viewers, regardless of their own experiences. “We can see ourselves in these two characters,” she 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, however, observes the striking similarities between Laura and Cherry. “In a perfect world, Cherry and Laura would have been friends because they’re so much alike,” she notes, “You loathe the things in other people that you are. “.