On Tuesday, September 16, Prime Video and Cosmopolitan turned up the drama (and the “dirty cherry” cocktails) at Maxwell Social in New York City for a very chic Cocktails and Conversation evening with none other than Robin Wright. The legendary actor, director, and executive producer joined Cosmo to dish on her buzzy new Prime Video series The Girlfriend—which, by the way, was sitting pretty at #1 in both the U.S. and U.K. when we clinked glasses.
If you haven’t streamed yet (run, don’t walk), The Girlfriend is a psychological thriller about a mother and her son’s alarming new girlfriend in which sparks fly—and daggers are drawn—between two strong-willed women. Robin both directs a few episodes and stars as Laura alongside Olivia Cooke (Cherry) and Laurie Davidson (Daniel).
The vibe of the cocktail night? Pure glam: Laura and Cherry-themed drinks flowing, a floral/library ambiance, light bites circulating, and an audience hanging on Robin’s every word about love, obsession, and those deliciously tense standoffs that make The Girlfriend so addictive. Club Cosmo members scored IRL invites to hear the talk and mingle with Robin afterwards, but since all six episodes of the series are now streaming on Prime Video, you can still binge the twists, turns, and power plays right alongside us.
Consider this your front-row seat to Robin’s behind-the-scenes insights, minus the heels and velvet rope. Grab a martini (or two), press play on The Girlfriend, and dive into Cosmo‘s unfiltered chat with Robin Wright below.
There’s a truly unusual spark between Laura and Cherry. How would you describe the dynamic they fall into almost immediately?
I think in another world, they would have been best friends. But when you get two alpha females in a room that want the same thing, and they’re both determined to get it, that doesn’t generally work out well. That is where the tension begins.
They’re both scrutinizing each other for different reasons, because Cherry just wants a better life, and she happened to fall in love with a beautiful boy who has a rich family. She’s from the other side of the tracks. And Laura is a mother. I think we all do that, it’s intrinsic, where nobody is really perfect enough for your child no matter what age. That’s the foundation we were stemming from, to keep that will. Neither woman will let go. Neither woman will take no for an answer.
They are indeed alpha females. Laura as a character is so layered, too, and because of the shifting perspectives between her and Cherry, sometimes she comes off unsettling and sometimes she comes off sympathetic. What drew you to playing her?
I mean, I can’t imagine surviving my child [like Laura does]. I don’t think any mother could. So the fact that she lost her firstborn, the second becomes such precious cargo. That’s why there’s this Oedipus thing that weaves in and out of the dynamic between son and mom, because she’s never going to be able to not protect him and be possessive of him. It’s almost like he will remain an 11-year-old boy for her. And that’s what irks Cherry, because she’s trying to extract him from the claws of mom, who is too overprotective.
When you read it in a book, you’ve got two to three pages that describe who the character is and why the character reacted that way. But you have to truncate that in an adaptation when you’re putting it into cinema, and we have to produce that right in the performance. The most important thing I found was mapping it out with my DP, with my cinematographer. Asking, how are we going to change the look in the alternate perspective? Maybe we did wide shots for Laura, but for Cherry, we get tighter. We move into her or pull away from her. We wanted the camera to always feel like it was this ominous being in the room that was a fly on the wall, watching these two women. My DP was so amazing. I wanted it to feel more like a film instead of network television.
It comes through in the shots, and I will also say it comes through in the music choices. Suspense will build sonically for Laura, but then you see the same scene from Cherry’s point of view and there’s no suspenseful music at all. It especially came through in scenes where Laura made controversial choices. How did you find empathy for her even when she wasn’t making the most moral decisions?
You’re always told as an actor when you’re starting out that it doesn’t matter how vile the character is that you’re playing, you have to love that character and absolutely believe in her conviction no matter what. So if you do that, and you immerse yourself in that belief system, it works. The things that are done are not really criminal from either woman’s perspective. They’re just very female.
You have to remove the judgment, because if you’re looking through the lens of that person’s world, then Laura absolutely believes there is something fishy going on with Cherry. And in the end, she’s right.
I have a gray cat so let me tell you, during the Moses, the gray cat scenes, I was locked in. I had strong feelings. But across from you in this dynamic as Laura was Olivia Cooke as Cherry, giving it right back to you just as aggressively. Tell me about working with Olivia on the standoff scenes.
Well, first of all, Olivia is a hoot. She’s from up north, she talks like that. She puts on the English accents beautifully, instantly. We had so much fun. I would call them my kids, I’d be like, ‘Where are my kids on set?’ We all became a family. We really got along, which sometimes is rare, and we talked about human relatedness, like why is this relationship this and why does this person infect that dynamic? So we basically did therapy sessions together in a round table as rehearsal.
When we would do these standoff scenes together, we would giggle before the camera was rolling. Then we’d do the scenes where we’re tearing each other’s throat out, and then I’d call cut, and then we’d just start laughing and hugging each other, going, ‘Did we hurt each other? Are you okay? Everything cool?’ We had so much fun. To have that camaraderie on set was such a gift.
What we see on screen is so intense and visceral, so it’s nice to hear about that behind-the-scenes dynamic How would you, both as a fellow actor and also as her director, describe Olivia’s performance as Cherry?
She was my first choice for that reason, because she’s got a confidence and she’s also very comfortable being normal. She doesn’t have any of that attitude or diva behavior. She’s such a real person and beautifully played this duplicitous thing with Cherry where she is lovable and sexy and sensual and sweet, heartfelt, thoughtful, but then you cross her and game over.
The fangs come out. Psychological thrillers like that rely on timing, knowing when to hold tension and when to release it in specific scenes. Can you walk us through your directing approach to pacing, specifically in series like this?
Really and truly, it happens in the editing room. Because I was also in the scenes a lot of the time with the other actors, if I was watching them in the scene and I’m playing Laura, I would alter my performance to get the response that I wanted.
They were all so professional and so experienced and young. You know, [Olivia and Laurie Davidson] are both 30 years old, and they were like sponges. They would do a take or two and if I wanted something different to have in the editing room, I would throw a note out or a little piece of a novella, like, ‘Imagine yourself, Olivia, walking in and you’re seven years old,’ and she would just soak it up and deliver. As a director, you see that and you start crying. You’re like, ‘Oh my god, that’s so beautiful just to see the evolution happen in front of you.’
Directors shape performances in such subtle ways. How did both directing and being in scenes with Olivia shape both of your performances on screen?
When you have very little time and you don’t get a third or a fourth take, that’s when we would communicate as actors and say, ‘Okay, listen, we only have this much time. So let’s do this on take one, and on take two, we’ll go to the other end of the spectrum and then I can slice it together in the editing room.’
Lot of times, I used stuff shot from Laura’s perspective in Cherry’s perspective. It was almost like being in an algebra class when we were in prep, because you had to do graphs, like ‘This is the way we’re going to shoot Cherry’s and for Laura, we’ll go to the other side of the room using a different lens.’ We were trying to be subtle with it, but more than that, it was the silences that were great to have in both perspectives, when they were both quiet and just watching and examining.
What surprised you the most about this project as a director and what surprised you the most as an actor? And were these different things—or were you surprised at all?
I was surprised by how tired I was. [laughs] This was an opportunity to come into a project at the inception and develop it from the ground up, adapt it from the novel, and get to create. We’re all builders of this architectural piece, and to get to do that from the ground up was amazing because you’re building the tone and the style, helping with the writing, getting the actors in with the writers, and saying, ‘We just rehearsed this, put it on its feet.’ Olivia came up with great ideas, Laurie had great ideas, and then you can implement them. We had options we could use in either perspective.
You know, you bring up Laurie Davidson. We have not spent enough time talking about Laurie Davidson. Tell me about that experience and joy, assuming joy based on your response.
Do I sense a crush?
I do work for Cosmo, we’re all about crushes.
Have you interviewed him?
Not yet, but we’ll have to see about a future Q&A. Suddenly, Laurie is Cosmo’s new centerfold!
He’s such a doll. He’s so great, and he’s so funny. He reminded me so much of my son when I auditioned with him, and I knew right away that we would have the rapport I have with my son. It was literally like he was my second boy.
Well then we’ll have to get him the pages of Cosmo soon enough!
Robin: Hair by Luca Blandi. Dress by Akris. Necklace by Foundrae.
All six episodes of ‘The Girlfriend’ on Prime Video are available to stream now.
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