Imagine meeting the love of your life. He’s kind, attractive, successful and sufficiently untraumatised. Everything is perfect. Then you get introduced to his mother, and she hates you. Actually, you hate her, too. Cue a thrilling yet utterly unhinged struggle for power that is as compelling as it is Oedipal.
This is the war waged by Olivia Cooke’s character, Cherry, in The Girlfriend, the Amazon Prime psychological drama based on Michelle Frances’s 2017 novel of the same name. Her antagonist is Laura (played by Robin Wright, who also directed the series), a wealthy art gallery owner who will do anything to protect her son, Daniel (Laurie Davidson), from the lower-class Cherry’s apparently wily and vulpine ways.
The opening scene sums it up best: “Laura, put the knife down!” shouts Cherry from inside an opulent London townhouse amid the sounds of clattering metal and smashing glass. “I need to protect him from you, you’re sick!” retorts a virulent Laura, whom Wright portrays with dazzling precision. As Cherry, Cooke brings a seductive malevolence that feels unnerving while somehow also eliciting empathy. In other words, we root for her.
As The Girlfriend continues to dominate cultural conversation—it’s currently the most popular series on Amazon Prime—we caught up with Cooke, who was fresh from wrapping the third season of House of the Dragon and en route to Cornwall for a relaxing break with her boyfriend before flying off to Budapest to start production on Chloe Okuno’s vampiric thriller, Brides. With a busy few months ahead, Cooke opened up about working with Wright, female rage, mummy’s boys, Cherry’s siren wardrobe and her tips on how to impress the mother-in-law.
What initially drew you to The Girlfriend?
It was Robin Wright. We had a meeting on Zoom that lasted 20 minutes where she basically told me her vision for the show and that she’d wanted me from the start. Obviously, I was so flattered. I’m such a huge fan of Robin’s. So it was a bit of a no-brainer for me.
And what was it like working with Robin on set? Because she obviously wasn’t just your co-star, she was also your director.
It was great. I’ve never worked like that, but the chain of command was much shorter, so you felt like the direction you were getting was really streamlined and couldn’t be misconstrued. It became a bit symbiotic. Between action and cut, we’re trying to make it as real and honest as possible. But either side of that, it’s just, you know, smiles, giggles and gossip.
Cherry is such a fascinating character. We never really know what she’s thinking or feeling, or what she’s capable of. What did you love the most about her?
What I admired about her was her, like, unashamed ambition. And her confidence to navigate these spaces that are very well-connected and completely different from the class system that she is from. I also just loved playing her anger and how quick-tempered she was. That was so much fun. As women, anger is sometimes an emotion that is really hard to access, and so to get to live vicariously through her and scream and shout and be as unhinged as possible was fantastic.
Why do you think that is?
It’s generationally learned behaviour, isn’t it? You know, if we’d enacted our rage 150 years ago, we would have been sent to the asylum. So I think it’s things that we’re slowly trying to unsow, but especially in British culture, where women who have strong emotions of any kind are deemed uncouth in a lot of circles.
There’s a lot of darkness in Cherry that we see unravelling as the series progresses. What do you think drives that?
It’s rejection and scarcity. She has this scarcity mindset because she’s got nothing to fall back on. All she has is her charm, wit and intelligence. She doesn’t have a trust fund, so she’s operating from this huge engine that is propelled by fear.
Obviously, Cherry’s background couldn’t be more different from Daniel’s; her mother is a butcher, and her father is a builder. What do you think The Girlfriend tells us about class?
That it’s still a really hard ladder to climb and infiltrate—and it always feels like an infiltration rather than an invitation. It’s like you have to beg, borrow and steal and mask in order to get into the upper echelons of society, even though wanting better for yourself isn’t a crime. And it seems in this that ambition is a bit of a dirty word when it’s not. I don’t think Cherry is harming anyone with a few white lies here and there initially. You know, it’s nothing that billionaires harming the ecosystem and planet every day don’t do.
One of the most unique parts of The Girlfriend is how it plays with memory. We see everything from Cherry and Laura’s perspectives, and often their recollections differ. Why do you think that was important?
Because memories are always unreliable. My partner has a forensic memory, and I don’t remember what I did yesterday. So he will repeat back to me things that I’ve said, literally, two years ago. And I’m stumped because I’m like, you’re either gaslighting me or you’re being incredibly truthful, but I don’t remember a thing [she pauses to laugh]. My partner’s next to me, driving us to Cornwall, and he’s like, “Excuse me, I heard that.”
Now that I know you’re next to your partner, I feel funny asking you this, but why do you think the mother-in-law relationship can be so complex?
Thankfully, I love my partner’s mum [laughs]. But I wonder if it’s because the son stays frozen in time for the mother, and the girlfriend or partner knows the person in their fully adult state, and so it becomes this sort of tug of war for identity, in a way, and who knows them best. I’m not a parent but I can imagine that’s really difficult for someone who is maybe a bit unadjusted.
Any tips on how to impress a mother-in-law?
Oh, God. Just a nice bottle of wine. Maybe a slightly embarrassing, but not too negative story about the person that you’re dating, and just be very curious. Ask them loads of questions and make them feel special.
Have you ever dated a mummy’s boy?
I have. It was quite fleeting, but yeah, it was an eye-opening experience and also just put me off him. I was like, “I don’t actually think I’ve got the capacity to date the mother and the son.”
Can we talk about Cherry’s wardrobe? I loved how she uses fashion as a weapon to assert her power over Laura. I mean, that holiday wardrobe…
What was really fun about Cherry is that she’s a very sensual person, and her sexuality is never a point of shame for her at all. She uses her attractiveness as one of the tools in her arsenal. She’s a bit of a siren, so it was sort of like a game in itself, which I love. Also, I’m from Manchester, so I grew up going to nightclubs wearing next to nothing with no coat and stilettos. It’s really glam: the lashes, make-up, fake tan, nails. I think growing up in more of those working-class towns, it’s sort of aspirational in a way, to make yourself look really expensive.
You’ve spoken about struggling with body image before. How did you feel on the set of The Girlfriend, where there were quite a few intimate scenes?
I felt fantastic. I was channeling Cherry, but I felt really empowered. As a woman, it’s this constant influx of being sold body trends online, which is just a fallacy. Your body is not a trend, it’s just your anatomy. But that feels hard now because of the clothes that are suddenly in fashion; it’s all sheer, naked dressing, and hot pants. And they’re modelled on the catwalk by people who are usually really young, so as a woman in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, that’s just like an impossible standard to try and adhere to.
It’s also really depressing because our bodies are meant to fluctuate. They fluctuate every month, for God’s sake. Like, I go up a dress size every single month without fail, just with my menstrual cycle. [She pauses to laugh.] I’m talking about my menstrual cycle in Vogue!
You’ve had such a busy year—how do you wind down?
I try and take as many breaks as I can. And I think a lot of that involves just getting out of London. I didn’t realise how much being in London affects my nervous system, even though I love it and I feel so lucky to live there. But to literally go out, see some greenery, see the seaside, touch grass and really simplify your life a little bit, it helps. I don’t really do anything crazy: mostly cooking and seeing friends. It’s just sort of about getting back down to the basics, really.
This story was originally published on British Vogue.
