Robin Wright had a clear vision for what she wanted “The Girlfriend” to look and feel like.
The Prime Video adaptation of Michelle Frances’s psychological thriller carefully weaved between the perspectives of an insecure new girlfriend and the protective mother of a mama’s boy. Wright knew that to captivate each perspective and keep the audience glued, it would take a team of visionaries to make it happen.
“It was the first opportunity I had ever had to build something from the ground up,” Wright said of the project in a new installment of How I Did It, presented by Prime Video. “You get to put your stamp, your vision, and hire your crew that are the same visionaries as you.”
The Emmy-nominated actress directed, produced and starred in “The Girlfriend,” juggling her duties on and off screen. Having a voice and a vision were her keys to success with the Prime Video series.
Though she had directed episodes of “House of Cards,” “Ozark” and “Tell Me Lies,” the Prime Video series was the first time Wright was able to own the entirety of the process and curate the look of her show from the jump.
Wright remembered meeting her director of photography Mattias Nyberg for the first time. The two each came prepared with mood boards illustrating each other’s vision for the thriller series. They decided to flip their computer screens around at the same time, and both showed the exact same still from “The Graduate.”
“It was Dustin Hoffman at the window in ‘The Graduate,’ and I said, ‘That’s exactly what I want this to feel like,’ ” she told TheWrap. “With that shot of Dustin, you’re so with him in the pain that I just want us to be the camera, omnipresent in the room, getting inside Cherry’s head and getting inside Laura’s head.”
The show bounces back between the perspectives of Cherry, the girlfriend, and Laura, the boyfriend’s mother. Each of them have slightly different takes on the events they experienced. For Wright, it was important to capture as many different reactions as possible while shooting to build in the slightly altered perspectives for each character.
Wright also worked with the writers to slightly alter the dialogue for each perspective. What Cherry may have heard as passive aggression from Laura comes off as nonchalance from the mother’s POV and vice versa.
“It was a lot wearing three hats,” Wright admitted of juggling directing, acting and producing on the project. “I’ll do three takes in a row, and then I’ll go back to video village, and I’ll watch playback and make sure I got what I need … so you’re basically cutting into your shot list.”
As far as the acting portion, Wright said that was more simple to balance after her decades of experience — like a light switch turning on and off. The logistics of producing and directing were where she had to bake in more time. Instead of taking the morning to learn lines in her trailer, Wright would be on set working out which cameras and lights she would use for the day of shooting.
Wright commended her co-stars Olivia Cooke and Laurie Davidson for their seamless adjustments, allowing her to shoot quickly and take time to go back and forth from the scene to video village. She said they soaked notes up like a sponge, giving her two vastly different takes, which allowed her to play in the editing room.
“The Girlfriend” resonated with audiences, topping 25 million viewers just about a month after its release. The series prompted cultural conversation about whose side audiences took — the mother or the girlfriend’s. For Wright, she knew if her stamp was on it, the series needed to deliver.
“When I invest in something, Goddamnit, it better work,” she said. “I’m really happy that I had it, a voice.”
Fans speculated whether or not the limited series would expand for a Season 2 after its ambiguous ending. Wright did not give an update on the series’ return but said that her primary goal was to let the viewers decide what they believe.
“We wanted to give you guys that fun game to play,” she said.
“The Girlfriend” is now streaming on Prime Video.
