Vogue: What initially drew you to The Girlfriend?
Olivia Cooke: 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 behavior, 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 unraveling as the season 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.