Robin Wright remembers 'sweating' when she was 'The Girlfriend': 'Parents are daunting' Erin Jensen, USA TODAYSeptember 10, 2025 at 11:15 PM 0 Robin Wright knows all too well the unpredictable jazz of nerves that accompanies meeting a significant other's parents for the first time: a fluttering of b...
- - Robin Wright remembers 'sweating' when she was 'The Girlfriend': 'Parents are daunting'
Erin Jensen, USA TODAYSeptember 10, 2025 at 11:15 PM
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Robin Wright knows all too well the unpredictable jazz of nerves that accompanies meeting a significant other's parents for the first time: a fluttering of butterflies serves as lightly tapped cymbals, a quickened pulse the bass.
"We've all been in those shoes," says Wright, 59. "The Princess Bride" star has thrice walked down the aisle herself. (Her longest union was to two-time Oscar winner Sean Penn, from 1996 to 2010; she's currently dating architect Henry Smith.)
"You're nervous and you're sweating, and your hands are clammy and (you're thinking), 'Are they going to shake my hand? Are they going to hug me?' There's always going to be that, and parents are daunting."
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The relationship between Laura (Robin Wright) and her son Daniel (Laurie Davidson) is at times uncomfortably close.
Wright stars in "The Girlfriend," a six-part thriller romp (available now on Amazon's Prime Video) adapted from Michelle Frances' 2017 novel. The actress, who also directs three episodes, portrays Laura, a chic-as-she-is-loaded art gallery owner. Tragically, Laura and her husband, hotel magnate Howard (Waleed Zuaiter), lost their daughter. The unimaginable blow only tightens Laura's grasp on her son Daniel (Laurie Davidson).
"Daniel is the love of Laura's life, more so than her husband," Wright says. "And she sort of designed, in her control of this family, I'm going to place him here as this character that serves me, as the grieving mother. And I'm going to do everything with him and make sure that he's with me all the time so I don't lose yet another child."
Their incredibly close relationship is rocked when Daniel meets the human version of an earthquake, Cherry (Olivia Cooke), an intoxicating and status-hungry real estate agent.
"She's an incredibly ambitious, enterprising young woman who may bend the truth sometimes to get where she wants," says Cooke, 31. "She's just trying to survive and get ahead using as much chutzpah as possible."
One big, happy family? Howard (Waleed Zuaiter), far left, with Cherry (Olivia Cooke), Laura (Robin Wright) and Daniel (Laurie Davidson).
Her tactics raise a cherry-red flag for Laura, who wants nothing more than to sever the tie between her son and Cherry.
"The entrance of this girlfriend starts to become a thorn in Laura's side because something's not right about her," Wright says. Mothers "do have a Spidey sense. Where other people will be like, 'Eh, it's not a big deal,' a mother's like, 'No, it goes deeper than that.' "
"Cherry is omitting certain parts of her life," says Cooke, and there's a defense mechanism that comes into play "because she can see Laura's X-ray vision when it comes to sussing Cherry out."
Alternating between Laura and Cherry's stark perspectives adds to the fun of the series that begs to be binged.
"The whole point of that format is to show, 'Did it really happen that way? Did she really say it in that tone to you?'" Wright says. "And that's life with all of us. We experience that all the time."
Even with such varying points of view, Cooke and Davidson, 33, see similarities between Laura and Cherry.
Cooke believes the overlap is "probably what attracts (Daniel) to Cherry."
"Daniel just wants a younger version of his mom," Davidson agrees alongside his onscreen love, chuckling at the oedipal nature of it all. "Under different circumstances, these two women could have had a good relationship, if things had just gone differently. But they're such, like, planets that they almost can't occupy the same space."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Girlfriend' star Robin Wright found meeting parents 'daunting'
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