It was Robin Wright’s bright idea to open The Girlfriend with a seductive visual: a gorgeous woman of a certain age, enjoying a solo swim, when a young man joins her in the pool for a loving embrace.

“I wanted to let it drag out as long as I could to make the audience wonder, is this her young hot boyfriend?” explains Wright, who both executive produced and headlined the Prime Video limited series. “Because we don’t know anything about [her character] yet. Maybe she’s having an affair with this young hot kid. We added the hug in the pool and that was very perverse, right? It’s just weird and we went for weird.”

The bizarreness didn’t stop there. The six-part thriller follows as Wright’s Laura, a well-to-do London art dealer, lose her grip on reality when her precious son Daniel (Laurie Davidson) brings home new girlfriend Cherry (Olivia Cooke). Laura threatens her relationship with her husband (Waleed Zuaiter) and son – not to mention the future of her already struggling art gallery — as she convinces herself that Cherry has something to hide.

Wright was joined by Davidson in a conversation for the Deadline Studio at Prime Experience. Watch their conversation below and scroll down for photos from the event.

“There’s an overprotectiveness of her son, but for a very valid reason in her mind’s eye,” explains Wright. “You know how you have those sixth-sense feelings as a mother, ‘This one’s not good. This is not going to go down well.’ So that protectiveness, I understand. I’m a mother. I get it. You see the ulterior motives from the woman that your son’s falling in love with and then it just escalates.”

Not surprisingly, Davidson said he took Cherry’s side when first reading the script that’s based on Michelle Frances’ novel of the same name. “I think it was probably because I was already at that stage, getting in the head of Daniel who must fall head over heels in that first episode. At that point, he’s just not seeing Laura. He’s pushing away from his mum slowly and all his focus is on this incredible woman who’s walked into his life…”

Laurie Davidson and Robin Wright

Anthony Avellano for Deadline

Laurie Davidson

Anthony Avellano for Deadline

Robin Wright

Anthony Avellano for Deadline

“Who’s a piranha,” interjects Wright.

“And mom’s a barracuda,” replies Davidson.

The thriller plays out from the perspective of both women. It’s hard to decide who to root for – at least at first. That’s what made the project so alluring for Wright as a director, who helmed three of the episodes.

“The way we perceive a person, the way they look at you. Did they cast a weird glance, and you took it wrong? It’s misperceptions, subjective perceptions,” said Wright. “That is the arc of the show. That was the whole point because we all do it. We walk into a room and we’re smiling or smirking because of a weird stain on the wall and a person looking at you has a horrible look on their face [in response]. You’re like, ‘No, I was actually looking at a stain on the wall.’ That’s a cheap and easy analogy, but that’s what interested me to want to make this show. It’s every human. The misperceptions and the escalation that happens in The Girlfriend is how those misperceptions become truths.”

The Girlfriend is produced by Imaginarium Productions and Amazon MGM Studios and was adapted for television by Naomi Sheldon and Gabbie Asher, with episodes written by Sheldon, Asher, Polly Cavendish, Helen Kingston, Marek Horn, Ava Wong Davies, Isis Davis, Smita Bhide and Matt Evans. All six episodes can be found on Prime Video.

For more Deadline Studio at Prime Experience content, click here.