HBO’s famous mnemonic – that static fuzz sound mixing with a choral “ahhhhh” – has barely finished playing when one of the most pivotal scenes in Stain takes place.
It’s the start of Episode 3, which picks up after a huge cliffhanger in the previous episode, a moment revealing the extent of the desperate measures Robbie Prendergrast is willing to take. Robbie and his niece, Maeve, are sitting in the front seat of a car outside his house. It is dark after the rain showers have passed. The two family members, whose complex relationship is key to the series, express their anxieties and anger in waves. In doing so, they open up whole new dimensions of the series to viewers.
Robbie “finally opens the door to the audience that it’s not just about these crimes,” creator and executive producer Brad Inglesby told Deadline in a Backstory interview. (Watch it above.) “It’s about a life unlived. I thought it was time to give the audience a window into their desire.”
Tom Pelphrey, who plays Robbie, calls it “the most important scene in the entire series,” one that demonstrates what motivates everything he does. »
Filmed in a series of takes in a single night, the two-hander is a showcase for Pelphrey and Emilia Jones, who plays Maeve, as well as the creative team whose work heightened the scene’s dramatic impact.
“This one has been cooking deep inside me for a long time before we started filming,” Pelphrey said, drawing laughs from Inglesby, Jones and the episode’s director, Salli Richardson-Whitfield. “They’re laughing because of my behavior on set that day. I was… a little withdrawn.”
Jones said the scene was “a real turning point” for Maeve. “I think she thought she was the only one who was unhappy and she judged Robbie’s decisions and actions in a very black and white way. This scene is the first time she sees that gray area. She finally sees him as someone who is close to herself.”
Staging it in the car, which Inglesby’s script does so that the children inside the house don’t overhear sensitive conversations, only raised the stakes. “Being in such a confined space really forces intimacy,” Jones said. “Seeing Tom’s performance and the emotional intensity, we’re so face to face in the car, it’s like a metaphorical mirror. … You could hear a pin drop on the set. It was a very raw scene and it was very raw filming it.”
Richardson-Whitfield said she consciously tried not to “overcomplicate” the scene, which she admitted directors sometimes do. “My job is to tell a simple story,” she added. “Sometimes it’s harder than you think. You want to get all these great shots, but it’s really about these two people and that’s what makes it so special.”
Editor Amy E. Duddleston said the simplicity became more pronounced as the scene went through post-production. Originally, it started with a long tracking shot approaching the car as Robbie and Maeve begin to talk. “The tracking shot got shorter and shorter as the process went on,” she said with a smile. “Brad always wants to see people’s faces and get to the heart of the emotion.”
Cinematographer Elie Smolkin said lighting also proved key to setting the mood. “We built these spotlights so there was this idea that there was this light shining right inside the car,” he said. “You get that rain pattern and you get their faces,” he said. “But it falls into obscurity.”
Similarly, composer Dan Deacon, who wrote catchy tunes for the series’ many action scenes, worked to keep the car scene small. Referring to Inglesby’s go-to line, he said: “We don’t want to put a hat on a hat. … It was there. The scene was there. The music for it just had to be a spice.”
Pelphrey marveled at the chops displayed by Jones, who was only 22 at the time of production. “She didn’t back down an inch,” he said. “She welcomed me but she still honored the place she was in…I was timing it while we were working, like, ‘Man!’”
Jones responded to the compliment, saying that Pelphrey’s talent not only made him a reliable acting partner throughout filming, but also, importantly for the audience: “Tom made Robbie even more likeable. … Everyone who saw Stain just fell in love with her Robbie.
